We will open the scene with a man named George. George is what you’d call an “everyman”—age thirty-six, spouse of one, father of two, owns a house in the suburbs, loves his border collie named Elmer, works at a nine-to-five office requiring casual business attire. You know George. In fact, maybe you are George.

The thing about George is, no aspect of his life screams “dysfunction.” More often than not, he is satisfied with things. That being said … George has a problem. (Because what would be the point of mentioning George at all if his life weren’t a little bit messy?)

No, George isn’t kicking puppies or burying bodies in the back yard. The root of George’s problem lies in his difficulty regulating emotions. From a very early age, George has been taught that the best way to deal with negative emotions is to flatten them like a pancake. Let’s see how well that works out for him.

George wakes one morning to discover his six-year-old son, Jimmy, has shoved a fork into the garbage disposal and turned it on. Jimmy has been told many times not to do this, yet still he persists. Maybe Jimmy is going through a boundary-testing phase. Maybe Jimmy just likes to watch the world burn. Whatever the case, George is getting rather fed up with Jimmy’s life choices. Still … George says nothing. Really, it’s no biggie.

The day started on shaky footing, and it’s about to get worse. After sitting in a ten-mile interstate back-up, receiving the wrong coffee order at Dunkin’, and spilling a thermos of hot soup all over his new car upholstery, George arrives (twenty minutes late) to the office, only to learn that the promotion he wanted went to the boss’s nephew, eighteen-year-old Aiden. Adding insult to injury, the boss has decided to move Aiden into George’s office, and George is now banished to a poorly lit cubicle.

“It’s no biggie,” George mutters, grinding his teeth as he moves a picture of Elmer to his gum-encrusted cubicle desk. “No biggie at all.”

Let’s fast-forward to five PM. George returns home. His mind is tired. His shoulders ache from tension. He’s weak from malnourishment. (Remember, he spilled his lunch in the car, and the only office food available was Aiden’s “Congrats on the Promotion!” cake, which George refused to touch.)

“Did you pick up the garbage disposal?” his wife Miriam asks, the second he walks through the door.

Momentarily failing to breathe, George puts his face in his hands. Well, shoot.

“Really, George??” Miriam snaps. “Typical! I can’t ask you to do one thing.”

“I’m sorry, dear.”

“Dad …” The older son, Mark, approaches, vaguely aware that George’s eyes are bulging out of his head. “Elmer had an accident on the carpet.”

The third time this week. George’s heart races, his eye twitches, a layer of sweat forms on the back of his neck. Still … No biggie. Of course if Mark remembered to take the dog out when he was supposed to – “Well?” Miriam snaps again. “Clean it up, George! Be of some help!”

It’s okay … Nooooo biggie at all. No need to- “GEORGE!”

Oh no. Here it comes.

“MIRIAM!” George bellows, leaping from the couch with the heated wrath of man about to commit homicide. “SHUT. UP. I AM DONE. WITH EVERYTHING.” Hurling a load of expletives at Miriam, Mark, and Elmer the dog, George leaves. He gets plastered at the local bar, then slinks home in shame a few hours later. Elmer whimpers. Miriam won’t even look at him. The garbage disposal is still broken. End scene.

Whoa. … There’s a lot to unpack there. So where exactly did things go wrong?

Let’s Talk About Emotion Regulation 

According to the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, emotion regulation is “a person’s ability to effectively manage and respond to an emotional experience” (Rolston & Lloyd-Richardson, n.d.). Every day, we experience a broad array of emotions in response to our thoughts and beliefs. According to psychologist Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are intertwined and directly impact our mental wellness (Cherry, 2020). If we fail to manage and respond healthily to our emotions and the thoughts that prompt them, we often behave in ways that are destructive.

Let’s apply this knowledge to Everyman George. By constantly invalidating his own feelings (“It’s no biggie! Really!”), George is failing to regulate his emotions. Instead of diffusing negativity, he is unconsciously shaking the soda bottle of negative emotions within himself until the pressure is so great, he cannot prevent the inevitable explosion. As a result, he damages his relationships and feels awful. So what’s the solution for poor George?

Well, George must begin the process of emotion regulation by first acknowledging the validity of whatever he feels. There are no “right” or “wrong” emotions. They simply “are”. How one acts in response to an emotion (the behavior), on the other hand, may cause many problems, as George has shown us.

Once George acknowledges that his feelings have a right to exist, he must identify what the emotions are and how they relate to his thoughts. (Working with an REBT specialist would be invaluable). What thoughts led to the emotions he was trying to suppress? How many of them were rational versus irrational? How might George change his thought patterns, which will result in more manageable emotions and healthier behaviors?

Using tools such as psychologist Robert Plutchik’s emotions wheel (see: Raypole, 2020 for a visual aid), George would learn to identify and describe his emotions, including the more complex ones. Proper identification is a crucial step towards regulating emotions. Once George starts to validate and identify his emotions, their impact will become more manageable. This will result in healthier behaviors.

All of us have a lesson to take from George’s difficult day. Even the healthiest of us sometimes struggle to validate and process difficult emotions. Fortunately, the more consistently one practices emotion regulation, the more naturally it comes. This, in turn, leads to better mental health and interpersonal functioning.

In conclusion— We’re rooting for you, George. Embrace those feelings! For Elmer the border collie’s sake, if nothing else.

Courtesy: Gwendolyn Brown, M.S..

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