Emotion regulation for teenagers can be explained by the five hindrances, specifically the aversion hindrance. Aversion is one of the five hindrances which are universal and are a way of talking about the human condition. The five hindrances include desire, aversion, restlessness, sloth/torpor, and doubt. Aversion is like a mood state that can feel like anything from subtle resistance and agitation all the way to rage and reactivity.
It is useful to think of all these hindrances as weather patterns passing through us that are constantly changing. When one or more of the hindrances are present, it tends to cloud our judgement and it becomes hard to have clarity of mind. However, it is good to note that many of the behaviors of the aversion hindrance can also be attributed to teenage depression, so it is important to learn the symptoms of teenage depression to see if your teenager may be experiencing it.
Emotion Regulation using the matrix diagram
A helpful resource is a mindfulness-based tool created by Dr. Kevin Polk, which is called the matrix diagram. The diagram is useful for self-awareness and gives us some direction in terms of working with the hindrances. A way to further explain this diagram is that every moment of every day, you are experiencing things and you’re always experiencing life in two ways.
As the diagram displays, you have your five senses that you experience in moment. So, what you see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Additionally, you also have your mental experience of a moment, which are your thoughts, emotions, urges and memories. Anytime you want, you can notice both experience as they’re happening. You can also notice your own behavior and which direction it’s taking you in, such as if it’s taking you toward what you ultimately want and/or want to be or if it’s taking you away from that. The Aversion hindrance in the bottom left quadrant is a mental experience that is happening within you, which can feel threatening when it’s pressed.
A good exercise is to write down all the thoughts and emotions that come up for you whilst reading this article underneath the aversion hindrance quadrant. Those thoughts are seemingly getting in the way of something that is important to you or someone that is important to you. Those things that are important to you, you can put in the bottom right quadrant on the toward move side because you really care about them. However, when aversion is showing up, you may not care in that moment and temporarily stopped caring, but in hindsight you know what you ultimately care about.
The aversion hindrance clouds your judgment and when you get hooked to aversion, you start potentially doing things to compensate, that in hindsight you later regret. In the top left quadrant, you can put all the ‘away move’ behaviors. These kinds of behaviors would be noticeable if you saw yourself on camera. When we start doing these behaviors, its usually because we are hooked by aversion and not because that’s who we are as a person. Also, because the behavior defies everything we want to be, it leads us in a loop in which we end up back into experiences we would like to move away from. This in turn can lead to more hindrances such as sloth or doubt.
Wellbeing, happiness, productivity and success are a byproduct of learning how to unhook yourself when any of the aversion hindrance thoughts/feelings are present and move into the ‘toward move’ behaviors (top right quadrant). This is called being ‘psychologically flexible’ or taking personal responsibility.
This tool is a mindfulness tool, which is to be aware in the present moment. You can also write how you would like to be in the moment in the bottom right quadrant such as wanting to be loving, caring, or wanting to improve. These are characteristics that describe you as a person and how you deal with aversion when it’s present.
Moving away from the aversion hindrance
There are three elements that are involved in the process of moving away from the aversion hindrance and helping emotion regulation. The first element is our need to be able to acknowledge and accept that aversion is here. The natural thing that most people want to do is to blame another person for the way that they are feeling, and it instigates the vicious cycle.
The second element is to step out of aversion as it is happening. When aversion shows up, we usually get caught up within it and we become reactive. This reactivity is like a fight or flight response, and it is normal and natural and happens to everybody. Therefore, stopping in that moment is important, so that you can take a minute to shift yourself out.
The third element is to take committed action and to do the counterintuitive thing. For example, going to the bottom right corner of the quadrant and looking at the way you described how you want to be and think about what kinds of actions would that person be taking. Those actions you can write in the top right quadrant as ‘toward move’ behaviors. Experiment with those actions and see what happens as a result.
If you feel like your child is struggling with emotion regulation and you may need an extra hand, visit our web page on teenage counseling. We can offer counseling sessions to your teenager to help them better manager their emotions.
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