What they are
Emotions (anxiety, anger, etc.), when not managed effectively, that is, kept at a tolerable level, can impair our functioning and performance, making us extremely reactive and not at all strategic.
At work, this can have significant negative effects both on a relational level and on a more personal level, preventing us from achieving our goals and limiting our potential and adaptability.
Ineffective Emotional Regulation Strategies
What are the ineffective emotional regulation strategies that can limit us?
First and foremost, not accepting and not validating an experienced emotion as useful and adaptive.
This produces what are called “secondary emotions,” emotions that are more difficult to manage and more disorganizing: the fact of experiencing an emotion (e.g., anger towards a colleague, anxiety about a work commitment) causes another emotion (e.g., fear of being angry based on the belief that “anger is dangerous, it makes me lose control,” shame about being anxious that comes from thinking “if others see me anxious, they will judge me as weak”).
This mechanism only adds suffering to suffering, amplifying the intensity of emotions and hindering their management.
However, it’s not just the high intensity of an emotion that can be dysfunctional, but also the exact opposite, the deactivation and suppression of emotion. Not feeling makes us lose important information that we could use to our advantage (e.g., if we don’t feel shame for a mistake made, we won’t try to fix it; if we don’t feel anxiety, we’ll have fewer tools to prepare for danger and adapt).
How to Effectively Regulate Emotions
Effective regulation means:
- gaining knowledge and awareness of our emotional experiences;
- distinguishing secondary emotions from primary ones, using the latter as useful signals of our needs and as guidance to modify the situation;
- communicating to others how we feel, improving the quality of relationships.
Regulating emotions means not acting on them immediately (running away because of fear or shame, attacking because of anger) but “staying with them,” using them to our advantage, not as obstacles to achieving our goals, but as catalysts for this process.
