Blog Posts

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Feel It, Control It: The Art of Emotional Regulation

Today I want to talk about the subject of emotional regulation.  We often hear our clients in saying they want to manage stress and regulate emotions better.  The question I have is, “Do you know the difference between emotional regulation and emotional outsourcing?”

The blog will answer that question today and also explore if your idea of emotional regulation is actually very external. 

What is Emotional Outsourcing?

Emotional outsourcing can be explained as the habit of relying on external validation, guidance, and emotional regulation instead of trusting your own internal resources and turning inward.  Now you may say to yourself that if you had your own internal resources you wouldn’t seek external help like therapy.  And it’s true, therapy does in fact include emotional outsourcing.  A goal of therapy is to get to emotional regulation and less need for emotional outsourcing.  We want people to be to build to the point of trusting themselves more, being more confident, and improving internal resources and using outside sources for proper support instead of ”needing” them to regulate.                   

Before we talk about increasing emotional regulation lets first explore external regulation by looking at emotional outsourcing more.   It’s not uncommon to learn along the way whether from childhood or other relationships to prioritize others needs over your own.  This can happen when one person’s emotions set the mood and tone for the other people in the environment, when adults look to children to please them and keep them regulated by “obeying”, walking on eggshells around another person to avoid their emotions, shutting down to avoid impacting someone else’s emotions becoming dysregulated, perfectionism to try and avoid disappointment from others, and people pleasing to keep the peace.  

Outsourcing emotional regulation is when we depend on others, the environment, attention, or achievement to regulate our emotional state.  This may look like relying on other people and situations to determine your emotional state and guide your actions rather than relying on your own internal resources. 

Signs of emotional outsourcing include: 

1.  Needing constant reassurance from others.
2.  Difficulty managing emotions alone.
3.  Feeling lost or anxious without someone to talk to.
4.  Delegating decisions to others because of emotional overwhelm.

Examples of emotional outsourcing may include one partner constantly turning to the other to validate their feelings, calm them down, or help them make emotional decisions in a relationship.  In a friendship it may look like one person emotionally dumping emotional problems, not for support or advice, but because they are avoiding dealing with the emotions themselves.  In therapy it can look like relying solely on the therapist to “fix” you without really putting in any effort outside of sessions.  

While emotional support from others is healthy and necessary, excessive emotional outsourcing can hinder personal growth, create imbalance in relationships, and lead to codependency. Developing emotional self-reliance (e.g., self-soothing, mindfulness, journaling, or therapy with active participation) helps foster resilience and better boundaries.

Emotional Regulation

Building emotional regulation means developing the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your emotions in healthy and constructive ways—especially in stressful or triggering situations.  Some skills of emotional regulation include: 

1.  Emotional Awareness – Recognizing and naming what you’re feeling.  “I feel anxious,” not just “I feel bad.”
2.  Acceptance – Allowing feelings to exist without judgment.  “It’s okay to feel angry. Emotions aren’t wrong—they’re signals.”
3.  Cognitive Reframing – Changing the way you interpret situations.  “This challenge might help me grow” instead of “This is a disaster.”
4.  Impulse Control – Learning to pause before reacting emotionally.  Taking a breath before speaking or texting out of anger.
5.  Self-Soothing & Coping Tools – Using techniques to calm yourself.  Breathing, grounding exercises, journaling, or going for a walk.

Ways to practice these skills: 

1.  Pause and breathe: Practice the 4-7-8 breathing method:  Inhale for 4 seconds → Hold for 7 → Exhale for 8
2.  Label the emotion:  Use an emotion wheel to go beyond “mad/sad/happy and ask yourself  “What am I really feeling right now?”
3.  Practice Mindfulness: Meditation, body scans, or simply noticing your environment can help you stay present.
4.  Track emotional triggers: Keep a journal: What happened? What did you feel? How did you respond? What helped?   I encourage clients to write it down in their phone if they don’t like to keep a paper journal.  
5.  Challenge unhelpful thoughts:  Ask: “Is this thought true?”  “What else could be going on?” or “How would I respond if a friend had this thought?”
6.  Create a coping toolbox: This may include activities or tools to turn to when emotions get intense like: pictures, reminders of a happy place or memory, a familiar movie or show, music, art, nature, talking to a friend, movement such as walking, stretching, or dance,
7.  Develop Routine Self-Care: Sleep, exercise, hydration, and nutrition affect emotional capacity.
Emotional dysregulation is often worse when your body is running low on basic needs.

In the End

Having emotional support from others is great, if we are relying on external factors and others to determine how we feel and cope, we are emotional outsourcing.  The goal is to use external factors as support and rely on ourselves for emotional regulation.  This blog outlined the difference between the two, skills for emotional regulation, and ways to practice these skills.  

Thanks for reading, until next time.

Emilie Barragan, LCSW 

“Tackling emotional and physical pain.” – Therapeuo Health