Picture the scene: you’re at work, and your boss has just thrown you and your colleague a huge curveball. Your boss needs an urgent report completed right now.
While you might feel a sense of panic, you know if you put your head down and work hard, you can get the report done.
Your colleague, however, takes a slightly different approach. With a scrunched facial expression, quickened breath, and escalating voice, their language gets sharper.
Your colleague loudly makes it known how unfair your boss is to make this last-minute demand while slamming things around on the desk. A lot of energy is expended in this process. In short, all control of their emotional reaction has been lost.
Have you ever wondered why some of us find it more challenging to maintain a calm temper than others in response to the same scenario?
Perhaps you have young children who go into full-scale meltdown mode because you gave them their juice in the wrong cup or a spouse who gets irrationally short tempered because you bought the wrong apples?
What these scenarios have in common is the amount of self-control or self-regulation that is being exhibited. It’s a fascinating area of personality that psychologists study in order to support clients.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free. These detailed, science-based exercises will not only help you increase the compassion and kindness you show yourself but will also give you the tools to help your clients, students, or employees show more compassion to themselves.
Self-regulation is essentially the amount of control we exert over our behavioral and emotional responses (Baumeister, 1991). Different stimuli can elicit powerful reactions, and how we moderate and manage those reactions is governed by our capacity to self-regulate.
Where we have a low capacity to self-regulate, we often find our emotions getting the better of us or react with behaviors that are less than favorable. You’ll often find friends and family using phrases like ‘over-emotional’ or ‘overreacting’ quite a lot when this is the case.
Self-control is the ability to override a desire or impulsive behavior to achieve a bigger goal (Mischel, 2014). It is also a significant component of self-regulation. If you’ve ever tried to stick to a diet or give up a habit like smoking, you’ll understand how powerful your sense of self-control can be.
Self-Regulation Therapy (SRT) is a body-centered therapy that focuses on helping individuals relearn how to manage their responses in proactive and positive ways. It is grounded in neurobiology and the idea that like animals, when we are faced with a threatening scenario, we have three choices: fight, flee, or freeze.
In the wild, animals respond to threats in their environment in one of these three ways, but each creates a build-up of excess energy. Animals discharge this energy through running, twitching, and shaking.
As humans, we experience the same central nervous response to perceived threats but are often unable to discharge the excess energy. SRT is a process through which we can better ‘discharge’ energy instead of acting out in negative ways.
Similar to Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, SRT helps individuals become better connected with their bodies and physical responses, and find ways to create new neural pathways that allow for more positive reactions and regulation.
Exploring self-control theory and self-regulation can be worthwhile if you sometimes feel like your emotions get the better of you or if you react and behave in ways that you later question.
The following questions are designed to encourage reflection in different areas of life where self-regulation can have an impact. You can use these to explore your sense of self-control and self-regulation, with a client in a coaching exercise, or as a group, if you are seeking to have an open discussion around the topic.
Answers to these questions can be insightful. Question 10, in particular, can be a guiding point. If you have others in your life who frequently advise this to you, whether in jest or not, it could be an indication that you sometimes allow your emotions to take too much control.
These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you to help others create a kinder and more nurturing relationship with themselves.
