🔼: [[💡 Emotional Regulation]], [[⭐️ Self-Care]], [[🕯️ Self-Stewardship]]
#### 🕯️ Self-Regulation
Unassisted [[💡 Emotional Regulation|Emotional Regulation]].
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Through a parts lens, [[🔑 all Emotional Regulation is Co-Regulation]], so I sometimes reframe this as ‘Internal [[⭐️ Co-Regulation]].’
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Some of us learn to do this in childhood through [[⭐️ Co-Regulation]] as our caregivers held, supported, soothed us, attuned to us, or helped us [[🕯️ Pendulation|🕯️ pendulate]] and [[🕯️ Titration|🕯️ titrate]] (though likely without calling it that – that'd be weird). Unfortunately many of us didn’t get enough of it. We may have learned [[🛡️ Emotional Suppression]] and have a long backlog of unfelt [[⭐️ Emotions]] which over time become even more intrusive and difficult to feel through. Learning [[🕯️ Tending to feelings|🦮 how to tend to our feelings]] helps us clear our emotional buildup as they arise.
###### Keys
- [[🔑 Emotional Suppression is often mistaken for Care]]
- [[🔑 Care, Maintenance, and Regulation can overlap and synergize]]
- [[🔑 Emotional Regulation is not the end goal]]
- [[🔑 Emotional Regulation can be Presence-led or Parts-led]]
- The more experience we have with [[⭐️ Co-Regulation]], the easier Self-Regulation becomes.
- 🔑 Self-regulation is great, but [[🔑 we need each other]]. This isn’t a replacement for connection or [[⭐️ Co-Regulation]].
- [[🔑 Slow down when fear gets involved in a decision]]
###### How to Self-Regulate
The point of Self-Regulation is to create enough safety that we are able to turn toward and attune to our emotions, or at least let them flow while we’re attending to something externally.
> [!tip] Tip: Practice before you need it
> Different practices work for different people. If we [[🔑 Trust your experience and intuition|🔑 find what works for us]] ahead of time and practice ahead of time, we’re more likely to have the presence of mind to lean on them when we need to.
>
> **Our [[💡 Protector Parts|Protectors]] have potentially decades of practice at their jobs.** It may take time for them to trust us to regulate instead of escape our emotions.
>
> If you are currently triggered, see: [[⭐️ Safety Tools and Resources]].
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- The first step is noticing the parts of us who want those feelings to stop.
- Ask this part of you to not overwhelm you.
- Get a sense of the part.
- Speak to them.
- Breathing Space through the hand.
- Making Space with the hands.
- Inviting the emotion to take up as much space in your body as it wants
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> [!tip]
> Consider making your own list and putting it somewhere visible, where it doesn’t have to be searched for.
| Tools | Practices | Assistance & Supports |
| :--------------------------: | :-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: |
| [[🛠 Dopamine Menu]] | [[⭐️ Self-Care]] | [[⭐️ Safety Tools and Resources]] |
| [[🛠 Anchors]] | [[🛠 Ideal Parent Figure Protocol]] | [[🦮 How to Soothe Triggered Parts]] |
| [[🛠 Bilateral Stimulation]] | [[🧘 Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation]] | [[⭐️ Outdoors]] |
| [[🛠 Sacred Space]] | [[🕯️ Grounding]] | [[⭐️ Co-Regulation\|⭐️ Comfort in Company]] |
| [[Emotional Venting]] | [[🧘 Samatha Meditation]] | [[🦮 How to Recover from Trauma#Phase 1 Safety and Stabilization\|Safety & Stabalization]] |
| [[🛠 Self-Massage]] | [[🕯️ Pendulation]] & [[🕯️ Titration]] | [[⭐️ Community Care#🦮 How to know when you need help, and how to ask\|🦮 Ask for help]] |
| [[🛠 Music]] | [[🕯️ Breathwork 💨]] | [[🛠 Medication]] |
| “…for now..” | [[🛠 Self-Soothing]] | |
| | [[🕯️ Journaling]], writing [[Poetry]], making [[Art]] | |
| | Focusing on one thing at a time | |
| | Moving slowly and mindfully <br>([[👟 Asana Practice]], [[🕯️ Qigong]], [[👟 Walking]] outside, gentle [[👟 Stretching]]) | |
| | [[🛠 Dance]], [[🕯️ Tension & Trauma Release Exercises (TRE)]], <br>[[🛠 Wavy Wiggles]], <br>or just shaking out tension | |
| | [[🕯️ Tending to feelings]] | |
| | [[🛠️ Prone Side-Eye Exercise]] | |
| | [[🛠️ Cold Exposure]] | |
| | Playing an instrument | |
| | Cooking a meal | |
| | Hobbies, especially outside | |
| | Finding [[💡 Awe\|Awe]] | |
If our feelings are too [[💡 Overwhelm|overwhelming]], the wise and [[☀️ Compassion|☀️ compassionate]] thing to do might be to take a break and come back to it later. The [[🛠 Pendulation Toolkit]] can help.
It can be helpful to take note of whatever it was that caused us to need this resource in the moment in something like a [[🛠 Parts Log]]. This way we can refer back and revisit those [[💡 Parts|Parts]] when we feel safe enough.
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