Team Skills Series. Post 5 Emotional Regulation Part 2: Tips for traversing your emotional landscape

Introduction

Has a team member or colleague ever told you that you are too emotional? Too sensitive? Too insensitive? Too cold? Too empathetic? Distant? It is interesting how others feel they should comment about emotional reactions, failing to recognize they are as unique as fingerprints and as fleeting as clouds, as well as their potential to enhance patient care and make you a better practitioner. If you are having an emotional reaction, whether to an external or internal stimulus, it is normal for you…whatever ‘normal’ means. 😏

We all have different reactions to what we come across during a work day in our given professions and all of us have developed individual coping strategies to manage, whether we are conscious of them or not. We are complex, diverse human beings informed by our experiences. It would be impossible to predict every possible trigger in each team member, so instead we can learn to hold space for ourselves and others when strong emotional reactions happen as we work.

Lowering those cortisol levels: The importance of self-care

Do you reduce your stress by cooking or cleaning, running or dancing, singing, painting, gardening, cycling, reading, weight-lifting, meditating, knitting? Do you get lost in television or movies? Do you get the most comfort being alone? Getting out? Any and all of these can help reduce those stress hormones when we are outside of the professional work setting.

Unfortunately, some coping strategies have been labeled as “bad”, making us feel judged and misunderstood. Maybe you’ve been told to “pull up yourself up by your bootstraps” or to “suck it up, buttercup!” Maybe you wonder if watching an entire season of Upside Down Love in one night is ‘normal’? It might be more helpful to decide whether a particular strategy is effective and useful—for you. Does the strategy work for you? If your strategy doesn’t cause harm to yourself or others, you do you!^[1] Creating shame around a behaviour is not helpful, so our best advice is to ease your inner critical voice just as you would a dear friend. Take note of what is happening, listen to your body and give it what it needs.

After the fact: Processing emotions

What does it mean to process an emotion?^[2] Emotional regulation is a fundamental skill to develop to look after ourselves and like any skill, this takes practice. Waves of emotion simply come and go. Don’t hate the wind that brought the storm nor chide yourself for not being prepared. The goal is much more simple—in that, this too shall pass. With true mastery, we aim to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Let’s think of that desired sweet spot of professional behaviour: being fully present and encouraging to team members, confident enough to voice opinions and speak up to contribute fully. We won’t be in that spot all the time – and that’s normal – so what is most useful to you is how to get back there once we’ve left it, back to clear thinking. Recognize that clear and creative solutions to problems arise in times of inner peace. Here are a few strategies for achieving this:

1) Be kind to yourself, even when emotions arise during inconvenient times - it’s like being angry at a wave. Check your inner dialogue and give yourself the same treatment you give your loved ones, patients, and valued team members.

2) Name your emotion to yourself and try to understand why you are feeling this way. Have there been other times you have felt this way? Is there something unresolved that is calling for resolution? Is this new?

3) Where do I feel this emotion in my body? This can help us move from our mind back to our body and the present moment, and help to identify what you need in this moment to get through it.

4) What do I need? Is it reasonable to achieve this now? If not, make plans to look after yourself as soon as you are able and FOLLOW THROUGH. This is imperative to build self-trust.

What about those times where an incident raises anger that doesn’t match the action? Irrational responses have a purpose too, and they are worth exploring in order to build self-awareness. Perhaps you or your co-worker are angry because your self-worth (or their self-worth) has been challenged through various forms of disrespect. Perhaps you are unconsciously playing on the Drama Triangle.^[3] Perhaps someone (maybe even you 😕) is having a bad day. Whatever the case, we must manage ourselves through the experience–and that’s no one’s responsibility but our own. Apologize if it is warranted and show compassion to others when their experience may not reflect your own. Look for root causes and think “prevention”.^[4]

The following questions can help guide your reflection:

• Why did I feel this way?
• Are there other times I have felt this way?
• What was my part in this?
• What can I do differently next time?^[5]

Reflecting on the Emotion’s Message

Our emotions send us messages, and they will repeat themselves (just like people) and get louder (just like people 😉) if they are not acknowledged. Repeated messages can be a signal that a change is needed. It is up to you as the “owner” of that emotion to manage and translate the message.

Good-feeling emotions can be a sign to keep going in one direction, and those more difficult to manage may indicate a different environment may be more suitable for you.^[6] We don’t always have the ability to act immediately, but these inner feelings are vital to developing trust in knowing how to care for yourself. They help us recognize good leaders and safe environments that allow us to be the best professionals to care for our patients.

Have you ever worked with a practitioner who effectively uses intuition within their practice? Intuition–the ability to understand something immediately without conscious reasoning–is a skill built from practice^[7], and the first step is to build a trusting relationship with yourself. A big part of that trust is created when we listen and act on what our emotions are telling us. Learning any skill takes practice; can you think of a time where you have been encouraged to use your intuition to solve a problem? Practicing intuition will repeat the same pattern of learning you are familiar with: find an admirable mentor to observe until you build confidence, make repeated attempts and learn from failures until confidence builds once more. In addition, we must be discerning about when and where our decision-making should be influenced by our feelings. It is this dedication to fine-tuning this skill that helps us recognize the emotional regulation required of those caregivers that truly make a difference.

Our emotions shape who we are and our professional identities flourish when we acknowledge this part of our human existence. Think of the safety presentation by flight attendants prior to take-off. When flying with children, the advice for parents is to fix their own oxygen mask–and breathe–before helping their little ones. If the parent does not look after themselves first, the children are doomed, right? Although you may not be a parent, you have professional responsibilities and patients making taking care of yourself first a priority. Taking care of you means you can fully engage with your patients and recognize how to best play your role in their care, and be present and at your best when working with your teammates and colleagues.

^[1] Binge-watching in order to identify and process emotion can be equally as therapeutic for someone as meditation. Binge-watching in order to avoid an emotion may not be in your best interest, however. When we bury a feeling deep down, it often leads to irrational responses later down the line.

^[2] Sheryl imagines the spinning wheel on the screen when a program is working. Watching TV, for example, might be giving our emotional wheels time to spin and process!

^[3] The hyperlink takes you to a short 3-minute video from the Conscious Leadership Group. You might also want to check out this post: How To Opt Out Of The Drama Triangle And Take Responsibility.

^[4] And don’t gossip about it! 10 Tactics for Working with Difficult People offers practical strategies for working with others.

^[5] You can also work through the “Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet” found in the DOWNLOADS here. There is also an emotions list.

^[6] The Emotional Guidance Scale can provide a way to interpret and work with our emotions.

^[7] In Clinical intuition in the nursing process and decision-making-A mixed-studies review (2022), the authors indicated that “Intuition is more than simply a "gut feeling," and it is a process based on knowledge and care experience and has a place beside research-based evidence. Nurses integrate both analysis and synthesis of intuition alongside objective data when making decisions. They should rely on their intuition and use this knowledge in clinical practice as a support in decision-making, which increases the quality and safety of patient care.”