by Romina Rubino

Mindfulness, the Body and Emotional Regulation

 

Noticing what you feel before it takes over

You can spend an entire day dealing with everything that needs to be done, only to realise in the evening that you have been holding your breath, tensing your shoulders or carrying a constant tightness in your stomach.

Sometimes you recognise an emotion only when it has already become overwhelming: anxiety fills every thought, anger erupts or the need to withdraw takes over. At other times, you continue to function but can no longer tell what you feel or what you need.

Mindfulness in psychotherapy can help you notice these signals earlier. Not so that you can control every reaction or remain calm at all times, but to create some space between what is happening within you and how you choose to respond.

What is mindfulness in psychotherapy?

Mindfulness means intentionally bringing your attention to your present experience: your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and what is happening around you.

It does not mean emptying your mind, stopping your thoughts or achieving a permanent state of calm. The practice involves noticing what is happening without immediately needing to avoid, judge or change it.

You might recognise, for example, that the thought “this is bound to go wrong” has appeared without treating it as a prediction. You may notice anger building before you react, or become aware of the impulse to reassure others before asking yourself how you feel.

In my work, I do not consider mindfulness a separate solution. I integrate it within Relational Psychoanalysis, trauma therapy and emotional regulation work.

The body and emotional regulation

Some reactions begin before we can put them into words. Your breathing changes, your jaw tightens, your chest constricts, or you suddenly feel the need to control what is happening, work harder or withdraw from a conversation.

The body can alert you that something is happening, but it does not automatically tell us what it means. To understand a reaction, we also need to consider the context, your history and the relationship in which it emerges.

Tension may contain fear, unexpressed anger or the effort not to disappoint someone. A sense of emptiness may reflect exhaustion or sadness, or it may be a way of distancing yourself from something that feels too intense to experience at that moment.

Emotional regulation does not mean calming yourself down at all costs. Anger may indicate that a boundary has been crossed; fear may signal a present danger or reactivate something that happened in the past; sadness may accompany a loss that needs to be acknowledged.

Regulating an emotion means being able to feel it without becoming completely overwhelmed and without having to suppress it immediately. It means remaining present enough to ask yourself: “What is happening? What is this reaction communicating? How do I want to respond?”

How I integrate mindfulness into therapy

Not every session involves meditation, and you do not need any previous experience or a desire to meditate.

We might begin with something simple: noticing your feet in contact with the floor, looking around the room, listening to the sounds around you or observing what changes in your body as you speak about an experience.

The practice is adapted to the individual. Closing your eyes may make it easier to notice what you feel, while keeping them open, moving or focusing on something external may feel more helpful. Sometimes a few seconds of mindful attention are more useful than a prolonged practice.

Mindfulness and trauma: proceeding with care

Turning your attention inwards is not always immediately helpful. For people who have experienced trauma, closing the eyes, remaining silent or focusing closely on the body may increase anxiety, bring back memories or create a sense of distance or unreality.

For this reason, I use a trauma-sensitive approach to mindfulness. We may begin by orienting towards the environment, keeping the eyes open, introducing movement or alternating attention between what is happening inside you and what is available around you.

You do not need to remain with a sensation beyond what you can tolerate. Being able to choose where to direct your attention—and when to stop—is itself part of emotional regulation.

When appropriate, I integrate these practices with parts work and Ego State therapy and EMDR therapy. The aim is not to force the body to relax, but to help it gradually recognise that different possibilities may be available in the present.

When mindfulness may be helpful

Mindfulness and emotional regulation work may be helpful if you:

  • spend a great deal of time in your thoughts and find it difficult to recognise what you feel;

  • often function on “autopilot” and notice your needs only when your energy is already depleted;

  • find that anxiety continually anticipates what might happen;

  • replay conversations and decisions without being able to stop;

  • recognise emotions only once they have become very intense;

  • react impulsively or feel the need to withdraw;

  • remain physically tense even when there is no obvious danger;

  • struggle with uncertainty or the feeling of not being in control;

  • feel disconnected from your body, emotions or desires.

You do not need to identify with a particular difficulty. Mindfulness can also support a deeper understanding of yourself and help you notice aspects of your experience that tend to remain in the background of everyday life.

Being present does not mean always feeling good

Mindfulness does not promise to eliminate difficult thoughts or keep you in a constant state of calm. Sometimes becoming more present means recognising exhaustion you have ignored, anger that has not found expression or a desire that requires change.

Awareness does not automatically make an experience more pleasant, but it can make it clearer.

Change does not mean remaining in the present at all times. It means being able to return when thoughts, fears or automatic reactions have taken you elsewhere.

My experience with mindfulness

In 2017, I completed mindfulness training with Lokadhī Lloyd and later collaborated with the North London Buddhist Centre, deepening my practice and its integration into psychotherapy.

Since then, I have used mindfulness alongside Relational Psychoanalysis, trauma therapy, EMDR and Ego State work. Over more than fifteen years of clinical practice as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, I have learned that turning attention inwards requires different approaches and pacing for each person.

I therefore offer mindfulness practices in a secular, clinically informed way, choosing them according to your history, resources and stage of therapy.

I integrate mindfulness, body awareness and emotional regulation into psychotherapy in London and online, in English and Italian. If you are considering starting therapy, you can find out more about how psychotherapy works or contact me.