Being Regulated Doesn’t Mean Being Emotionless

We're supposed to have emotions, especially around painful situations

There’s a strange pressure that’s crept into conversations about emotional health — the idea that if you’re “regulated”, you won’t react.

You won’t cry. You won’t raise your voice. You won’t shake with grief or flinch at betrayal. No—you’ll be calm, like a tree in a windstorm. You’ll shrug it off, call it life, and carry on.

The problem is… That’s not regulation—that’s suppression.

Regulation means your emotions move through you, not that you avoid having them. It means you feel — sometimes intensely — without being swallowed whole. It means you cry, rage, ache, tremble… and you know how to come back from it, not how to avoid going there at all.

We’re meant to feel things, especially when they hurt. And there’s power in learning how to do that — without mistaking suppression for healing.

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