Dr. John A. King explains why you crash emotionally the day after big events like Mother's Day or funerals. He calls it the "emotional slosh in the bucket" and offers concrete tools: plan a recovery window, exercise, breathing work, and self-awareness to manage the fallout.
Hey, had an incredible amount of feedback from yesterday's video on Mother's Day and dealing with it. So I wanted to give you a new set of reflections on here we are today, post an event. Call it any event, call it a funeral, call it a birthday, call it any event that you're going into where it's going to be a situation which will leave you emotionally deregulated. And I talk a lot in I deal with it in my book about emotional deregulation and the difference between an episode and an incident. So yesterday was not episodic for me, but I did have an incident. In other words, I was aware of being deregulated emotionally. I was in an environment and situations that were causing me incredibly heightened emotional awareness is probably the best way to put it. So I got through that day because I put a lid on the thing and I squashed it and I knew what I was dealing with and I knew and I steeled myself and it's like, Right, got a plan, work it. But today it was like a fresh kick in the nuts and I wasn't prepared for it. Now normally I'm prepared for these things, but I wasn't prepared for it today. And I think that's part of the wash that we get. Like we make it through an event, then the next day we turn up and we're assholes. We don't mean to be assholes. We thought, oh man, fuck it, I did so well yesterday and here I am today and I'm totally off the fucking Richter, you know? And that's, that's That's a challenge. I know when I was doing the documentaries and stuff and I was talking about this, I knew it would take me a week or two afterwards, so I would plan out that week or two. I didn't plan out my morning. I knew I was gonna get up in the gym, but I didn't prepare myself for the downer. And I think we have to be. I think we have to be self-aware enough to know it's not only the event we're going to face, but there's gonna be like this slosh in the bucket that I talk about in Deal With It. Those who've read it will Remember it? This emotional slosh in the bucket, and we've got to make sure that we have ourselves set so we can get it back to an even keel. And that's, uh, that's a key thing, especially with those that you love around you. Um, I didn't do anything that I, I regretted this morning, but I, man, I knew that I was, I was dark. I knew that when I engaged with Melissa and engaged with my daughter before they went to school, I knew that, you know, I was locked down Worse than yesterday, 'cause yesterday I was in, you know, good front mode. Today it was just like, man, what is this stuff? So like a pressure cooker, I've gotta find ways to release that pressure. And one of the biggest ways is being self-aware of that pressure, going, okay, okay, this is locked up inside. Gym was good. But even just the emotional awareness of it for me goes, oh, okay, breathe, breathe, breathe. It's over, it's passed. No need to be paranoid. No need to be fearful. No need to be uptight inside. Breathe. These people aren't your enemy. Breathe. Breathe through it. Good air in, bad air out, which many of you would have got if you got the book. It's one of my favorite go-tos when I sign books for people. Anyway, cheers. Peace. Have a tremendous day. Thank you, Dr. John.
