REGULATE — Coming Back to Yourself

As you know this week started off wobbly. Two people from different parts of my life managed to pull at my peace in completely different ways. I let them spin me into overthinking, explaining, fixing, chasing validation I didn't even want. By Monday I finally caught myself spinning (awareness runs on its own timing) and I immediately slowed down.

In the immense feeling of negativity, I softened, and moved forward from a place of love. The softening seemed logical. It was the opposite of everything I was feeling and reacting to. I brought that softness to the people in question and it didn’t land the way I expected. And in there the realization (yet again) that they are not responsible for my expectation of them but I can be responsible for my expectation of me. The softness then didn’t disappear, it transmuted, it trickled down to me, where it actually belonged. And from that softness came clarity; the kind that gives you permission to stop taking shit.

For me, this time, softening led to clarity and capacity for me to regulate. But that's not the only way regulation works.

What Regulation Really Means

Let's start with how others define it:

Psychology calls it "the ability to manage and respond to emotional experiences in appropriate and adaptive ways." It's about influencing emotions at different points,before they arise or after they've already begun.

Mindfulness traditions describe it as "the ability to effectively modulate one's behavior and responses through meta-awareness", observing your emotional signals without judgment, staying present with what is.

In simple terms? It's your ability to notice what's happening inside you and stay with yourself through it.

But here's what these definitions miss: Regulation isn't always soft. It isn't always calm. And it sure as hell isn't always pretty.

The King Tide description of regulation is: Staying with yourself when you're not calm. It's allowing what needs to happen without abandoning yourself. Sometimes that's softness. Sometimes that's release. But always, it's presence.

Regulation begins with awareness, the moment you notice you're spiraling, defending, or reacting. You pause. You slow everything down. You sit with the feeling instead of running from it. You observe the disparity between what's happening and what you wish was happening. You see it for what it is.

Maybe that means softening, like I did this week. Maybe it means crying until you can't cry anymore. Maybe it means rage that needs to burn through before clarity can come. Maybe it means shutting down temporarily just to survive, then slowly coming back online.

The method changes. The presence doesn't.

It's uncomfortable. It asks you to stay when every part of you wants to escape. But this is how you rebuild trust with yourself, by not abandoning yourself when it hurts. Regulation is being a good friend to yourself in your hardest moments. It's how you create capacity and, eventually, peace.

Regulate is the first step of the King Tide Reset Cycle: Regulate → Refocus → Calibrate → Move

Before you can shift your attention, realign your actions, or build momentum, you have to come back to yourself first. You don't regulate to fix yourself. You regulate to remember yourself.

Maybe for you it's not two people pulling at your peace. Maybe it's a job, a family dynamic, a friendship, your own relentless mind. Regulation looks the same: catching yourself spinning, allowing what needs to move through you, and choosing yourself instead of the story.

The King Tide Regulation Practice

1. Awareness 
Catch yourself mid-reaction. Ask, "What's happening in me right now?" before deciding what to do about it.

2. Slow Down 
Stop explaining, fixing, or numbing. Take a breath. Feel your feet. Let your nervous system know it's safe.

3. Sit With It 
Let the feeling exist. Let it move through you however it needs to. Journal, cry, rage, move, shake, meditate, pray; whatever lets the emotion complete its cycle. Sometimes that's soft. Sometimes it's volcanic. It's not about comfort; it's about connection. It's about not abandoning yourself.

4. See Clearly 
When your body softens, your vision clears. Notice what's real, not what your fear wants to believe. See people and situations as they are, that's where power returns.

5. Create Capacity 
Every time you stay with yourself instead of abandoning yourself, you expand your ability to hold discomfort, truth, and peace at once. That's emotional strength, not numbness.

How You Can Regulate — Real Tools That Work!

Regulation is personal. The ingredients and the recipe are never the same twice. What calms you one day might do nothing the next. Sometimes regulation means soothing. Sometimes it means releasing intensity. So don't look for the perfect method; look for what helps you meet yourself, right here, right now.

Body-Based
Take five deep, slow breaths, exhale longer than you inhale.
Go for a walk, stretch, or shake out tension.
Drink water, shower, or step outside, let nature co-regulate you.
Place a hand on your chest and one on your belly, feel yourself breathing.
Let yourself cry, scream into a pillow, or physically discharge what's held in your body.

Mind-Based
Journal freely for five minutes; get the chaos out of your head.
Ask: "What am I actually feeling?" Name it to contain it.
Write one sentence of truth: "This hurts, but I can handle it."

Heart-Based
Talk to yourself like a friend. Literally say, "I'm here for you."
Listen to music that meets your mood, whether that's soft or intense.
Meditate, pray, or breathe in silence, whatever reconnects you with the stillness beneath the noise.

Environment-Based
Change your setting: light a candle, open a window, turn down harsh lights.
Move your body or rearrange your space, movement reminds the nervous system of choice.

You don't need all of them. Just one that helps you come back to the moment, to yourself, to your breath, or to the release that's been waiting.

You don't regulate to fix yourself. You regulate to remember yourself. Because only from that place can you focus and move forward, clear, grounded, and real.

Come back to yourself. That's where sovereignty lives.