How to Free Yourself from Emotional Reactivity
Learn to let go with this powerful 4-step process from Pema Chödrön
Do you get caught up in the same self-defeating emotional responses again and again?
Whether it’s anger, jealousy, low self-esteem, victimhood, or another seemingly built-in emotional response, these patterns often feel intractable.
You get triggered and wham, the same response kicks in. You get caught in your storyline and immediately turn on yourself with negative self-talk. Or you blame the person who triggered you and impulsively lash out.
When you do, you strengthen the response so it only causes you more problems in the future.
Would you like to break this damaging cycle of negative emotions?
It takes courage, commitment, and self-awareness, but it is possible to change emotional patterns. You’ll feel so much freer when you do.
I’d like to share a method I learned for this purpose from the popular author and meditation teacher, Pema Chödrön. It’s called “refraining.”
The 2 Aspects of Refraining
To refrain means to catch the reaction and stop yourself.
In the process, you don’t see emotions as “bad” or see yourself as “bad” for having difficult feelings. In fact, when you know how to work with emotions, they become valuable stepping stones on your path of healing and transformation.
Refraining has two aspects:
- Not acting out in words or actions.
- Not escalating an emotional response. This is achieved by interrupting the storyline.
Acting out through thoughts, words, or actions — like arguing, screaming, hitting, or blaming (yourself or another person) — means you’ll never get in touch with the underlying feeling responsible for your pain.
And so, you’ll never be able to heal the original wound.
You may truly believe someone else has caused your emotions because our stories feel so strong and so convincing.
But according to Chödrön, we all have pre-existing propensities to respond in certain ways when triggered— for example, with anger, jealousy, an addictive craving, or another emotion. That pre-existing propensity may have come about due to an early childhood experience or an even earlier time if you believe in reincarnation.
We all have pre-existing propensities to respond in certain ways when triggered.
You can only heal the original wound and dissolve the propensity by understanding and feeling your feelings rather than running away from them through acting them out.
So, when you catch yourself in the beginning or the middle of an emotional storm, you stop yourself from acting out any further.
Secondly, you refrain from escalating the emotion. You do this by cutting through or dropping the storyline.
You stop repeating, enhancing, and strengthening the story in your own mind or through repeating it to someone else. You stop justifying your emotions and you stop blaming the other person.
Although you may have a stockpile of evidence against the person, some of which may be valid, at some point you have to decide whether you want to strengthen your habitual pattern or cut through it.
Refraining doesn’t mean denying or repressing your feelings. In fact, feeling your feelings is the second step in the process of refraining.
The 4 Steps of Refraining
There are four steps in the process of refraining as taught by Pema Chödrön.
Since Pema Chödrön is a meditation teacher she encourages you to begin by working with these steps in meditation. But you don’t have to be a professional meditator to do so. Just get in the habit of sitting quietly by yourself for a few moments every day or two.
The more you can strengthen the ability to refrain in quiet moments with your mind, the more you’ll be able to refrain when challenged by people and situations in daily life.
Here are the four steps.
Step 1: Recognize You’re Emotionally Hooked
The first step is to recognize you’ve been hooked by an emotion.
There’s a feeling that comes along when you’ve been activated by an emotional pattern. Chödrön calls this “shenpa,” which is usually translated as “attachment.” Shenpa underlies all emotions.
How does it feel when you’re hooked? Start noticing.
Let’s say someone gives you a “look” and you immediately lose your confidence. Or someone questions something you’ve said and anger or self-doubt rises.
How does it feel in your body? Does your stomach flutter, turn over, or burn? Does your neck and face turn red? Do you tighten or pull back? Do you suddenly feel small? Does your energy deflate?
Start to notice exactly what you feel — emotionally and physically — when you’re hooked. These are your early warning signs. The ability to recognize when you’re hooked will give you the power to pause and respond differently.
At first, you may be long into the story before you notice you’re hooked. That’s okay. We’ve been repeating these patterns for eons. Recognition takes time and practice.
Step 2: Feel What You Feel
Feel what you’re feeling with kindness. Instead of acting out or repeating the storyline, feel the core feeling and observe how it might change into other feelings or dissolve altogether.
This means simply staying present to the feeling and how it manifests in your body. Notice without adding to the story.
This may not be easy. You may have avoided a particular feeling for a long time because it’s too painful, too deep, too raw. For example,
- I’m not enough
- I’m fundamentally flawed
- I’ll be abandoned
- I’m unlovable
When you begin to feel your feelings, you may enter painful places.
However, the only way to the other side is to feel them, gently at your own pace. If it’s too painful, go slowly and be extra kind to yourself. Seek the help of a therapist if it fees like too much.
In this step you train in feeling what you feel with self-compassion. Start with just a few moments at a time and gradually build your capacity.
An attitude of self-compassion is extremely important in your healing process.
Reassure yourself that you’re okay, whatever you’re feeling — angry, irritated, bored, envious. Use non-verbal gestures like a hand on your heart to soothe yourself. Know you’re worthy, whole, and perfectly okay.
With practice, you’ll begin to realize you’re not this emotion and this emotion isn’t you. You’ll notice more space between you and your emotions. You’ll come to know each emotion is just a passing feeling and no longer feel so averse to them. Over time, you’ll become more patient, more tolerant, more kind, more forgiving of yourself.
If you meditate, you can use that time to practice feeling what you feel. If you don’t meditate, just sit quietly and tune into yourself. If you find it difficult at first, ask yourself questions like:
- How do I feel right now?
- How does my body feel right now?
- How do I feel emotionally?
Start with your body if that feels easier. Feel what you feel physically. When you pay attention with tenderness to what you feel in your body, slowly your body will relax.
It takes courage to feel what you’re feeling, but it will get easier with practice.
Step 3: Release the Story
The next step is to interrupt the storyline. Of course, the storyline can be extremely convincing. You might be telling yourself:
- I’m so messed up
- I’m a bad person
- There’s something wrong with me
Or you might be blaming the other person, completely embroiled in the story you’ve created about them.
Interrupting the story line is essential if you want to heal. What will happen to your feeling if you no longer feed the story? It might take time, but gradually it will disappear.
You can practice interrupting the story line in meditation or whenever you’re sitting quietly with your mind.
In Pema Chödron’s approach, you use the label “thinking” whenever you notice yourself engaged in the story. You say “thinking” to yourself and remain open and fully present. You don’t judge the thoughts, the story, or yourself. You just know they take you away from being fully present and from feeling your feelings.
Thoughts will carry you off again, you say “thinking” in your mind, and then you come back to the present moment once again. You practice releasing the internal dialogue, again and again. And with repeated practice, the story falls apart.
Step 4: Relax
Pema Chödrön says to relax and soften. This stage of the practice is sometimes called letting go.
From my own experience as a mindfulness teacher, I know that relaxation is essential part of meditation. There’s an intimate connection between the mind and body. It’s easier for the mind to relax when the body’s relaxed. In the best meditation, you find a healthy balance of relaxation and alertness.
When you relax and let go, you come closer to your natural state of being. You also reinforce the sense that everything is okay as it is, including you.
Final Thoughts
It takes a lifetime to fully heal your emotional patterns. But you’ll feel better and better once you begin.
I still get caught in my emotional dramas. I still want to cling to my stories when a deep wound has been touched. But I’m also able to release the stories and dramas more quickly and more often.
I use the four steps of refraining:
- Recognize when you’re hooked
- Feel the feelings
- Release the story
- Relax
The more I see through my emotions, the more I sense an entirely different way of being. It’s difficult to describe what I sense in words — an openness and simplicity of mind, a feeling of being at ease whatever the situation, and a heart of great tenderness, for oneself and others.
This is why we work with our emotions. At first, we may just want to feel better ourselves. But as we heal our own heart, we naturally feel the urge to extend our love, kindness, and compassion to others.
For more inspiration, sign up for my bi-monthly Wild Arisings newsletter.