The Art of Emotional Regulation in the Age of Information Overload
Oct 09, 2023
Andrea Johnson
Are you feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders with every news alert? I've been there, engulfed by waves of anxiety, trying to stay afloat in the sea of information and misinformation. Join me as I share my journey of regulating emotions and controlling media intake. From feeling consumed by news to finding a balance, I've handpicked strategies and coping mechanisms that have helped me stay informed without crumbling under the emotional burden.
Are you feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders with every news alert? I've been there, engulfed by waves of anxiety, trying to stay afloat in the sea of information and misinformation. Join me as I share my journey of regulating emotions and controlling media intake. From feeling consumed by news to finding a balance, I've handpicked strategies and coping mechanisms that have helped me stay informed without crumbling under the emotional burden.
You're listening to Stand Tall and Own it, the podcast for high performing female leaders who are ready to make an impact by discovering the safety that comes from understanding their own value and exercising their own authority. I'm your host, Andrea Johnson, and I'm here to tell you it is time to just truly be you, my strong friend. It's time to Stand Tall and Own it. Stay there, okay. This one is going to be short I hope, I'm doing this on the fly, but I really wanted to just tell you how I was dealing with something that came up in the last 24 hours. As you know, I'm a thinker, or as you may not know, I am a thinker. I process things logically, I process them in here, and when something hits my body, when something overwhelms me emotionally, I need a break, and in the last 24 hours, some things have come out on the news that were just so overwhelming for me. I have this really low tolerance for violence. I have a real low tolerance for people treating other people poorly. So when there's some kind of mass violence, that is very difficult for me. It's not just the empathy that I feel, it's also just the lack of understanding how people could treat each other that way. However, on my growth journey, I have learned that there are things that I can do something about and things that I can't do anything about. That doesn't mean I don't try, but it also means that I have to manage what I can manage, and that's me. So I wanted to share what happened and give you a couple of pointers that might help you, if you're a little bit like me or if you're at all like me.
Andrea:
So I came downstairs. My husband had on the news. I knew that there were stories on the news that I didn't want to see because I knew what had happened in the last few days and I'm not exactly sure when this is going to air, so I don't want to say exactly what it was. But I came in with my laptop. I was going to play around on Instagram because that's usually a happy place for me and as I sat down, a story played on the news that gave me just way too much information and it hit me like in my gut and in my body and I felt my heart start racing. I got to where I couldn't breathe and I began to weep and I just I just picked up my things and headed upstairs and just took a minute and you know, in the past I think if that had happened to me, I would have started yelling. I said turn it off, stop, make it stop. I would have said, you know, told my husband why are you watching this? But this is where my journey has brought me.
Andrea:
This is what becoming an Intentional Optimist is. It's understanding there are things out there that are bad and yet choosing to handle them in a certain way, choosing to treat people in a certain way, choosing to move forward in a certain way. So, if I break down what I did, I removed myself from the situation, all right. So, I mentioned a minute ago I'm a thinker, I process things logically. I want to know how it works, where it came from and where it's going. So, for something to hit me really strong in the emotional center or in my body, it just it takes my breath away.
Andrea:
Some of the counseling work that I've done over the past, however many years, is has been in the area of understanding that feelings just flow through. They just what. I had a counselor who said Andrea, feelings are like wind blowing through a screen door. If you close the door behind the screen door, then it can't blow through and it's something's going to bang open or break the glass. But if you just let that screen door be a screen door, the feelings are going to just blow right through and it's going to be a long time to understand that, because I am not real comfortable with my feelings. So if this resonates with you, here's what I learned to do.
Andrea:
I learned to say all right, what am I feeling? I need to get, I need to find a place where I can decompress and process this, because I was saturated, I mean by the time I got upstairs. My heart rate I don't even know. If I had checked my Apple watch, it probably would have said it was at 120. I mean, it was as if I had been on my spin bike. Right? Just do, do, do, do, do, do.
Andrea:
When that happens, that means I am in like a flight state. You know, fight or flight, total flight. My brain had shut down, the logical thinking wasn't happening and I had to remove myself. So the first thing I do is I remove myself from the situation when possible. The second thing I did was actually doing some breathing exercises and calm myself down and say you know what, t his is terrible, it was irresponsible for them to share that on the news At least that's my opinion and I don't have to watch that, because here's the thing the things I do have control over are what I take in. So I manage the amount of news I watch, I manage the type of news I take in, I manage my Facebook feed and my Instagram feed and my Twitter feed, and I manage all of that because there's only so much of that thing that I can allow in.
Andrea:
Now, I am not a person who even remotely advocates put in your head in the sand. I am a realist who has chosen to be optimistic about the future. So I moved myself out of the room, I did some breathing exercises and I calmed myself down and then I realized, all right, this has now become an issue for me that I feel extremely strongly about. I've found several issues like that in my life, but I have to recognize that this is now something that is extremely, extremely strong in my heart. I feel resolved about it and I need to know that walking into other situations. So, as I walk into situations where I know this topic will be discussed, I have to decide how I'm going to respond in those areas, because here's the other thing it's not just the people that are involved in this particular issue or this particular event that I care about. It's all the other people that I interact with in my life.
Andrea:
I wanna be kind and gentle and respectful of my husband, who was watching the news, who eventually came up and checked on me, knowing I was gonna need a minute, and he said I'm really sorry. And I said you wanted to watch the news, you wanted that information. It doesn't bother you like it bothers me. I had no idea they were gonna do that. I just needed to get away and in the process of talking to him about it, I wept some more. I mean, we're talking ugly, cry, boohoo. So my husband checked on me, but I also know that I wanna respect him and I wanna be careful with my relationship with him because I love him and I wanna be kind to him.
Andrea:
When I go out into my community and with my family and in my church and in my friend group, I know this topic is going to come up. I have to pay attention to my body and say what's gonna, what's happening here? Is my heart rate elevated? If so, I might need this is telling me that it's coming up again and it's not that I've not dealt with it. It's just that I know that I'm not quite ready to talk about it because I know I got some more thinking to do. So a lot of this is just paying attention to who I am. So I know that as I move out into my community when this is discussed, I may have to get up and leave. I may have to find something else to do for a few minutes while the topic is being discussed.
Andrea:
Two weeks from now, when I've really processed it through and I've decided what I wanna say and I've decided how I can be respectful of other people and how I can be kind to other people, when I state my full opinion and stand up for what I believe in and stand in my own authentic voice, then I'll be able to speak. But I want to be respectful of all people when I do this. So this was just an example of what I do when I get emotional overwhelm or emotional dysregulation. I have learned and this has been a long road, y'all, but I have learned to just remove myself from the situation at first. I hope this was helpful.
Andrea:
I'd be curious to know what kind of things do you have to walk away from? Are you a mental processor or are you a feeling processor? And then you have to think things through. Just curious, because this was a topic that just set me off, and I'm curious to know what kind of topics do you need to walk away from? Because it's a big deal and we need to learn how to be kind and respectful of others. As we still state who we are, stand up for our values, stand up for the things that we believe are important in a way that honors other people. Thanks for your time. I am excited to hear what you have learned from this and what I can learn from you. Have a great one.
