Think about the most mature and likable person you know.  They are probably flexible, highly skillful, and self-aware in the area of emotions and relationships.  She or he will genuinely and with confidence increase happiness and excitement as well as calm shame and anger inside her or himself.

It is like a thermostat inside of us.  A system of balancing our inner and outer worlds.  Sometimes, this system works very well, increasing our joy, desire, excitement at the best times.  Our anger, sadness, and fear will decrease as needed when this emotional system works well.  When this emotional system is not functioning well, we have trouble with our relationships and getting things done, like homework or tasks at work.

In the book, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” JK Rowling writes: “Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. . .You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.” Experiencing a dementor seems to be like being depressed.

Harry Potter learns to concentrate, with all his might, on a single, very happy memory.  This frees Harry Potter from the haunting clutches of dementors.  Great writers and directors of movies, like J.K. Rowling, William Shakespeare, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, know how to change the emotions of readers or moviegoers.

In order to have healthy, satisfying relationships and learn and work productively, we need to influence our emotions internally.  We can try to use external methods such as food, movies, alcohol, drugs, sex, computer games, or controlling others to calm our upsetting emotions, but they eventually fail to soothe us.

Yet we can also regulate our emotions internally by changing our breathing, physical exercise, self-talk, and focusing on an images of safety, affirmation, and validation.  With healthy emotional regulation, the goal is to be aware of your body and calm unpleasant emotions, not feel numb.  Unfortunately, a vast majority of men have difficulty even sensing the emotions in their bodies and describing them in words.

Emotional regulation is a skill we can learn with practice.  Over time, it begins to happen naturally, just like learning to tie your shoes.  Do you think about it when you tie your shoes?  Put simply, healthy emotional self-regulation is responding to challenges of a situation with a level emotion allowing mature actions.  Affect Centered Therapy teaches us the skills to calm our sadness or fear.

John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of down regulating emotion.

Have you done things you wish you had not?  Do you shout angry words you regret?  Do you withdraw when the one you love is angry?  We have two minds – one that thinks, called the Prefrontal Cortex, and one that feels, called the Amygdala.  It takes as little as thousands of a second for our emotional mind to lead us to shout or runaway.  The emotional mind can hijack the rational mind.  We are no longer seeing reality clearly as our rational mind is high-jacked and our decisions suffer.

How do I stay grounded and present when I feel anger or fear?

We need to learn to stay grounded in our body and connect with the present moment.  This type of mindfulness enables us to respond maturely to challenging circumstances and people. Affect Centered Therapy enables us to change our subconscious responses.  Ninety-five percent of our thinking is subconscious, below the level of the thoughts of which we are aware.

When I get stressed I eat too much ice cream. I cannot stop! I get so mad at my spouse; I shout and later regret what I have said.

Affect Centered Therapy can rapidly enable us to respond differently to our challenges.  We may leave a job that is a poor fit.  We may no longer need marijuana to fall asleep.  We may just walk away when someone shouts at us. John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of being grounded and present.

Do upsetting memories or trauma affect your concentration? We may lie awake at night with our mind filled with worries about money. A memory of an argument with our child or partner may distract our concentration the next day while trying to concentrate on school or work.

Containing these intrusive worries is an important thing to learn. “Affect Centered Therapy” is a remedy for problems controlling our thoughts and emotions. As a baby, we learn to soothe or calm ourselves from our mother’s love as she holds and caresses us. We then learn to comfort ourselves by sucking our thumb or snuggling with our blanket.

Sometimes, we may have upsetting or distracting memories of which we may or may not be aware. All the time, all our experiences are present in our minds, research confirms.

We can learn the “Container Skill.” By using our imagination as well as valuable techniques to balance the hemispheres of our right and left brain, we can feel calmer and focus on work or those whom we love.

John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of containment.