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What follows is the weekly column we email every Friday that is a companion to this weekly podcast. This podcast episode expands on the content of the column.
Emotional Flooding:
Four Wellness Compass Points
and Three Questions
Psychologist and author John Gottman describes emotional flooding as “a sensation of feeling psychologically and physically overwhelmed during conflict, making it virtually impossible to have a productive, problem-solving discussion.”
Here are Four Compass Points to help guide us when this happens.
1. Everyone gets emotionally flooded from time to time, so it's essential to recognize the warning signs when this is happening to us. Pay attention to physical cues like rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, muscle tension, or feeling hot. Notice emotional signs like racing thoughts, difficulty concentrating, or the urge to react, retaliate, or get even. When you catch these early signals, you can intervene before reaching full emotional overwhelm. Remember that emotional flooding is a natural response to powerful feelings, stress, or trauma—it's not a sign of weakness.
2. Hit the pause button. While we can't always control when our emotions take over, we do have the choice to pause rather than react. When we feel intensity building, we can stop and slow down. We don't have to immediately say what we are thinking or feeling—or send that email, or create that social media post. We can pause by taking a walk, sleeping on it, talking with others, or spending time doing whatever helps us to calm down.
3. Take responsibility for yourself, rather than blaming others. A classic response of a young child when they have done something they regret is, "but they did it first!" Let's be more mature than that. If someone throws a lit match at us, we are responsible for any gasoline inside of us that leads to an explosion. While someone else may have done something that triggers our emotional flooding, we are responsible for how we handle ourselves at that moment.
4. Saying, "I'm sorry," can be an expression of strength. Impulsive reactions while we are flooded do not come from a place of strength, and yet they happen. Apologizing and making amends when we have said or done things we regret is a sign of strength and a commitment to our ongoing emotional growth.
Making This Personal: 3 Questions
Just as a compass helps us to check our bearings and see if we are on the course we intend, these questions invite us to make these thoughts about emotional flooding personal for each of us.
1. Have you recently experienced emotional flooding?
2. If so, how satisfied are you with how you handled it?
3. Is there anything you learned from your recent experience, or from these four Compass Points, that you want to put into practice going forward?
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There is a weekly Wellness Compass Column that is emailed each Friday morning that corresponds with this podcast. You can sign up to receive this free weekly email at www.WellnessCompass.org
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ABOUT THE CREATORS:
Holly Hughes Stoner, LMFT and Scott Stoner, LMFT, are both licensed marriage and family therapists who are partners in life and in work. They are the Co-Directors and Co-Creators of the Wellness Compass Initiative, a non-profit initiative that crates preventative wellness materials for adults, families, and teens. They live in Madison, Wisconsin and are the parents of three adult children and are blessed with two grandchildren, as well.
