Self-Regulation
“Externalized safety is not self-regulation; it places emotional equilibrium at the discretion of another’s emotional state.”
Regulating off someone else’s mood and emotion is a trauma response.
When another person’s emotions consistently overwhelm your nervous system, you don’t learn self-regulation, you learn to regulate through them.
In relationships marked by emotional outbursts, withdrawal, or blame, you’re conditioned to monitor their emotional state before checking in with your own. Your attention shifts outward, scanning for subtle changes in tone, energy, or tension.
You become skilled at reading the room, anticipating conflict, managing emotional intensity, and keeping things “calm” at all costs. Not because you’re controlling, but because your nervous system learned that safety came first.
Over time, this pattern settles into the body.
When a partner, friend, or parent is upset, you feel it immediately. Your chest tightens. Your heart races. You start explaining yourself too much, minimizing your needs, or rushing to fix theirs. Because somewhere along the way, your body learned: If they’re not okay, I’m not safe.
This can look like codependency on the surface, but at its core, it began as survival. You were wired to believe:
If they’re calm, I’m safe.
If they’re upset, I did something wrong.
If I stay small, I won’t make it worse.
But that isn’t true regulation. That’s outsourced safety.
When your emotional stability depends on someone else’s mood, you’re constantly chasing a sense of calm you can’t control.
The next time you feel pulled into someone else’s dysregulation, pause and ask:
What is mine to hold right now…and what isn’t?
Then breathe into that boundary.
You don’t have to abandon yourself to stay safe. You don’t have to regulate through other people anymore. You can learn to regulate from within, even when someone else is struggling.
Because the most secure relationship you will ever build is the one you create with yourself—where your sense of calm is no longer dictated by someone else’s chaos.