When our emotions are calm, we make more informed and better decisions. Yet, enhancing emotional stability and well-being can be difficult. By building emotional regulation skills, we learn to control our emotional responses. Anyone can learn to use the emotional check-in process.
Our fast-paced, stress-filled lives require us to prioritize our emotional well-being. We need to make important decisions that are not overshadowed by emotional triggers.
Our emotions impact the quality of our thoughts. If we understand how they affect our thinking, we can control the extent and situations in which we use them. By reframing our perspective, we can use our emotions as a tool. When we learn to control them, they become allies in our journey.
Maintaining Emotional Balance
Daily life presents us with challenges that can be frustrating. We can also encounter things that are scary or frightening. Knowing how to manage your emotional response is a valuable skill that can help you reduce stress levels and think more clearly.
To think rationally and make informed decisions, you need a stable and balanced mindset. This frame of mind helps us keep an open-minded and unbiased perspective. Minimizing emotional interference is the goal. However, achieving this goal can be challenging when addressing sensitive issues. A simple check-in method is the answer.
The emotional check-in process alerts us to emotions that could impact our ability to think clearly. This process is particularly beneficial when addressing issues that involve your core beliefs. Using this method ensures we base our decisions on evidence rather than emotions.
This process is ideal for everyday life. It is a critical tool for research and inner work. Many people use it on any social media platform because these platforms can elicit strong emotions.
Challenging Beliefs
When we encounter ideas that do not align with our paradigm, it creates a conflict. This conflict may trigger our “fight, flight, or freeze” response (3F reaction).
Something threatening your sacred ground will trigger the 3F reaction. When this system is activated, the body releases hormones to power our muscles and shut off pain receptors. However, the chemicals released by this emergency system are harmful to the higher thinking centers of the cortex. Never fear; our brain has a built-in failsafe that blocks blood flow when this emergency system is engaged.
When the (3F) mechanism engages, the primitive mind takes over. It makes us faster and stronger, but we cannot engage the higher thinking centers needed for making the best decisions.
When we cannot resolve the difference between our beliefs and new data, it causes stress. Tension and stress trigger a pain response, which can manifest as physical, mental, or both. It causes headaches, back and muscle pain, severe anxiety, and anger. It causes the psychological condition of cognitive dissonance.
By building emotional regulation skills, we minimize emotional interference in our decision-making. It helps us regain control of our feelings so we can deal with the issue without emotional interference. It’s a quick break but saves time in the long run. Checking our emotions ensures we stay on track and can use common sense to guide our thinking. We recognize that conflicts will arise, so we employ this process to minimize emotional interference.
When we use techniques for maintaining emotional balance, we don’t cease to feel our emotions; we are simply more in control of them. With this mindset, we are better able to handle the stress caused by highly emotional events.
However, this dilemma also creates an opportunity for us to change our beliefs. These internal battles present us with some of the best opportunities for personal growth. They help us find out if we are wrong about something. It’s an opportunity to face any fears we have about our sacred ground, and we know that fears and phobias are the limits and boundaries that imprison us.
Enhancing Emotional Stability and Well-Being
This process consists of five progressive steps to help you achieve a calm state of mind. Only use the steps necessary. It will ensure your emotions do not have a negative influence on your thinking. If the first five steps don’t work, we have more options.
When you reach emotional balance, you can return to your research or inner work. Stopping regularly to evaluate our feelings will help us minimize internal bias. It’s easy, takes only a few moments to implement, makes your research more accurate, and saves you time in the long run. Here are the steps of the model we will cover:
1. Acknowledge and Stop the Active Mind
2. Building Emotional Regulation Skills
3. Write and Contemplate
4. Assess Without Emotional Attachment
5. If You Are Unable to Regain Emotional Balance: Extra Steps (A to E).
A. Talk to Someone
B. Remove the Source
C. Travel
D. Use Self-Care
E. Don’t Give Up
Sometimes, it only takes a few long breaths to regain control, but you must take extra steps to restore control at other times. Every situation is different. Enhancing emotional stability and well-being goes hand in hand. Breathing and ocular techniques are key tools for regaining control of your emotional state.
This process helps us regain our composure. It teaches us how to achieve a calm state of mind. Maintaining emotional balance helps us control the 3F mechanism.
You will find many practical uses for this method. It is integral to many inner work methods. We use it along with tools like the Enneagram Personality, Delving into Memories, and Comparative Analysis.
We do not make the best rational decisions in a highly emotional state of fear or anger. Here’s how we can learn to control this triggering system.
The Five Steps in The Emotional Check-in Process
1. Acknowledge and Stop the Active Mind
The first step is the most important. Once you realize your emotions are being triggered, pause and take two deep breaths. If you can close your eyes, this also helps. Sometimes, this simple step alone returns our emotional stability and well-being.
This simple step will usually stop the active mind long enough for us to find out what is going on with our feelings. Learn to pause every 15 to 20 minutes. Stopping four times an hour seems excessive. However, it does not feel intrusive once you get into the rhythm. A pro tip is to use a kitchen timer.
What is step one? Stop and take two deep breaths. Two breaths are all it usually takes to stop negative emotional momentum. Now, you are ready for step two.
Doing these breaks gives you time to summarize what you’ve just learned. Plus, the space assesses how the new data affects your emotional state.
The emotion check-in process is both preventative and restorative. Building a habit of conducting regular emotional checks is a good preventive measure. This simple process helps keep you calm and reduce stress, allowing you to think clearly. It saves time. You will be grateful for these breaks whenever you engage in research involving your worldview. Sometimes we aren’t aware that we get upset until it is too late. It’s better to stop and assess.
2. Building Emotional Regulation Skills
If you stop to assess your feelings and find yourself anxious, upset, or afraid, it’s time to dig deeper. The process of doing this builds inner strength. Similarly, whenever you feel anxious, angry, or fearful, pause to assess what’s happening.
If you feel physical pain, stop! Don’t ignore the signs of mental or physical discomfort. Pain is how your body tells you something needs your attention. The effects of cognitive dissonance are real.
After you stop and take two deep breaths, ask yourself these questions. It takes only ten seconds.
Ask these questions:
- What am I feeling? Am I anxious, angry, or afraid?
- What is triggering these feelings?
Adverse reactions can occur whenever you encounter something that challenges your beliefs. So, when you become angry or fearful, stop what you are doing. Otherwise, your research will not yield accurate results. Asking these questions about your emotional state is a skill set that will help you better handle difficult situations.
Beware of the Obstacles in the Culture
Everyone is susceptible to the negative programming of religion and politics. That’s why we take steps to control our feelings. When we are anxious, angry, or fearful, our thoughts are affected, and our conclusions are distorted. Building emotional regulation skills is necessary in the modern world.
How long should you wait? Wait until you are reasonably calm. Everyone is different. It depends on your reaction to the stimulus. It can take an hour or more to calm the active mind, especially if you trigger powerful negative emotions of anger or hate. You might need a few days off.
3. Write And Contemplate
What is step three? If you are not upset and feeling normal, you are done. If you have lingering emotions, write about them.
Write about both the facts and your feelings. Use a spiritual journal to record your thoughts, then ask yourself questions about your reaction. It’s helpful to keep a record of your responses to help you spot any trends. Sometimes, the emotional check-in process can uncover repressed issues that are being triggered.
Then, write about the answers you find when asking yourself questions. What you discover about your reaction is as important as the data. What patterns do you see?
Putting your emotions on paper can help clarify the issues and give you a safe outlet to express your feelings. It’s also an excellent way to sort out the facts from your feelings. Writing is a simple process that can help you in maintaining emotional balance. It will calm the active mind.
4. Assess Without Emotional Attachment
And what is step four? Look at the answers you wrote in step 2. If you still have strong emotions tied to what you’ve uncovered, progress to step five.
Go back to your answers to step two. Ask yourself these questions again. Does this data trigger my feelings? If so, why? What does this data mean? Can I review the issues without negative emotions? If so, go back to work.
If you can’t think about it without becoming upset, skip it. It is okay. Some people can handle emotional attachment better than others. If you can’t separate your feelings from the data, skip this and try another technique. Over time, this process will help you develop your self-observational skills.
For some people, this strategy helps lessen the emotional impact of data that challenges their beliefs. Try going back to step two and writing more about your feelings.
5. If You Are Unable to Regain Emotional Balance: Extra Steps
Pain or anxiety that coincides with something threatening your beliefs is a clue. You are likely suffering from cognitive dissonance. The pain is real. You are wrestling with something that conflicts with your beliefs. The emotion regulation process model helps you stop or reduce discomfort. Then, you can take the necessary steps to resolve the conflict.
One of the most common reasons people get stuck is that they cannot remove the source of their negative social programming. Continued exposure will increase the effects of cognitive dissonance.
Second, it is hard to accept that our opinions are based on mythology and superstition. When we accept superstition as part of our worldview, it can also impact our identity. It’s challenging to change something that has become a part of your self-identity. Here’s what you can do.
A. Talk to Someone
A good option is to discuss your dilemma with someone unbiased. Don’t seek support from someone likely to reinforce your current beliefs. A neutral party, such as a professional therapist, is often the best choice. Receiving unbiased feedback is a crucial step in developing emotional regulation skills.
B. Eliminate The Source
Eliminate or reduce the sources that reinforce your current beliefs. It is often the hardest step because the group hypnosis manipulation tactics they use are addictive. The most common sources that support our worldview are often rooted in religion. Minimizing exposure becomes more difficult if religion dominates your life.
Take a break from the source, the research, or social media. Give yourself some time to process the information. One thing that always helps is to stop watching and listening to religious TV and radio programs. It’s a simple way to get immediate relief.
Realize that religious propaganda will always exacerbate emotional issues rather than improve them. Recognizing and eliminating the source of your conflict is an essential aspect of the emotional check-in process. Don’t overlook it. Minimizing your exposure to negative cultural programming is vital.
C. Travel
A trip can get you out of your comfort zone. If you can’t travel, watch TV shows about traveling worldwide. The goal is to remove yourself from the influence of the cultural narrative. It is an opportunity to see how other people value things differently. New surroundings are an antidote to the effects of cultural programming. They will not only reduce exposure but also provide a fresh perspective.
D. Self-Care
Maintaining emotional balance is a key goal of self-care. Engaging in self-care activities focuses the mind on other things and provides us with mental space. We stop ruminating on thoughts and reliving situations. In this way, when we return to the issue or conflict, the mind is rested.
E. Don’t Give Up
Continue to follow steps 2 and 3 of the process above. If you are doing research, you also engage in inner work, exposing your sacred ground.
Final Thoughts
The emotional check-in process supports building emotional regulation skills. It’s the key to maintaining emotional balance and enhancing emotional stability and well-being.
With the world changing rapidly, we can get caught up in our emotions. Learning to pause and regain control of our emotions is essential to our everyday lives. It’s a process you can use anywhere and at any time. The emotional check-in questions can be completed in under a minute.
Using this process will make all your decisions more accurate and informed. It will save you time in the long term and reduce the stress of investigating challenging ideas. These brief breaks are the researcher’s quality check. They help to keep you on track.
Confronting ideas that conflict with deeply held beliefs requires significant inner work. This research often brings up powerful feelings that trigger our “fight, flight, or freeze” reaction. So, we need to control this reaction. This is why emotional checks are a necessity for everyone on the spiritual journey. Please don’t underestimate the value of using the emotion regulation process model.
References
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The Immediate and Lasting Effect of Emotion Regulation in Adolescents: An ERP Study. National Library of Medicine
Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Wikipedia.org - The influence of emotion regulation on social interactive decision‑making. National Library of Medicine
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