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Emotional regulation is often misunderstood as staying calm all the time or pushing difficult feelings aside. In practice, it means creating enough space to understand what you’re feeling so you can choose how you respond. Your emotions carry useful information. When a strong feeling comes up, ask yourself: What is this emotion trying to tell me?
Build the Five Skills of RULER
The RULER framework from Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, treats emotional intelligence as a set of skills you can build over time. Each skill comes with a question you can ask yourself:
- Recognize: What am I noticing in my body, thoughts, or behavior?
- Understand: What may be causing this feeling?
- Label: Can I name the emotion more precisely than “stressed” or “upset”?
- Express: What is an appropriate and constructive way to communicate it?
- Regulate: What response or strategy will help me move forward?
Create a Pause Between Feeling and Reacting
You can’t always control which feelings come up, but you can choose how you respond. A short pause gives you room to make that choice:
- Pause before responding to a difficult message.
- Take a few slow breaths or step away for a few minutes.
- Name the emotion before deciding what to do.
- Ask yourself, “What response will serve me best right now?”
Regulation isn’t suppression. The purpose of a pause is to acknowledge what you feel and then decide what to do with it.
Read More
The article on our blog explains how to name emotions precisely with Brackett’s Mood Meter, offers strategies for specific emotions like worry, frustration, and overwhelm, and shows how emotional regulation shapes your relationships. Read the full article.
When stress doesn’t ease or your feelings are hard to manage on your own, your Assistance Program (EAP) can help. Contact Member Support to get started.
