Moving Through Tough Emotions: When to Regulate and When to Recognize
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We’ve all been there—when a wave of frustration, sadness, or anxiety hits out of nowhere. The modern dialogue around emotional well-being, especially as it concerns to trauma survivors, is filled with well-intentioned advice about regulating our nervous systems. This is good, right? Of course! Regulation is essential for healing, especially for trauma survivors who often feel like they live on the edge of emotional overwhelm.
I have been guilty of this myself! We don’t like to feel pain or dysregulation so what do we do but try to turn down the volume. But here’s the thing—regulation isn’t the same as repression. And sometimes, the call to "regulate" can sneakily turn into a way of avoiding the tough emotions that we *need* to sit with. It’s that old message: "Feelings aren’t okay unless they’re happy." It can sound like “If you’re not bleeding, you’re fine” or “Stop crying, it’s not a big deal.” The messaging is subtle and ingrained, but powerful enough to make us feel like the only way to be “good” or “normal” is by keeping everything calm on the surface. This can also lead to a lot of internalized shame when we’re not able to “regulate” a tough emotion or out of a difficult state of being. Who else has felt disappointed and irritation grow when trying to breathe through their own dysregulation as their child was having a tantrum?
So how do we know when to regulate and when to recognize?
The Fine Line Between Regulation and Repression
Let’s get this straight: *regulating* your nervous system is a necessary and beautiful tool in trauma healing. Coping skills, deep breathes, grounding techniques—these all help bring the body back to a place of safety and calm. But here's where it can get tricky: we don’t want to use regulation as a way to *avoid* feeling. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that feeling “calm” is #LifeGoals. But healing involves discomfort, too. Sometimes, we need to sit with tough emotions, to commune with them, to hear what they have to say. This is where things like EMDR therapy and breathwork can come into play.
For many trauma survivors, emotions like anger, frustration, or deep sadness feel particularly threatening. Which makes sense! We’ve been told for years—sometimes decades—that these feelings aren’t okay. Maybe we grew up in households where we were shamed for expressing anger. Or perhaps crying in front of others made us feel like we were failing. Often times, we build up safety mechanisms to not "feel the feels” to avoid being shamed, yelled at or even worse our actual safety was threatened. So, it makes sense that when we start to feel these things, we often want to regulate the discomfort *away* immediately, because at one point it was a form of survival. But what if the discomfort itself is a sign that something needs attention?
Honoring the Feeling: Giving Emotions a Seat at the Table
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What if, instead of pushing down that anger or anxiety, we gave it a seat at the table?
Imagine for a moment that your feelings are guests at a dinner party. Your frustration, sadness, and anxiety have all shown up, uninvited. (Rude, right?) But instead of shoving them out the door, what if you let them sit down for a moment? What if you offered them a plate and a drink? What would happen if you asked them what they needed?
This approach allows you to acknowledge the feelings *without letting them take over the party*. You’re not ignoring them, but you’re also not allowing them to break all the dishes. Sometimes, these emotions just want to be heard. They want to be acknowledged because they’re signaling that something’s going on in your environment or within you that needs addressing. Maybe you’re in a tough situation or learning new patterns, and that frustration or sadness is your body’s way of saying, “Hey, I need your attention here.” And then try to normalize the fact that that is what you are experiencing.
So, what does it look like to honor your emotions?
1. Name it. Say it out loud or write it down. “I feel angry because…” or “This sadness is showing up because…” Naming the emotion gives it less power over you and more clarity. I’ve wrote about it in the past but if you’re not big on writing emotions out, body mapping in the book by Caitlin Metz called Feel Something, Make Something, has great examples of communing with your emotions through marking what your emotions feel like in your body on a piece of paper.
2. Check-in with your body. Where is the emotion sitting? Is it in your chest, your throat, your stomach? Bringing awareness to where you feel the emotion physically can help move it through the body, rather than letting it stagnate.
3. Move it through. Movement is a powerful way to help emotions flow through rather than get stuck. Practices like *lion’s breath*, *dancing*, breathwork that allows you to move through the emotion, or even activating sound through humming or yelling (in a safe space) can be incredibly healing. In fact, for some people, anger or anxiety shows up as an excess of energy, and the body wants to release it physically. Giving yourself permission to move that energy through your body can help you process the emotion instead of keeping it trapped inside.
4. Sit with it. This is often the hardest part. Sitting with uncomfortable emotions goes against the instinct to fix or solve. But sometimes the greatest healing happens when we allow ourselves to feel without trying to change it. “I feel angry right now, and that’s okay.” “I’m feeling really sad, but I can give this feeling space.” Again, normalize the fact that you are having this feeling because of X and that’s okay. In therapy, we like to say “All feelings are valid. It doesn’t mean that every action or behavior is okay, but your feelings are valid.”
When You Can’t Sit with It Right Now: The Importance of Regulation
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Here’s the truth: there are going to be times when sitting with your emotions just isn’t possible. Maybe you’re in the middle of a work meeting, or sitting in a parent-teacher conference, or out in public when a wave of sadness or anger hits. In those moments, you can’t always give your emotion a seat at the table right then and there. This is when learning to regulate becomes vital.
Regulation is about calming the storm when you’re in the thick of life and can’t process everything loudly. You may need to put the emotion on hold for a bit. Breathing deeply, grounding yourself, or gently shifting your focus can help calm your body until you’re in a safer place to revisit that feeling.
But there’s a danger here, too—one we see often in trauma survivors. When we repeatedly push emotions away or tell ourselves, “I can’t handle this right now,” it can lead to fear of the emotion itself. Over time, we might begin to believe we’re not capable of feeling these things. This breeds avoidance, which can cause these emotions to grow stronger and more overwhelming when they finally do come up.
Think of it like this: if we’re constantly telling ourselves, “I can’t deal with this anger” or “I’m too scared of this sadness,” then each time it arises, it feels even more powerful. We start to associate these emotions with danger instead of seeing them as natural, albeit uncomfortable, parts of life. And that’s when they start to take on a life of their own, showing up bigger and more intensely than before.
The key is balance—being able to regulate in the moment when necessary but also knowing you’ll return to process those feelings in a safe space later.
Creating Safe Spaces to Process Emotions
So, how do we create spaces where we can safely feel and process the tough stuff? In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to feel like there’s no room for these big, uncomfortable emotions. But the truth is, making space for them is critical to healing and our well-being. Here are a few ways you can work on developing or finding safe spaces to walk through those hard emotions.
1. Therapy. Whether through EMDR or another modality, therapy is a structured, supportive environment where you can unpack trauma and difficult emotions without fear of judgment. This is a space where you can let those feelings come up without needing to fix them right away.
2. Breathwork classes or mindfulness practices. These are great tools for both regulation and emotion processing. A breathwork session can help release stored emotions in a safe and controlled way, allowing you to move through them instead of avoiding them. If you’re in the Phoenix area check out Casey Riley, she leads amazing breathwork classes!
3. Venting to a trusted friend. Sometimes, just sharing what you’re feeling with someone who understands can be incredibly healing. A friend who can listen without trying to “solve” you is gold.
4. Screaming into a pillow, dancing, or making noise. When emotions feel stuck, physical release is key. Scream into a pillow, dance to loud music, or even punch a punching bag—whatever helps move that emotional energy out of your body.
5. Creative outlets. Art, writing, music—these are all wonderful ways to give your emotions a voice. When you don’t have words for what you’re feeling, creativity can step in and help you express things in ways that don’t require language.
By creating these spaces, you’re teaching your nervous system that it’s okay to feel. You’re building a relationship with your emotions, allowing them to exist without being overwhelming. Over time, this process becomes easier, and those emotions start to feel less like threats and more like parts of yourself that simply need acknowledgment.
Learning to Find the Balance
EMDR Therapy Phoenix - Kandace Ledergerber. Picture description: White female with short curly hair smiling at the viewer in a field with greenery, wearing a navy blue tank top with sunflowers
At the heart of it, healing from trauma is about learning to balance. It’s about knowing when to sit with an emotion and when to regulate. It’s about building trust with yourself, knowing that you can feel deeply and still be okay.
We can honor our emotions without being overwhelmed by them. We can give them space at the table without letting them run the show. This balance takes practice, but it’s worth it. You don’t have to be at war with your emotions. You can be in conversation with them, learning what they have to say while also knowing when it’s time to give yourself the peace of regulation.
So next time you feel anger, frustration, or sadness bubbling up, ask yourself: “What does this feeling need?” Give it a seat at the table, and then decide, with compassion and care, if it’s time to regulate or simply to recognize.
If you’re a trauma survivor and looking to make the shift into your own healing journey and are wanting to check out EMDR therapy in the Phoenix area, reach out and schedule a free 15-minute consultation and see if I’m the right therapist for you.
