Emotion regulation can feel like a difficult skill—especially for trauma survivors. You might feel frustration or anger. That’s okay. It takes practice. Over time, it becomes easier, and you begin to feel less controlled by your emotions and more in control of your responses.
Instead of spiralling into rumination and self-blame, you begin to sit with the experience—acknowledging the feelings and the situation—while supporting yourself in ways that are healthy and compassionate. This reduces pain, rather than adding to it.
The Purpose of Emotions
Emotions have evolutionary roots. They’re trying to communicate something important to us:
Anger – when something is blocking our path or there is an injustice.
Disgust – hel[s us stay away from contaminants
Sadness – helps us form relationships: it tells others we need help, and loss makes us typically want to feel close and intimate with others.
Guilt – we’ve done something that violates our own values
Shame – we’ve done something socially unacceptable (and our clan with shun us)
Anxiety – Lets us know a difficult thing is coming up
Jealousy – afraid someone will take (something of ours) away (this is a sense of protection)
Envy – someone has something we want (this can propel us to achieve things)
Happiness – we want to keep doing it
Feelings Versus Thoughts
While emotions provide us with valuable information, emotions are not facts. Emotional Dysregulation is when the emotions we feel are discordant with what is actually happening. Trauma shapes how we receive information, affecting our emotional responses, leading us to interpret situations through a lens shaped by pain.
For example, someone who’s been repeatedly abandoned might interpret a delayed text as being rejected. That’s not their fault—it’s a learned survival mechanism. But knowing the difference between a feeling and a thought is essential to regulation.
A feeling: I feel abandoned
A thought: They abandoned me
The feeling may be valid—but the thought is how we interpret the situation, whether accurately or not. If we treat emotions as absolute truths, we risk becoming overwhelmed. Therapies like Dialectical Behaviour Therapy call this checking the facts. Without checking the facts the brain tries to fill in the blanks, (especially when we’re hurt), often with old narratives that no longer serve us.
Primary & Secondary Emotions
When emotions feel like they’re filling up the entirety of the room you’re in, this can be due to the fact that you are experiencing not only a primary emotional response, but a secondary emotional response as well.
The Primary response is the immediate response we have to a situation. For example, anger might be the primary emotion—a justified response to being mistreated or invalidated. But that anger may quickly be followed by a secondary emotion, such as guilt: “I reacted too strongly for what happened.”
This guilt often stems from internalized messages learned during abuse—like “my feelings are too much” or “it’s wrong to stand up for myself.” The secondary emotional response of guilt can then spark another emotional reaction—either a return to the original anger, or a shift into something new, like shame or exhaustion: “I’m so tired of feeling guilty for being angry when people are constantly rude to me.” And so the person becomes caught in a cycle of emotions compounding until we are in such a state of hyperarousal that it’s extremely difficult to regulate ourselves.
This can be an exhausting loop that feels endless and impossible to escape – you can. Doing so doesn’t mean invalidating your feelings – they are always valid. Knowing the emotion we are experiencing, allows us to appropriately respond to that emotion. If we think we’re angry, and we’re addressing anger, but the feeling we’re really expressing is shame, then things won’t shift. Learning how to respond to each emotion will determine whether we shift the needle in our healing journey, or increase our pain.
Emotional regulation can be demanding for survivors of CSA who have had their feelings invalidated, turned against them or were forced to numb themselves repeatedly.
H.A.L.T
When emotions are intense let’s start with a first step: HALT.
Hungry
Angry
Lonely Tired
Meeting those needs—eating, resting, connecting—can significantly reduce emotional distress. Once your basic needs are met, you’re in a better position to evaluate what’s happening. If emotions still feel overwhelming, it may mean you’re outside your Window of Tolerance—the emotional range where we can function effectively. When you’re outside it, grounding helps bring you back.
Grounding Techniques
Here are some grounding techniques you can try, and repeat as many times as needed.
5 Senses Rainbow Version
Look for 5 red objects, look for 4 orange objects, 3 yellow objects, 2 blue objects, 1 green object.
Listing: Name as many reptiles, songs, or movie titles as you can. (You can use a timer on your phone (30 s) or not) You can choose a topic that you enjoy. Don’t do something that will make you feel frustrated or upset.
Cooling: You can also use cool water on your face or wrists to bring down your body temperature and reset your nervous system
5 Senses Rainbow Version
Look for one object of each colour (Red, Orange, Yellow, etc.).
You can repeat as many times as you need.
Listing: Name as many reptiles, songs, or movie titles as you can. (You can use a timer on your phone (30 s) or not) You can choose a topic that you enjoy. Don’t do something that will make you feel frustrated or upset.
Cooling: You can also use cool water on your face or wrists to bring down your body temperature and reset your nervous system
Breathing: Take a deep breath in through your nose, hold for a moment, then exhale slowly through your mouth—imagine blowing out a candle. Focus on exhaling for longer than you inhale to help calm your nervous system. You can also say a calming word or mantra to yourself with each exhale, like ‘peace’ or ‘I am safe.
Grounding Takes Time
It’s important to remember that not all grounding techniques work the same for everyone—and that’s completely okay. Different emotions may require different approaches, and what works in one moment may not work in the next. Emotions are physiological sensations that arise in the body, and how we respond to them can vary greatly from person to person.
If you try a grounding exercise and find it’s not helping, don’t see it as a failure. Instead, recognize that you’re learning about what works for you. The goal is to move your mind away from focusing on distress and into the present moment. Sometimes, this means trying different methods until you find what resonates.
It’s okay to experiment. For example, grounding might involve physical movement—like running or exercising—until your body feels more settled. The key is that whatever you do should help reduce your distress, not increase it. Whether that’s through breathing, focusing on your surroundings, or even working through a physical activity, there’s no right or wrong way to ground yourself.
The process of learning which techniques are most effective can feel like trial and error, and that’s perfectly fine. Each time you try something, you’re gaining valuable insight into what supports your emotional regulation—and ultimately, your healing.
If you have grounding techniques you’d like to share with the community please email erin@thegatehouse.org and we can share with the community through social media!
