The A♦️ is the doorway into practices which will help us balance, regulate and maintain steadiness, useful for when we are journeying and we encounter rocky ground, narrow paths or stormy seas.

Homeostasis describes the steady internal conditions that living things require for optimal functioning. Emotional regulation is the homeostasis of our feelings. Professor James Gross of Stanford University describes emotional regulation as the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them and how they experience and express these emotions.

If we have good emotional regulation this allows us to flourish as humans, maintain positive relationships and have better wellbeing. Emotional regulation is not about not feeling, nor is it about being over-controlling of our feelings or disposing of difficult feelings and only having positive emotions.

Professor Marc Brackett of the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence tells us that emotional regulation is about having permission to feel the whole wide range of our emotions and being able to tolerate them as they flow in a continuous stream like the water in a river.

As the river of life flows within and around us we want to maintain our balance and keep ourselves from being swept away by one strong feeling or another.

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