4 Steps To Help You Regulate Your Emotions
Chun grew up in a culture where mothers determined parental correction and control. In her marriage, she manages the parenting of their two young children, but she feels alone and isolated in doing so. Her husband shared that when she corrects his parenting, he feels inadequate and shames himself.
For Chun, excessive control flows from her sense of failure and feeling unloved by her mother. Criticism and control are how she coped with pain throughout her childhood, and now they are creating problems in her marriage. Rather than reacting when dysregulated, she has been learning to self-regulate—that is, to put on self-control. Here’s a fabulous example.
Chun and her family recently went on a cruise, where her husband surprised her with a massage. He made plans to take care of the kids while she enjoyed the gift. While she was preparing to leave the massage room, she checked her phone and saw a message from the cruise line that read, “Jane has been found.” Jane was their 4-year-old daughter.
Immediately, Chun panicked. She felt angry, scared, and critical of her husband. But instead of getting triggered and freaking out, she was able to process her pain and gain control of herself. When she met back up with her husband, she greeted him with a touch on his arm and said, “That must have been difficult.” In her old self, she would have approached him with anger and accusation. In her new self, she could move toward him and connect with his pain, and then listen to the story of what had happened.
It completely flipped a switch in their marriage.
Taking Charge of Yourself
In our book The Mindful Marriage, we share how our old self is in part comprised of a pain story that our brain has been writing our entire life. Instead of being rooted in the story of God pursuing us through Christ with everlasting love—something that declares our absolute worth and safety—our pain narrative is based on imperfect earthly relationships. Many of those relationships have been loving and fulfilling in many ways, but they still lacked perfection. Disappointment, fear, questions about our worth and feeling unloved, and being betrayed by those most important to us end up creating pains we remain hypersensitive to throughout our lives.
At some point (for some, even in infancy), we began trying to make the pain go away. Our coping strategies solidified within our mind and body in the form of neuropathways that our brain came to prefer whenever we became triggered. This pain cycle activates anytime we feel a threat to our identity or sense of safety, especially within an intimate relationship such as marriage.
When couples are at their best, they love and serve each other from the best of themselves. But when at their worst, couples inadvertently trigger one another’s pain, resulting in escalating cycles of hurt, threat, and reactivity.
Previously, Chun coped with childhood feelings of imperfection and feeling unloved with control. She controlled her husband through high expectations and criticism. But this time, when it seemed he’d missed the mark as a father, she had a choice. She could remain stuck in her pattern of control, or she could choose self-control.
The Virtue of Self-Control
Are you familiar with the Hulk? Behind the green giant is the brilliant scientist Bruce Banner, who, when angered or provoked, transforms into the rage-fueled, green-skinned monster known as Hulk. Dr. Banner doesn’t like who he becomes, what he smashes, or who he hurts, so he works hard not to get angry (which triggers his decline into Hulk). In the 2012 Marvel movie The Avengers, there comes a time when the team needs Bruce Banner to transform into Hulk.
“Now might be a really good time for you to get angry,” Captain America says.
“That’s my secret, Cap,” Banner replies. “I’m always angry.”
Until that moment, I thought Banner was a victim of his anger. He had no control over it. But when I saw this conversation with Captain America, I realized he could manage his pain and anger because he knew how to self-regulate.
You and I have a Hulk inside us that is released by pain. And it likes to smash (Hulk’s favorite word). But we can learn how to self-regulate. The Bible calls this self-control. Self-control is mindful restraint (or control) over one’s own impulses, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. There are times when impulses and emotions rule. Thus, self-control is the virtue of keeping yourself—your best-balanced self—in control of making decisions.
When you are in high conflict with your spouse, self-control is difficult. Without it, impulses press you to say or do destructive things. But self-control is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). N. T. Wright, the noted theologian, says that self-control is the only virtue we cannot fake. Even if someone is good at faking virtue, when dysregulated, they will not be calm, peaceful, or in charge of themselves. Self-control is stabilizing emotionally without relying on the environment or others to help.
Like all the virtues found in the fruits of the Spirit, self-control helps us be our best selves. Self-control is not white-knuckling it to avoid harmful words or actions; it replaces dysregulation with peace—where you feel at ease with who you are and feel empowered to handle the moment that is in front of you. That kind of peace mobilizes you to move to other virtues like kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and love.
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
Self-Regulate Your Emotions: Get Centered in the Truth
Your best self—the part of you that is peaceful, gifted, and loving—is already in you. When we put on self-control and emotionally self-regulate, we reconnect with who we are and who we’re made to be.
Now, here’s the problem. We’ve all heard good sermons about self-control, the fruit of the Spirit, and loving our enemies. But how do we actually do it, especially when dysregulated by our pain?
Here are four ways to help you self-regulate.
1. Stay rooted in truth.
God’s truth is that we are loved, forgiven, cherished, and prized by the Father. So why do we react out of pain instead of responding out of this truth? Our brains are prone to notice the negative instead of the positive, and it’s twice as likely to hold onto negative messages than positive ones. Negative messages stick in the brain like Velcro, while positive messages are like Teflon—they’re nonstick.
To combat this, get centered on God’s truth. God has given you self-control. God will not exercise control over you. Believe what He says about you. Embrace the truth of who you are in God. Then, set about attacking your sinful old nature that is driven by pain.
2. Reject the lie.
Pain is created by lies we have told ourselves and keep alive about our identity and sense of emotional safety. We must be aggressive with these lies. In my case (Ron), I must put to death the insecurity and fear I feel about not being enough. Nan must refuse to entertain the idea that she is unloved, rejected, and abandoned.
Mindfulness helps us actively reject lies. It involves taking captive old-self lies and replacing them with truth—and the actions that accompany them. In Philippians 4:8-9, Paul puts it this way: Think about what is good (true, pure, and lovely) then put it into action, and the God of peace will be with you.
Taking lies captive starts by calling them out loud. Make a firm and dramatic statement. For example, “I refuse to believe I am unloved, unwanted, and not enough.” Speaking aloud is a more dramatic experience than internal thinking. Use repetition. Negative thoughts and beliefs are sticky, like Velcro in the brain. Rebuking them aloud several times a day tells your brain you mean business. Start there.
3. Embrace the truth.
It’s not enough to just confront the lie or know the truth. We need to embrace the truth. Again, it’s a matter of attention (mindfulness). Set your mind on the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5–6). For instance, “I am chosen, loved, and cherished.” The truth will calm you. It will center you in peace.
Embracing the truth does not dismiss your pain. Rather, it focuses your mind on reassuring, comforting, and confidence-building truths. Over time, and with practice, your identity and sense of safety will be bolstered, and your emotional stability will grow.
4. Make an empowered choice.
When we self-regulate and stabilize our emotions around identity and safety with the truth, we can choose to respond differently. This gives us what we call an empowered choice.
In other words, when you calm yourself with the words of truth, you can take a deep breath, drink in the truth, and take the next right step into actions that correspond with that truth—actions that are more loving and trustworthy.
Instead of reacting in blame (discover your reactive style here!), you can choose to nurture your partner by listening to them, accepting them, and encouraging their heart because you’re not relying on them to take care of you.
Rather than following your pain and shaming yourself, you can choose to value self.
Rather than protecting yourself through the manipulation of control, you can seek a balance of mutual give-and-take in the relationship.
Instead of escaping what feels like a lack of safety by retreating, being absent, avoiding, or numbing yourself with behaviors or substances, you can reliably connect, trusting the relationship will likely find a safe harbor.
And each time you take action based on the truth, it gets easier and easier as the story of pain in your brain is rewritten with a new story. Over time, the old story diminishes and a new story—a new self—emerges.
Adapted from The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself by Ron & Nan Deal (with Terry & Sharon Hargrave, Worthy Books, 2025). To map your reactive coping style and learn a powerful process that moves you beyond unhealthy reactivity, take our quick assessment and pick up a copy of this highly endorsed book today.