On Emotional Regulation

2026.03.08

CXLII

[The Negative Elephant in the Room; Wannabe Bukowksi; Drowning in Type 1 Fun; Emotional Regulation; A List of Tactics; The Lifelong Skill]

Thesis: Emotional Regulation equips you to overcome negative experience without running from it.

[The Negative Elephant in the Room]

While life is beautiful, it’s really, really easy to get so caught up in running from the painful parts of experience that you forget about the beauty altogether.

I’ve had objectively amazing periods of life where all I could think about was the perceived negative parts—and I’m going to share about one such particularly crazy period, today.

And that's not because the perceived negative parts are "bigger" or more important than the good parts, even though the negative can feel like the overbearing “Elephant” in the room of your mind. In my experience, when I'm stuck viewing events and the world negatively, even when so many good things are happening to me, it's often because I haven't actually accepted & processed the negative parts.

Learning to emotionally regulate and process these perceived negative parts is one of the most important things you can do in life, because painful things will keep happening again and again. If you don’t exercise your muscle for dealing with them, you’re liable to get stuck in a cycle of having to use vices to cope with it, instead of accepting it.

These vices and distractions might make you feel better in the moment, but they don't actually solve the issue. They probably make it worse!

[Wannabe Bukowksi]

My freshmen year at the University of Michigan was a huge adjustment for me. I went from homecoming king of a small school with 28 students in my graduating class to being 1 of 8,000 freshmen from all over the world.

Naturally, I faced a lot of rejection and had a ton of new experiences that I was completely unfamiliar with. That’s normal for that phase of life, but I adjusted rather poorly. Which, in all honesty, is normal, too.

But, the extent to which I found myself behaving like a degenerate was probably a bit extreme. Below are some of my habits from the time:

• Wake up with ~ 6 hours of sleep

• Do that thing 18 yr old boys really like to do

• Start drinking a 300MG energy drink on my way to class

• Sometimes pay attention, sometimes trade options in class instead

• Use snapchat / instagram / dating apps a lot throughout the day

• Take a 100MG caffeine pill followed by a middday nap

• Do that thing 18 yr old boys really like to do

• At least a couple of days a week, I would "pregame" the dining hall dinner with a couple of shots of whiskey. Candidly, this was quite brilliant in it's degeneracy: I was making an efficient and economic use of alcohol by consuming it on an empty stomach

• Eat pretty unhealthy (lots of Mojo cookies and ice cream, putting my current Berryline addiction to shame)

• Drink many nights regardless of whether I was hanging with friends or not

• Sometimes go out on a Tuesday / Thursday (at least once on a Monday)

• Do that thing 18 yr old boys really like to do

• Black out more than once…

• Sit on my phone on social media before I went to bed

Keep in mind that the above is something of a redacted version. Regardless, it should be enough for you to still get the idea that I quite perfectly kept myself always occupied with any of a number of easy to access vices. I basically thought I was Charles Bukowski.

The most incredible part of all of this is that I was still quite competent during the whole thing. I got all A’s my first semester, I was becoming decent at options trading (barring one particular high risk mistake), I was starting a club, and meeting people.

In other words, I was behaving like a total degenerate, but on paper, I was "doing fine." Of course, it’s easy to say that without all of that, I would’ve been doing way better, just as it’s easy to say that without all of that, I wouldn’t have had a reason to grow into the person I am today.

[Drowning in Type 1 Fun]

The point of me sharing all of this is to emphasize that while my degeneracy never "outstripped my competence," if you will, it was still a very bad place to be in.

I was not actually having a good time. While I had moments of uncanny lucidity and was drowning in Type 1 fun, overall, it should go without saying that I was not in a great place psychologically.

I felt alone, isolated, and sad. The craziest part of all of this is that my life did not suck at all. Plenty of great things were happening that I was too busy moping and partying to appreciate:

• I was meeting life long friends

• I was developing skills that would get me quite far in life

• I was learning what subjects I liked and didn't like

• I was reading

• I was developing parts of a world view I still value today

• I was interacting with kinds of people I never would've met back home

• I published my first poetry book

• I was writing a lot of work that I think is really strong to this day

In spite of all of that great stuff happening, my moments of appreciation towards it were rare. Instead, I was so busy running from the feeling of rejection and loneliness, or attempting to take a sort of bitter pride in it, that I didn’t really have gratitude for or focus on the nice stuff.

The pain nagged at my heart but I was too busy indulging in vices to address it.

That doesn’t mean I “regret” this period in my life, although I was ashamed of it for a while. Just like with any case of emotional regulation, I’ve accepted it for what it was.

[Emotional Regulation]

If this is the part where I'm supposed to give you some happy turn around or moment where I was like "wow, I'm acting like a dumbass," I'm sorry to disappoint: no such single moment existed. And, in all honesty, it actually got worse before it got better.

The “turn around” was a slow and painful process of growing up. It was a mix of seeing the negative impact of my actions on myself and others, a number of friends and family making comments, and a lot of slow reflection and maturing.

Overtime, with intentional practice, I began to learn to emotionally regulate what I was feeling. Rather than burying negative emotions and responses to events in a pile of empty bottles, I’ve learned more and more to address, accept, and process life events and the negative emotions that come with them. If you don’t do this, even if it is in reality a small event, the negative emotions don’t go away, they build up in a backlog.

It’s not easy to do and it’s never done, either. Even when you get through a lot of the backlog, more things will happen that you have to keep processing, over and over again as they come up.

I had something that I would call "pretty bad" happen on Friday, and the day after, I felt very similar to how I did back when I was a freshman in college. Tired, drained, etc. So I addressed it, thought about it, journaled about it, talked to someone about it, slept a bit, made sure I was actually eating enough, and caught myself when I was tempted to fall into some old vices.

In other words, it sucked, but I emotionally regulated and dealt with it, rather than spiraling. It's hard to do, and I'm still coping with this particular thing, but it's a muscle that you build. And the thing that would’ve sent you off the deep end years ago becomes a thing that you can work through in a few days.

[A List of Tactics]

Again, I am no expert or monk or zen master, I'm just a sentient (I think) bag of flesh and bones like you. So, I have no idea what will work for you, I can just shared what things have helped me deal with negative emotions in a healthy way in the past:

• It’s cliché, but accepting that the thing actually happened and that your response to it is an emotional state

• No cellphone usage for 30 minutes in the morning so I don't get into a reactive state right away and can process things that have happened

• Limited social media usage

• Journalling every night, which gives me an anchor to process emotions

• Journalling a lot more when something "big happens" to work through

• Reading daily

• Not doing that thing that 18 year old boys like to do

• Talking to friends

• Limiting alcohol use (I had maybe 10 drinks in 2025, and nothing so far in 2026)

• Not going overboard with caffeine. I still drink quite a bit, but swapping energy drinks for coffee and now a lot of the coffee for tea has slowed this down considerably from where it was

• Exercising regularly, push ups and squats almost everyday

• Martial arts: jiu jitsu for me (learning to breathe with a 200 pound man sitting on your chest and trying to break your arm does wonders for other stressful or overwhelming moments)

• Going on walks outside without my phone (Cambridge feels like it might be shorts weather today, thank god)

• Eating relatively healthy (have been struggling with this one lately, lots of uber eats right now)

Overall, these behaviors have a lot more positive impact on my ability to emotionally regulate than taking two shots of whiskey on an empty stomach did.

Note that a lot of these are daily habits, rather than things that are one off. That's because things that suck will happen a lot, and you want to be able to metabolize them regularly, rather than building the backlog.

Also note that any of these on it's own can distract you, too. You could work out so much or talk to friends so much that you don't fully deal with the issue, either. While that's way better than going on a bender, it can still be a distraction from actually first addressing and accepting the thing.

Likewise, all of this doesn’t mean that something like drinking is strictly bad, either. It just means that it was something I used in excess to avoid my problems.

And finally, one other major things that helps me process life and move me forward is having a mission. A clear goal and objective to work toward, a positive thing to build and create. For me, right now, that is BirdDog. While you can go overboard with this too, I think you might be surprised at how much working hard every day on something you care about can positively impact your mentality.

Obligatory call to action: please subscribe if you liked the post. I’d be lying if I said I have any idea what next Sunday’s will be about. But I can tell you there will be one next Sunday, just like there was one each of the last 142 Sundays.

[The Lifelong Skill]

As you get better at emotionally regulating, you'll notice more and more how many people really aren't that good at it.

And it's hard to blame them--the modern world provides so many easy ways out. To learn the skill, you basically have to intentionally "opt out" of the default of a life regulated by algorithms and other people’s emotions and abundant vices.

And you have to very intentionally opt in to emotionally regulation, and commit to it. Habits are your leverage here, because they help you put regulation in a position that's a lot more like auto pilot. But really, as with everything, there's never a free lunch.

The more you learn to regulate yourself, the more grace you'll have for others who you see are struggling and not so well adjusted. And maybe, you can be an example for them to learn from.

Live Deeply,