Learn how to control your emotions by working with them, not against them. Discover simple practices to create space between feeling and reacting without suppressing what matters.
What’s Coming Up
- The Emotional Waves We All Experience
- Why People Struggle with Emotional Regulation
- What Are Emotions?
- Understanding Your Emotional Processing Style
- How to Control Your Emotions in the Moment
- Embracing Your Emotional Self: The Path Forward
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Further Reading
The Emotional Waves We All Experience
Have you ever noticed how quickly emotions come and go?
One moment you’re fine, and the next, you’re caught in a wave of anger – agitated, full of energy, thoughts sharpening into weapons. Or perhaps you’re overcome by sadness – with tears forming in your eyes, limbs suddenly too heavy to lift, and a heart full of despair.
And then what happens? Our next moves often unfold according to patterns established since childhood.
Some people immediately shut down this cascade at the first hint of emotional stirring. Before the feeling can even fully form, they’ve shrugged it off and decided to push through. Years of societal messaging has taught them that emotions – particularly “negative” emotions – are weaknesses to be conquered rather than experiences to be understood.
Others might find themselves swept away by the current of emotion. It might consume them entirely, to the point that simple tasks become momentarily impossible.
But for those who feel deeply, life rarely pauses to accommodate these emotional storms. Deadlines still loom, children still need attention, meetings still demand their presence. People are expected to navigate these powerful currents while still keeping up with their commitments.
So where do these pesky emotions come from, anyway? Why do they constantly flow in and out of our daily lives? And do they truly disappear when we push them aside, or are they merely stored somewhere within us, waiting to resurface in unexpected ways?
In the sections to come, we’ll explore how to control your emotions – though perhaps not in the way that you might expect.
We’ll examine why many of us have become disconnected from our emotional experiences, what research tells us about the purpose of feelings, and evidence-based strategies for developing emotional resilience.
My hope is that, by the end, you’ll discover that true emotional control doesn’t come from battling against your feelings. It comes from giving yourself a chance to get to know them and respond to them with intention.
Ready to uncover the truth about who you really are? Take our free personality test and gain deep insights into your strengths, challenges, and more in just 10 minutes.
Why People Struggle with Emotional Regulation
Emotions aren’t just abstract concepts in our minds.
A shot to the heart. Butterflies in your stomach. Shivers racing down your spine. There is a reason our language for emotions is so deeply rooted in physical metaphor.
Emotions live in our bodies first, before our minds have a chance to make sense of the accompanying flood of thoughts and reactions
Despite the fact that we feel emotions in our bodies, many of us have learned to process them primarily through our thoughts – analyzing, categorizing, and often dismissing them even before they’ve been fully experienced.
Even as I sit here, writing about emotions, I can admit that it might be easier for me to conceptualize my feelings – or humanity’s collective emotional spectrum – than it is to sit with my emotions and try to befriend them.
There’s an irony in this analytical approach that doesn’t escape me. As my mind works to understand human emotions, I can’t help but wonder, am I thinking too hard about something that’s meant to be felt?
It’s as if we’ve become translators who’ve forgotten the original language that we’re trying to translate.
And this disconnection didn’t happen by accident. The following powerful forces often shape our relationship with our emotions:
- Societal messaging about “acceptable” emotions: From childhood, we are taught which feelings are welcomed and which should be hidden. Boys shouldn’t cry. Sadness should be fixed. Fear should be conquered. These early lessons reveal an unspoken question that follows us into adulthood: “What am I allowed to feel?”
- Underdeveloped emotional intelligence: Unlike reading and mathematics, emotional awareness isn’t taught in most schools. Many of us reach adulthood without the basic skills that are needed to identify what we’re feeling, why we’re feeling it, or how to respond appropriately. This emotional illiteracy leaves us attempting to navigate complex internal experiences without adequate tools or understanding.
- A culture of constant movement: Our society often values productivity and achievement over reflection and emotional processing. We rush from one activity to the next, rarely giving ourselves permission to pause and check in with how we’re feeling. This constant forward momentum leaves little room for the natural rhythm of emotional experience, which requires space, attention, and presence to be fully understood.
In part, these barriers explain why learning how to control your emotions can feel so challenging.
But what if control isn’t actually the goal? What if the very framing of this challenge has led us down the wrong path entirely?
What Are Emotions?
When it comes to learning how to handle our feelings, a better place to start might be to ask: What exactly are emotions?
Far more than just pesky feelings, they’re sophisticated systems that evolved over millions of years to help us navigate our complex world.
In his influential paper, psychologist Robert Plutchik, who dedicated his career to understanding the evolutionary basis of emotions, explained, “An emotion is not simply a feeling state. Emotion is a complex chain of loosely connected events that begins with a stimulus and includes feelings, psychological changes, impulses to action and specific, goal-directed behavior.”
Plutchik’s research revealed something fascinating: Emotions aren’t the chaotic disruptors that we often think they are. They’re more like intelligent messengers in a finely tuned system that connects our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Think of emotions as helpful guides that allow us to respond to important situations in our lives.
Each emotion has its own job to do. Fear keeps us safe from danger. Anger gives us energy when someone crosses our boundaries. Sadness signals what we’ve lost while helping us draw support from others around us.
In his research, Plutchik identified eight primary emotions that he said were universal and beneficial for our survival. He arranged them in opposite pairs to show how they serve complementary evolutionary functions:
- Joy and sadness
- Trust and disgust
- Fear and anger
- Surprise and anticipation
Plutchik proposed that these primary emotions could blend together to form countless more complex emotional states, much like how primary colors combine to create an infinite spectrum.
Since Plutchik’s pioneering work, our understanding of the emotional spectrum has continued to develop in fascinating ways.
In 2017, through a groundbreaking study at the University of California, Berkeley, emotion scientist Alan Cowen and psychologist Dacher Keltner found evidence for 27 distinct emotional states – from the basics like joy and fear to more complex experiences like awe, nostalgia, and even confusion.
Perhaps the most eye-opening part of their research was discovering that these emotional states aren’t separate islands. Instead, they flow into each other like colors blending in a gradient, without clear dividing lines between one state and the next.
This natural blending helps explain why trying to rigidly “control” our emotions can sometimes feel impossible – and might even be counterproductive.
When we understand emotions as fluid, interconnected systems that have evolved to help us navigate life, we can begin to work with them rather than against them.
So instead of asking how to control your emotions, perhaps some better questions would be:
- How can we learn to listen and understand what our emotions are trying to tell us?
- How can we respond to our emotions calmly, intentionally, and compassionately?
We’ll dive into specific practices that respond to these questions soon.
But first, let’s explore how our innate preference for either logical analysis or emotional processing shapes our relationship with our emotions.
Understanding Your Emotional Processing Style
We all handle emotions differently. Some of us feel our way through life, while others think their way through.
Neither approach is “better” than the other. Both are fundamental parts of the human experience.
This natural difference in processing style is captured by what’s known as the Thinking-Feeling scale in personality theory.
Understanding where you fall on this spectrum can provide valuable insights into your relationship with your emotions.
When Feelings Lead the Way
If your heart tends to guide your decisions, you are likely a Feeling personality.
Feeling personalities naturally value emotional experiences, often consider the human impact of their actions, and tend to trust in their emotional responses as important sources of information.
Yet their sensitivity can, at times, present challenges. Feeling personalities can sometimes overidentify with their emotions, treating temporary feelings as permanent truths rather than passing states.
When Logic Takes the Lead
If your rationality tends to guide your decisions, you are likely a Thinking personality type.
Thinking personalities naturally seek objective information before making decisions, often value consistency and logical explanations, and might prefer to analyze their emotions from a perspective that’s somewhat removed from the feeling itself.
Yet this analytical approach can present its own set of challenges.
Thinking personalities can sometimes dismiss important emotional considerations. They might struggle to connect with others on an emotional level (which is crucial for healthy relationships) or find themselves confused and frustrated by intense emotions that don’t seem to follow logical patterns.
Finding Balance Through Integration
It’s important to remember that the Thinking-Feeling spectrum represents tendencies, not absolutes. We all have access to both approaches, even if we naturally lean more toward one end of the spectrum.
Unfortunately, society often paints these differences as fundamental opposites, creating the false impression that we must navigate life with either our head or our heart, but not both.
This artificial split between thinking and feeling caught the attention of Antonio Damasio, a respected neuroscientist who studies how emotions and rational thought work together in the brain.
In his influential essay, “Descartes’ Error and the Future of Human Life,” Damasio examined the historical roots of this division.
According to Damasio, while many philosophers contributed to the separation of reason and emotion, one thinker bears particular responsibility: René Descartes. This 17th-century philosopher – famous for saying “I think, therefore I am” – played an important role in cementing this division in Western thought.
Damasio stated that his ideas effectively “severed reason from its biological foundation” in the human body. He also explained that this fragmented perspective teaches us to see emotions as obstacles to be controlled or overcome so that rationality will prevail.
But his decades of research led him to a profoundly different conclusion.
“My research has persuaded me that emotion is integral to the process of reasoning,” he stated early in his essay. “I even suspect that humanity is not suffering from a defect in logical competence but rather from a defect in the emotions that inform the deployment of logic.”
This perspective emerged from his work with patients whose emotional brain centers had been damaged. His research revealed an important truth: Despite maintaining their logical abilities, these individuals couldn’t make effective decisions, especially in personal and social matters.
“Absence of emotion appears to be at least as pernicious for rationality as excessive emotion,” Damasio observed. “It certainly does not seem true that reason stands to gain from operating without the leverage of emotion. On the contrary, emotion probably assists reasoning.”
These findings invite us to reimagine the relationship between thinking and feeling.
Rather than opposing forces, the clarity of thinking and the wisdom of feeling are complementary aspects of human intelligence that work best in harmony.
How to Control Your Emotions in the Moment
While our culture has conditioned many of us to seek “control” over our emotions, research suggests that emotions aren’t problems to be controlled.
Instead, they’re valuable signals that provide important information about our needs, boundaries, and values.
The goal, then, is not to control our emotions but to develop what psychologist Susan David calls “emotional agility.”
Emotional agility is the ability to experience your thoughts and emotions with openness and curiosity, moving toward your values even when you are facing emotional triggers and difficult feelings.
It’s not about ignoring emotions or letting them drive you to hasty reactions, but rather developing a more flexible relationship with your inner experiences.
Here, we’ll discuss four practices to help develop greater emotional agility.
1. Welcome Your Emotions with Compassion
Instead of judging your emotions as good or bad, practice accepting them all.
When difficult feelings arise, try offering yourself compassion rather than criticism. Remind yourself: “It’s okay to feel this way. This is part of being human.”
This compassionate acceptance doesn’t mean you have to act on every emotion. It simply creates space to experience your emotions without shame, judgment, or denial.
Think of emotional skills like any other ability – they improve with practice. The more you allow yourself to be in tune with your emotions instead of pushing them away, the better you become at understanding their messages.
2. Pause and Notice What’s Happening
When emotions arise, slow down. Take a breath. Notice the physical sensations in your body – perhaps the changing speed of your heart beat or heaviness in your chest.
Then, observe any positive or negative thoughts and impulses that accompany these sensations.
These might be thoughts rejecting your feelings (“I shouldn’t feel this way”) or thoughts urging immediate action (“I need to fix this now”).
Remember, you are not your thoughts. You are also not your emotions. You are the observer of it all.
When you slow down to notice what is happening in your body, you’re training yourself to be present with your emotions and the thoughts that come with them, rather than immediately running from them or being consumed by them.
3. Getting Specific About What You’re Feeling
We often use vague labels like “stressed” or “upset” that don’t fully capture our emotional experience.
As Dr. David explained in an episode of The Mel Robbin’s podcast, this surface-level labeling can keep us from understanding what’s really happening beneath our emotions.
Challenge yourself to label your feelings with greater precision. Are you stressed, or are you actually feeling unsupported? Overwhelmed? Inadequate?
The more accurately you can name your emotions, the more clearly you’ll understand what they’re telling you.
A feelings wheel can be a helpful tool for expanding your emotional vocabulary beyond the basics.
4. Choosing Your Response with Intention
Emotions provide valuable information, but they don’t have to determine your actions.
After acknowledging what you’re feeling, ask yourself two important questions:
- What are my emotions trying to tell me?
- What response would align with my values and my well-being?
This reflective moment transforms emotions from potential dictators into helpful advisors. You listen to their wisdom without surrendering your agency to them.
These four practices can help anyone develop greater emotional agility, whether you feel disconnected from your emotions or overwhelmed by them.
To explore your emotional understanding even further, consider taking a personality test. When you know your personality type, it can illuminate your natural tendencies and show you which aspects of emotional agility deserve your special attention.
Embracing Your Emotional Self: The Path Forward
As we come to the end of this exploration of how to control your emotions, I’m drawn back to Descartes’ famous declaration: “I think, therefore I am.”
Perhaps a more truthful statement would be, “I feel, therefore I am.”
Just think about it – the ability to feel means that we’re still alive.
The capacity to feel – to experience joy that makes your heart swell, grief that brings you to your knees, love that opens you beyond yourself, even anger that burns with the fire of your values – this is the precious birthright of being human that no machine or algorithm can replicate.
So perhaps the real challenge isn’t learning how to control your emotions but discovering how to accept them, appreciate them, and learn from them.
I feel, therefore I am.
And in that feeling – comfortable or uncomfortable, pleasant or painful – lies the profound truth of what it means to be human.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I control my emotions?
When strong emotions hit you suddenly, try taking a deep breath first.
Next, name what you’re feeling – are you angry, scared, or sad? When you name your emotions, they often become less overwhelming.
Then, ask yourself what this feeling is trying to tell you. Is your anger saying someone crossed a boundary? Is your anxiety warning you about something important?
All this will help you choose a response that aligns with your values and well-being.
How do I emotionally regulate myself?
Emotional regulation starts with accepting all emotions as valuable messengers rather than problems.
Welcome your feelings with compassion instead of judgment. Slow down and give yourself time to sit with them.
Notice the thoughts and the feelings that you are experiencing in the present moment, but remember that you are not your thoughts or your feelings.
How can I handle hard feelings?
Instead of pushing difficult emotions away, try approaching them with curiosity. Manage your emotions by pausing, noticing what’s happening inside you, labeling your feelings specifically, and choosing responses that honor both the emotion and your values.