Emotional Regulation: How to Feel Your Feelings Flexibly

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Rick and Forrest discuss how we can regulate our emotions by feeling, managing, and processing them more effectively. They begin by unpacking common misconceptions and clarifying what healthy regulation looks like - feeling our feelings without being overwhelmed by them. From there, they walk through the three key steps of emotional regulation, focusing on practical tools like cognitive defusion and opposite action. Topics include interoception, the window of tolerance, cognitive bypassing, suppression/repression, and finding a balance between acceptance and agency. Key Topics: 1:59: What Does Emotional Regulation Look Like? 6:08: The Three Aspects of Emotional Regulation 12:35: Step 1: Feeling Your Feelings 27:20: Step 2: Managing Your Feelings 58:50: Step 3: Processing (and maybe expressing) Your Feelings 1:10:10: Recap Rick’s Course on Grief and Loss: Join Rick for his new, four-week long online program where you’ll soothe emotional pain, find perspective and meaning, and hold whatever happened with acceptance and compassion. Learn more at RickHanson.com/loss and use coupon code BeingWell25 to receive a 25% discount. Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors If you have ADHD, or you love someone who does, I’d recommend checking out the podcast ADHD aha! Level up your bedding with Quince. Go to Quince.com/BEINGWELL for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. Feel good...and mean it when you say it! Get Headspace FREE for 60 days. Go to Headspace.com/BEINGWELL60 Listen now to the Life Kit podcast from NPR. Go to Zocdoc.com/BEING to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hansen.
0:09.5	If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us today, and if you've listened before, welcome back.
0:14.0	Today we're focusing on a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, but at least I think is frequently misunderstood. Emotional regulation. There seem to be two
0:23.3	models of emotional regulation that, at least on social media, a lot of people tend to subscribe to.
0:29.2	The first is that good emotional regulation means you just never get upset by anything. You're a
0:34.0	nonchalant, unbothered person. The second argues that authenticity means acting on how we feel.
0:40.3	If we feel something, we have to express it.
0:43.1	Otherwise, you're just repressing all of your emotions.
0:46.4	Both of those approaches miss what healthy emotional regulation actually involves.
0:50.8	Good emotional regulation is feeling flexibly.
0:54.0	We can feel our feelings, manage them in
0:56.0	real time, and then make some conscious choices about how we want to express them. This is actually
1:01.7	pretty sophisticated stuff, and being able to apply these skills will have a dramatic impact on your
1:07.4	life. So to help us learn how to do this a bit better, I'm joined by clinical psychologist,
1:12.1	Dr. Rick Hansen. Dad, how are you doing today? Excellent. Psych to be here. Really looking forward to
1:17.8	talking about this with you. We already had a great conversation about it earlier. Before we get into it,
1:22.4	I do want to give people a quick reminder about your upcoming online course focused on grief and loss. It's a four-week-long
1:29.3	program where Rick will help you soothe some emotional pain. So, hey, may be relevant to what we're
1:34.2	talking about here today, find perspective and meaning, and hold whatever happened with acceptance
1:38.7	and compassion. You can learn more at rickhansun.com slash loss and use coupon code being well 25 to receive a 25%
1:47.2	off discount.
1:48.7	So dad, I would love to start actually with you here.
	...

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