This Week’s ABC…

• Advice of the Week: How I trained myself to respond, not react, in high-pressure situations.
• Breakthrough Recommendation: A book that evolved how I manage my emotions—Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan.
• Challenge: One small action you can take this week to start responding more intentionally.

Advice of the Week: Respond, DON’T React

When you react, you’re letting your emotions drive the car.

When you respond, you’re in the driver’s seat, making intentional choices.

We ALL have moments where we experience being emotionally off-balance. It’s called emotional flooding.

According to psychologist Dr. John Gottman, emotional flooding occurs when you experience a surge of intense emotions that can quickly overwhelm you.

But this is a newsletter about being your best self, so let’s talk strategies to prevent or counteract emotional flooding.

You just need to be intentional, as I learned the hard way after multiple times losing my cool from my parents’ antics as I’ve grown older. (If you’re reading this, I love you mom and dad—truly)

So let’s break down the thinking.

“How can I minimize the recovery time from being emotionally flooded?”

“How can I increase my resilience for emotional flooding?”

Let’s start with the first one: “How can I minimize the recovery time from being emotionally flooded?”

Firstly, emotions are physiological experiences. Dr. Laura Delizonna defines emotion as “a basic physiological state characterized by identifiable autonomic or bodily changes”.

What this means is that…

• Every emotion maps to your body feeling something, and the way you feel these sensations are unique to you as an individual.
• Improving in identifying the physiological sensations of emotions, can help you be aware of potential emotional flooding.

Examples of how feelings manifest in my body:

• Anger: forehead tensing, heart races, chest gets tight
• **Joy: **lightness, warmth, increased energy
• Fear: rapid breathing, trembling, sinking feeling in the chest
• Anxiety: shortness of breath, nausea, lightheaded

And the list goes on.

Takeaway: get good at increasing how well you can perceive your bodily reactions in the moment of emotional flooding so you can consciously recognize it.

Now, how do you do that?

Here’s a 3 step process to regulate yourself and minimize the effects of emotional flooding:

1. Pause and Breathe

When emotions start to flood in, immediately pause.

Take slow, deep breaths to calm your nervous system. Focus on extending your exhale, as this engages your body’s relaxation response.

I like the Psychological Sigh, personally.

You’ll experience *“a sensation of feeling psychologically and physically overwhelmed during conflict, making it virtually impossible to have a productive, problem-solving discussion.”*Here are the answers I’ve come up with from my research and experience.

In this state, you obviously lose some of your capacity for rational thought.

The way I see it, emotional flooding is part of being human.

Remember—you’re in control.

2. Name & Reframe

Map those sensations to a feeling, and perhaps use the Feelings Wheel to help you out.

Simply saying “I’m experiencing anger in my body” or “I’m experiencing anxiety in my body” helps you create distance between yourself and the emotion, giving you more control.

Once you’ve identified the emotion, shift your perspective.

Ask yourself, “How can I respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively?”

3. Respond (Like Buddha)

This is a little game I made up, where I pretend I’m Buddha and I cannot be deterred no matter how ridiculously stupid or triggering the situation is.

It’s quite effective, and it injects some humor into my brain when I’m emotionally flooded which seems to do the trick for me.

The key is to just respond with kindness and to be your best self, versus giving into emotional flooding.

Excuse yourself and go for a walk to take the necessary time.

Better to do that, than react and regret.

Now let’s move to the second question: “How can I increase my resilience for emotional flooding?”

And that brings us to the Breakthrough for the week…

Breakthrough Recommendation: “Search Inside Yourself” by Chade-Meng Tan

If you want to dive deeper into mastering your emotions and learning how to respond intentionally, Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan is the book for you.

Tan, an early Google engineer, combines mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and neuroscience in a way that’s easy to understand and incredibly practical.

He breaks down how we can all train our brains to stay calm, focused, and aware—so we can respond more effectively to life’s challenges.

Tan has an awesome goal of bringing about world peace with the emotional regulation and mindfulness techniques he writes about.

What a noble mission!

I found myself bursting out laughing many times reading this book.

I think you will too!

Why It’s Awesome:

• It teaches you how to manage emotions in real-time, which is critical in high-stress environments.
• It combines mindfulness with actionable strategies grounded in science, perfect for anyone skeptical of “fluffy” self-help advice (like I used to be earlier in my career).
• Tan’s method integrates seamlessly into busy, everyday life—no need for hours of meditation, just intentional practices you can apply now.

My Favorite Quotes:

I love these quotes (and many others in the book) because it shows that emotional intelligence is just a set of skills!

And as I’ve written about before, you can master any skill with deliberate practice.

Another question I like to use to reframe is: “How will this situation affect me in 7 seconds? 7 hours? 7 days? 7 weeks? 7 months? 7 years?” → That generally always calms me down.This reframe helps you move from an emotional reaction to an intentional response. “Emotions are not inherently good or bad; they are just data. What matters is how we act on them.”And the universal answer always is: by being kind and not losing my shit.

I ask myself: *“How would I respond if I were Buddha?”*Pick whoever works for you: Mother Teresa, Gandhi, your sweet grandma, your dog, etc.

“The key to managing your emotions is learning to observe them without being swept away.”It’s also perfectly valid to step away if you cannot respond with kindness!

“Responding to stress is a skill that can be trained, like any other skill.”And his writing is subtly HILARIOUS.