Stressed? Use This Tool to Get Back to the Person You Want to Be
Have you ever felt your emotions cloud your judgment and decision-making abilities? Maybe you’ve gotten stressed or angry and said something you regret later. We’ve all been there.
Some emotions can show up more intensely than others. They can affect your thoughts and actions, and cause you to behave in ways that don’t line up with the kind of person you want to be. It’s perfectly normal to feel this way, and you’re certainly not alone.
If you can learn to pause and notice your emotions, you can catch yourself before you act in ways that don't reflect who you really are. This blog post introduces the Emotional Scale, a practical tool that helps you name what you’re feeling, calm your nervous system, and reconnect with the part of you that chooses based on your preferences, not just survival instincts.
Why do Emotions Affect Our Decision Making?
With some emotions, it’s easy to feel like you’ve been caught up in a tornado. That’s how intense they can be. This intensity is your brain having a reflexive reaction to something it sees as a threat, even if your life isn't at risk. A stressful event spikes your cortisol levels, amplifying whatever emotion you're feeling. This can trigger your body’s fight, flight, or freeze state of mind.
Fight - You feel reactive and ready to lash out.
Flight - You feel the urge to run away or panic.
Freeze - You shut down physically, mentally, or both.
(Side note: Fawning is another term some use to describe social “masking” or pleasing others to stay safe. This can easily show up as part of the “flight” and “freeze” gears.)
When your brain tries to make sense of the intense feelings that come up in these states if mind, it can latch on to something and spiral into obsession in a heartbeat.
This happened to me recently, when I went from enjoying strength training to fearing that I wouldn't be able to do it for much longer. Fear can bring out black-and-white thinking patterns like perfectionism, and suddenly you're not responding to life based on what feels good to you anymore. You’re reacting out of fear.
Even things you once liked or enjoyed can become anxiety-inducing when adrenaline and cortisol are flooding your system. Especially in relation to something or someone you care about, like my strength-training or perhaps a relationship that means a lot to you, that can feel terrifying. You’re scared to lose it, so your brain starts scrambling to protect it, sometimes in ways that don’t actually help.
This is why making decisions when you're in the middle of an emotional surge can backfire. Your survival instinct is misfiring, because you're not actually in danger. So you may end up taking drastic action, like snapping at someone you love, quitting your job, or like I did recently, overdoing my strength training and injuring my back.
Emotional intelligence means recognizing when you're not in the best state of mind to make decisions and knowing how to pause. The goal isn't to eliminate the intense feelings or prevent them from ever happening. They're a natural part of being alive. The goal is just to create a little space between the feeling and your actions, so you can behave in ways that better match who you want to be.
The Science of Emotional “Hijacking”
Your brain is the only sensory mechanism in your body that doesn’t automatically protect itself.
If you hear something that’s too loud, you’ll reflexively reach up with your hands to cover your ears.
If the sunlight coming through the window is too bright, you’ll shield your eyes.
If you eat something that’s too hot, you’ll spit it out straight away.
But when it comes to the brain, it admits all thought with an open-door policy. It is the only sensory organ that doesn’t automatically shield itself. The mind is trying to protect you because its currency is thoughts, and each individual thought could protect you from harm. The problem is when we believe our intense thoughts that tell us we might be in danger, even when that’s not true.
To prevent stray thoughts from getting in that don’t serve you, the mind has to be MINED for errors in processing. The things that we get the most confused about are love relationships, finances, and health. When you spiral into fears around these areas, your brain can’t easily dismiss them. Those are high-stakes topics.
If you get a scare in any other of these areas, you end up in that intense zone of panic, anxiety, or rage—however it shows up. That’s when your fight-flight-freeze mechanism kicks in. Your nervous system thinks you need help surviving, so it gets flooded with chemicals that add to the intensity rather than helping you calm down.
The more intense the emotion, the longer it can take to return to calm. And when you’re hijacked by dread or panic, your system gets stuck in a loop: cortisol dumps, anxious thoughts, more cortisol, more anxiety.
It’s normal to feel upset about the fact you can’t seem to stay in a place where you feel content, loving, tolerant, and empowered. But humans were wired with a survival mechanism for good reason, so there’s always a risk of slipping into unhelpful thought patterns.
But there’s a way to break the cycle. With consistent practice, you can learn to reset your nervous system. The Emotional Scale is one of the most effective tools I've found for doing that.
How to Use the Emotional Scale to Stay Calm
The Emotional Scale is a guide that helps you identify and understand your emotional state. Think of it as a compass during the emotional storms that come through when you're worried about stressors like a fight with your partner, a health scare, or an unexpected bill. You're always going to have big feelings about big stressors. But you can practice recognizing them, pausing for a minute or two, and exploring how you'd prefer to respond.
Emotions tell you what you’ve been thinking about. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, irritated, or anxious, it’s worth asking: what’s been occupying your mind? The scale can help you move from reactivity to a more grounded place.
The Emotional Scale is divided into two broad zones:
Relaxation Response Thinking
Emotions here (levels 3-7 on the Whitworth Stressometer) reflect calm, balanced thinking:
Remember, emotions of the Relaxation Response are appropriate for all non-life-threatening circumstances. They create emotional steadiness because the relaxed mind is aware and okay with both positive and negative aspects of your reality. These emotions can support decision-making from a place of preference. These require some discernment to determine what you’re really feeling in the moment. It may surprise you to learn that it’s possible to make decisions from a place of preference, even when you’re experiencing these:
Love, happiness, passion, exhilaration, empowerment, adoration, joy, delight, excitement, pleasure, amazement, astonishment
Fondness, desire, affection, surprise, hope, gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness
Relief, tenderness, compassion, nonjudgmentalism
Attraction, cheerfulness, pride
Optimism, preference, empowerment to free-will/choice/speech
Satisfaction, contentment, tolerance
Sentimentality, reminiscence, contentment
Longing, romantic, infatuation
Irritation, aggravation, annoyance, grouchiness, grumpiness, frustration
Anger, disappointment, dismay, displeasure, concern, sadness, grief
Stress Response Thinking
Emotions here (levels 8-10 on the Whitworth Stressometer) are signs your brain is in survival mode.
Remember, the Stress Response is appropriate for immediately life-threatening circumstances only. Emotions in this zone feel extremely negative or extremely positive and create emotional instability, because the mind is aware of either a positive or a negative reality, but not both.
Bitterness, resentment, envy, jealousy
Exasperation, scorn, spite, disgust, revenge
Rage, hostility, demanding, intolerance
Elation, ecstasy, euphoria, “crazy about, or gone mad for” something, obsessed
Grief, sorrow, woe, embarrassment, humiliation, remorse, shame
Misery, melancholy, loneliness, hate, loathing, revulsion, contempt
Rejection, defeat, dejection, guilt, gloom
Insecurity, fear, nervousness, anxiety, apprehension, worry
Horror, shock, terror, panic, dread
Depression, agony, anguish, despair, hopelessness, despondence, disempowerment
What Does It Look Like in Practice?
Together, these lists make up the Emotional Scale. You can use this as a tool to check in with how you’re feeling every day, or even more often. This trains you to become more aware of the intensity of your emotions. If they fall within the relaxation response, you can make decisions that line up with the type of person you prefer to be. If you’re in the stress response, try to pause before making your next move.
A good strategy to feel better about your life and yourself on a daily basis is to begin looking for two or three things in your day that you are grateful for. Gratitude has a powerful way of disrupting intense emotions, so it’s a helpful way to return to more preferential thinking.
This strategy steadies the emotions by calming the mind because it requires your mind to focus on positive variables, too. The mind will stay aware of negative variables exclusively otherwise. So remember to focus on the good things too, as often as you can every day.
Try setting a notification in your phone or placing a sticky note somewhere you’ll see it as a regular reminder to pause for this practice. You can also purchase a poster of the Whitworth Stressometer, so you have a visual in your home or workplace to help you and others navigate big emotions.
Master the Language of Relaxation
Practicing relaxation is like learning a new language. It’s a body-mind language, and even with years of practice, you’ll still have days when it’s hard.
That’s okay. Think of it like learning a new language or instrument. Even experienced guitar players hit the wrong notes sometimes. The key is daily practice. Even five minutes of relaxation practice each day can help retrain your nervous system to respond in ways you feel better about, even when intensity tries to run the show.
You don’t have to overhaul your life. Just keep the Emotional Scale in your back pocket. Use it when you feel off-center. Let it be your compass, guiding you back to the version of yourself who acts from preference, care, and the person you want to be, rather than misfiring cortisol and survival instincts.
Any practice is worthwhile. Even one minute. And any step back toward calm is progress.
If you're not sure where to start, try a simple five-minute relaxation exercise. Even a short pause can help regulate your nervous system and give you just enough space to respond in a way that reflects your values more often.