Our difficulties with emotional regulation are not our fault– but learning emotional regulation is our responsibility.

We’re not born knowing how to regulate our emotions. 

We have to be taught. Trained. Supported.

When it comes to what most of us were taught about how to manage our feelings, many of us are left at kind of a loss. 

We were told versions of “suck it up” a lot. 

We were told, directly and indirectly, that crying was certainly NOT an acceptable way to manage any feeling. 

We were told that “managing” feelings meant, basically, not being reactive to them. That not showing our feelings was tantamount to being “mature.” 

Mind you: we were given precious, precious little guidance or support in actually managing our feelings. 

We were, essentially, told to “figure it out.” 

Some of us were told “figure it out— or else.” 

Or else what? We’d be shamed. We’d be punished. We’d be abandoned, maybe.

“Suck it up” isn’t actually an emotional management strategy. 

What does “suck it up” entail, exactly? No one seems to know. We just know when we’ve failed to “suck it up”— usually because we’re crying. 

It’s not your fault that no one taught you how to regulate your feelings. 

Those humans who did learn to successfully regulate their emotions are usually those humans who had kind, supportive adults around them who took care to talk them through tough moments. 

When we have kind, supportive adults around us who are willing to talk us through tough moments, with presence and realism, that’s what we internalize. We learn to model them. We build a skill. 

When we do not have those kind, patient, emotionally intelligent adults around us to talk us through tough moments, what do we internalize? 

Impatience. Shame. The inclination to belittle ourselves when we struggle with something we’re not familiar with or that we find overwhelming. 

What we need to understand and accept is that struggling to regulate our emotions, when we didn’t have the guidance, support, and safety to learn and practice that skillset, is normal. 

It’s not our “weakness.” 

It’s not our “brokenness.” 

It’s not our “immaturity.” 

How were we supposed to learn how to do something we never saw done? 

How were we we supposed to get good at something we never had the safety to practice? 

Emotional regulation is one of the most complex tasks human beings face— and it’s a particularly complex task when we’re dealing with the particularly intense, particularly painful feelings experienced by trauma survivors. 

I’ll say it again: we’re not born knowing how to do that. 

When we fail to receive training and support in learning how to do that— when our experiences TRYING to do that are met with scorn— not only do we NOT learn how to regulate our emotions…but we DO learn that the entire project of emotional regulation is fraught. 

We develop anxiety around it. 

Eventually we get in the habit of avoiding emotional regulation altogether— that is to say, we get in the habit of dissociating. 

Yeah. That’s how that happens. 

Realistic emotional regulation starts with refusing to beat ourselves up for not being great at it. 

It starts with accepting emotional regulation as something we need to, and can, learn as adults. 

It starts with meeting our struggles with emotional regulation with compassion and patience— because poor emotional regulation is a symptom of complex trauma, and the rule in trauma recovery is that we meet symptoms with compassion and patience. 

Actually, make that “radical compassion” and “infinite patience.” 

Our difficulties with emotional regulation are not our fault. 

Learning effective emotional regulation IS our responsibility— which is why we can’t afford to waste time with shaming and punishing ourselves. 

Easy does it.