Emotions can be tricky to navigate if you’re trying to learn how to respond to life in healthier ways. Your emotions can be overwhelming when you’re triggered, because your mind just wants you to respond. If you struggle with emotional stability, then the unhealthy reactions feel normal because that’s what you’ve regularly experienced.
But you can’t rely on those unhealthy emotional responses. Just because something upsets you doesn’t mean you should respond with similar energy. Usually, that just makes everything worse. So, what do emotionally stable people do instead?
1. They pause before reacting.
A trigger is called a trigger because it sparks a reaction. That is, if a thing happens, then this response happens. The power in controlling your triggers and responding appropriately is in the space between action and reaction.
Do you want to totally change your life? Any time someone or something upsets you, wait for about thirty seconds before responding. Dr. John Amodeo writes that this powerful tool can give you an opportunity to prevent escalation by evaluating your emotions and adjusting your communication before responding. Just wait, let the wave of emotion hit you, wash over you, and then think about the circumstance with that lessened emotional intensity.
Granted, that’s just a general piece of advice. Sometimes, it’s better to take more time if you’re dealing with something serious. Maybe you need a day, or a week; for example, if you’re having a problem in your relationship. Sometimes, you just need time to sort through your feelings to arrive at what’s rational.
2. They acknowledge and accept their feelings.
Validation is a powerful tool because we create struggle when we refuse to acknowledge what we’re experiencing. However, there is nuance. Just because you feel something doesn’t necessarily mean that what you’re feeling is healthy or appropriate to base a response on.
You may be absolutely furious with someone, so angry that you want to punch them in the face! But should you? No, of course not! That’s assault, even if they deserve it. And there are always better ways to deal with someone who triggers you. Still, you can acknowledge that yes, this person acted in such a way that it was tempting to blast them in the face.
It’s okay to be that angry. You don’t have to minimize it or invalidate yourself so long as you’re not acting on it. In fact, this study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that accepting one’s negative feelings actually makes them less problematic and intense with time.
3. They use self-soothing techniques.
As someone who had to go to anger management and therapy to help with emotion regulation, I’m going to tell you that I absolutely believed that the “self-soothing” stuff was a load of BS. Grounding? Deep breathing? Positive self-talk? Laughable.
In reality, I never really gave those things an honest try because I was so certain they weren’t going to work, so why bother doing them? The issue is that they sound so small in context to how large unstable emotions feel. Like, what, deep breathing is going to help me derail this wave of rage?
The truth is that it absolutely can if you let it work for you, if you actually put the effort into trying to make it work. Furthermore, the more often you do it, the easier it is to do. Your brain gets used to reacting to the habit of self-soothing you’ve formed. It works better the more you do it.
4. They seek a different perspective.
An emotional response is rooted in the way we perceive a thing being said. Sometimes that perception doesn’t serve us in an appropriate way. Meaning, the way you interpret it may not be correct, nor the entire story.
Let’s say your good friend says something hurtful to you. You rightfully bristle and feel a burst of anger about being spoken to badly. That’s fair and reasonable. However, what if that statement was out of character? What if that friend almost never says things like that to anyone?
Now, it’s good to pause and wonder. Why did my friend say this to me? It’s not okay that they did, but sometimes people do unkind things for unrelated reasons. They may be angry about something else and snapped at you instead.
Naturally, you could respond to their unkindness with anger, but it’ll just cause a fight that didn’t need to happen.
5. They question their thoughts and feelings.
Not every emotional response is a reasonable one. Sometimes, there are outside factors that we can’t immediately see that affect why we happen to respond in a particular way. To identify it, we need to stop and really think about our thoughts and feelings.
Why am I feeling this way? Is this a reasonable way to feel? Are there other reasons that may be causing me to feel how I do? There’s one common cliché that perfectly illustrates the reason – hunger and “hangry.”
Some people get nastier when they are hungry. They respond badly to benign situations because they are uncomfortable or their blood sugar is off. For those people, it’s valuable for them to take a moment, examine their thoughts, and determine whether or not hunger may currently play a role in their unwelcome feelings.
6. They set healthy boundaries.
Boundaries are essential for maintaining one’s mental well-being. Emotionally stable people set and enforce harsh boundaries when they need to interact with situations that trigger them. By doing that, they avoid being triggered.
Granted, in a perfect world, we’d all be able to appropriately insulate ourselves from triggering circumstances. But we’re not in a perfect world. For example, if you have a boss who’s miserable to work under, there’s only so much you can do about that short of getting another job.
Still, if something upsets you, it’s worth examining whether or not your boundary is strong enough.
7. They communicate calmly.
Anger begets anger. If you fire anger at an angry person, it’s just pouring gasoline on the fire and making things so much worse. Emotionally stable people understand that anger needs to be addressed in a calm way or else it’s bad for everyone involved.
Maintaining your cool when a situation is heated makes it easier for you to keep things generally quiet in your life and mind.
But what if you can’t communicate calmly? Well, in those situations, sometimes you just need to decide to walk away from the situation altogether. Come back to it later when you’ve had time to cool off so you can talk about it productively.
8. They reflect after the event.
Emotionally stable people are often emotionally intelligent. The way you build your emotional intelligence is by understanding who you are, what you feel, and why you feel it.
There are times when you are going to be triggered, even after a lot of work. When that happens, you need to reflect and identify why so you can better avoid it in the future.
Everyone should take time to stop and think about what they feel and why they feel it. Emotionally stable people won’t shame themselves for feeling how they do. Instead, they use that as an opportunity to learn more about themselves so they can avoid that problem in the future.
9. They channel their emotions into healthy outlets.
Lingering emotions need an outlet. Emotionally stable people resolve those lingering emotions by channeling them into healthy activities like exercise, journaling, or art. They may also need to process them with the help of a trusted friend or therapist.
Granted, not everyone needs or wants to process their lingering emotions that way. But if you feel like your emotions get stuck without some form of full catharsis, then you’ll want to look at how you can vent the rest of those upsetting feelings out so you can let them go and move on.
Final thoughts…
Emotional stability is challenging if you’ve always just ridden the wave of your emotional reactions. Embracing the volatility causes you to be more volatile because it creates a reflexive habit. The good news is that you can change that.
These strategies and habits are ways that many people facilitate and encourage their emotional balance and well-being. They can work for most, but it takes regular effort even when it doesn’t seem to be making a big difference. The most important thing is to keep trying. Changes won’t happen overnight, and it will take time for you to retrain yourself to react differently.
