Self-Regulation

1. Self-Regulation and the Fundamental Human Drives

All of us, every day, are engaged in the same quiet project: trying to manage our inner states. This project is called self-regulation—the ongoing process of steering ourselves into the right state at the right time.

Sometimes this means calming down when we’re angry, or building up courage before a presentation. Other times it means summoning joy after sadness, or settling into stillness when life feels chaotic. Self-regulation is not just a trick for emotional emergencies; it is at the very heart of how human beings survive, thrive, and relate to one another.

But what determines the “right” state? Most of the time, our regulation is guided by two fundamental human drives. You can see both drives in the story of a pirate.

Picture him playing a gambling game, shaking dice in his hand, grinning as the other pirates cheer him on. He lives for these moments—pleasure, excitement, the thrill of winning. This is valence-seeking: the pull toward positive feeling, whether it’s happiness, adventure, status, or power.

But later, when the games are over and the night is quiet, the same pirate feels the weight of his past. He remembers the villages he raided and the harm he caused, and he tries to make sense of it. He tells himself he had no choice—he grew up poor, desperate, with few options. He needs a story that weaves the chaos of his life into something meaningful. This is coherence-seeking: the pull toward purpose, identity, and a sense of narrative that explains who we are and why we’ve done what we’ve done.

Often these two fundamental human drives work together. A pirate who feels his adventures are part of a grand story may also feel happier in the moment. And someone who pursues happiness in friendships or romance may end up deepening their sense of purpose. Still, the two are not identical. You can imagine a person who is very happy but feels their life is meaningless—or someone who feels deeply purposeful but is often miserable.

Self-regulation, then, can be thought of as the art of balancing and navigating these two drives: chasing joy without losing meaning, and weaving meaning without abandoning joy.

2. Two Alternatives for Self-Regulation

If self-regulation is about entering the right state at the right time, there are two broad strategies for how we get there:

Escapism: moving away from a painful state into a more pleasant one. This is valence-seeking—the pursuit of better feelings, however we can find them. If the pirate gambles to avoid the unpleasantness of contemplating his misdeeds, he is “escaping.” Note that escapism is not determined by what state you’re in; gambling is not inherently more “escapist” than working in an office. Rather, what makes it escapist is the dissociation between the two states (in the office, we do not talk about gambling. When gambling, we do not talk about the office.)
Cross-cutting: building connections between different states. This is coherence-seeking—the work of creating meaning and integration. If the pirate tells a story that weaves together his happy moments and sad moments, the story is “cross-cutting.”

Neither strategy is inherently good or bad. Sometimes we desperately need escapism. Other times we need coherence. The key is learning when each strategy helps, and when it becomes a trap. The word “escapism” has negative connotations, and I do mean it to be somewhat problematic – it’s not a complete solution to a problem by any means. But I can also remember the message that you hear on airplanes: “secure your own mask before assisting others.” If you’re in a difficult emotional state, sometimes what you need is just to be momentarily in a better one (securing your own mask) before you can do anything at all.

3. Escapism: Moving Away from Painful States

Let’s start with escapism—a strategy most of us know well.

Think of a zookeeper. On some days, she feels happy as she watches a newborn giraffe take its first steps, or proud when a difficult animal finally trusts her. These are positive feelings. Other times, she feels sad that the creatures she loves are still behind bars, or fearful when one falls suddenly ill. These are negative feelings.

But it’s not just about whether the feelings are good or bad—it’s also about their energy. When the zookeeper feels excited by a new exhibit opening, her body is buzzing with energy. That’s high arousal. When she feels content after a long, quiet day of work, that’s low arousal. Similarly, when she feels fearful, her heart races—that’s high arousal again. But when she feels sad, her energy sinks low—that’s low arousal.

These two dimensions—whether the feeling is positive or negative (valence), and whether it’s high or low in energy (arousal)—shape our emotional states. And escapism is, at its core, about shifting between them.

Escapism means moving into a more pleasant psychological state when the one we’re in feels unbearable. This could mean changing valence (moving from negative to positive emotion) or changing arousal (moving from a state of agitation into one of calm, or vice versa).

Examples of escapism include:

Escaping existential anxiety (facing mortality, meaninglessness) by moving into truth-seeking (energized by curiosity and discovery).

Leaving a state of alarm (heart pounding, fight-or-flight) for a state of discomfort (still unpleasant, but calmer).

In these cases, we haven’t necessarily solved the problem that caused the original state, but we’ve shifted into something more bearable.

Exercise: Mapping Your States

Take a sheet of paper and draw a grid with four quadrants:

Positive, high arousal (excited, triumphant, energized)
Positive, low arousal (relaxed, calm, content)
Negative, high arousal (angry, anxious, disgusted)
Negative, low arousal (sad, bored, ashamed)

Over the course of a day, jot down which states you move through. Which ones do you try to escape most often? And what strategies do you use?

Escapism doesn’t always mean Netflix binges or ice cream—sometimes it’s as simple as calling a friend when you’re lonely, or cranking up music when you’re stressed. The key is noticing how you escape, and whether your escapes help in the long run.

4. Terror Management Theory as a Special Case of Escapism

Psychologists have studied one powerful form of escapism under the name Terror Management Theory (TMT). TMT begins with a simple but frightening fact: human beings are aware that we will die. This knowledge can create overwhelming existential anxiety—a state of dread that is hard to live with.

The problem is that humans, alone of all animals, know that we must die. Whereas animals fear individual dangers, only humans can piece together these dangers and realize that we cannot escape them forever. Humans are still animals, and we aren’t programmed to deal with this situation.

How do we escape this dread? According to TMT, we latch onto sources of esteem (feeling worthwhile) or conformity (belonging to a valued group). These provide a buffer, allowing us to stop thinking about death. In this sense, TMT is just a special case of escapism: we leave the unbearable state of existential fear for the more tolerable states of pride, patriotism, faith, or community.

Think back to moments of collective crisis—say, the aftermath of 9/11, the Iraq War, or the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people escaped from anxiety about mortality into projects of positive valence: national unity, shared sacrifice, or belief in science. From this perspective, national unity is a way to escape existential dread. But national unity is also a project of narrative coherence – a topic to which we will turn next.

Exercise: Mortality and Escape

Reflect on one society-wide mortality event you lived through. Did you escape into a more positive state (seeking joy, comfort, distraction), or into a more coherent state (shared purpose, collective story, identity)? Which worked better for you?

5. Narratives: Individual Tools for Coherence

If escapism is about leaving painful states behind, narratives are about staying with experience long enough to weave it into meaning. Narratives are the stories we tell ourselves and others—about what happened, why it mattered, and how it fits into our larger sense of self.

Cognitive scientist Merlin Donald has argued that human culture evolved through three main stages: the mimetic, the mythic, and the theoretic.

The mimetic stage is about ritual—repeated actions that carry meaning. Religion offers plenty of examples, but you don’t have to look that far. Think of family dinnertime, when everyone sits down at the table in the same way each evening. The act itself becomes a kind of ritual, telling a fundamental story – the story of rhythm or alternation between activities. This story gives coherence to our lives.
The mythic stage is about story—using narrative to make sense of life. In ancient times, this took the form of collective myths, but in our lives today it shows up more personally. Think of therapy, where telling the story of your life—what happened, why it mattered—becomes central to healing and identity.
The theoretic stage is about critique and reinterpretation—stepping back to analyze the stories we tell. You can see this in a late-night conversation after a movie, when you and a friend dissect the characters’ choices, argue about what the ending meant, or imagine what you would have done differently.

Narratives, in this framework, belong to the mythic stage. But instead of being collective myths passed down through generations, they are often personal stories—how each of us threads meaning through the events of our own lives.

Why are narratives so powerful? They help us regulate and integrate in at least four ways:

i. Narratives prevent dissociation

Sometimes life is too much. Parts of an experience can get walled off, sealed behind a mental door. This is called dissociation.

In dissociation, the brain has two different perspectives—each with its own emotions—that don’t communicate with each other. Narratives help bridge the gap. By telling a story, we connect the pieces, and the walls between our inner “rooms” soften.

Exercise: Learning from Fiction

Watch the first few episodes of the TV series Severance, which is about dissociation. As you watch, ask yourself: where in your own life do you feel dissociated?

ii. Narratives put words to feelings

When you describe your emotions, something interesting happens in the brain. Labeling feelings reduces activity in the amygdala (the brain’s alarm system) and activates the prefrontal cortex (a center for reflection and regulation). Psychologists call this “name it to tame it.”

The simple act of saying “I feel sad” or “I feel tense” can make a storm of emotion feel more manageable. Narratives take this one step further, showing how our feelings are linked to events, choices, and hopes.

Exercise: Emotional Vocabulary

Pause right now and ask: what emotion am I feeling at this moment? Be specific—are you “anxious,” “eager,” “content,” “resentful”? How long does it usually take you to name what you feel? Does naming it shift the feeling at all?

iii. Narratives shape identity

The stories we tell about ourselves don’t just reflect who we are—they make us who we are. In one sense this is tautological: if we define the self as “a bundle of story-patterns,” then of course stories shape the self. But that doesn’t make it less important.

Every time you tell someone, “I’m the kind of person who…” you reinforce a strand in the tapestry of your identity.

iv. Narratives connect us socially

Telling our stories allows others to empathize with us. Empathy, in turn, reinforces feelings of safety and belonging.

Think of the relief of sharing a story of struggle and hearing someone respond, “I’ve been there too.” Or the sense of closeness when a friend opens up about their past. Narratives create a bridge between inner lives.

Exercise: Stories and Empathy

What stories about yourself do people usually empathize with? What stories don’t land as well—maybe they leave people confused or disconnected? What does that say about the way you are seen and understood?

6. Inaccessible Objects

Of course, narratives aren’t always available to us. Sometimes we struggle to put experience into story form. There are at least two reasons this can happen:

i. Alexithymia

Some people have trouble identifying and describing emotions—a condition known as alexithymia. It doesn’t mean they don’t feel, but rather that they lack words or conscious access to what they feel.

Alexithymia makes cross-cutting difficult. If you can’t label your emotions, you can’t easily build narratives that integrate them. It’s like trying to make a quilt without fabric—you’re left with empty hands.

ii. Noxious objects

Other times, the problem isn’t lack of awareness—it’s avoidance. Some mental objects are so painful that we cut ourselves off from them. Death, trauma, shame, or guilt may be dissociated from awareness because they feel intolerable. In extreme cases, this too can manifest as alexithymia: a blankness around what we cannot face.

In both cases, narrative coherence is blocked. And when stories fail, we fall back on escapism, which may bring temporary relief but leaves the deeper wound unintegrated.

7. Meta-Narratives and Beyond

If personal narratives are the stories we tell to connect our experiences, meta-narratives are stories about our stories. They step back and reinterpret or critique the narrative itself.

Think of therapy techniques like those in Your Resonant Self Workbook, where you might “release a contract”—letting go of an old, restrictive story you once made with yourself (“I must always be perfect,” for example). Or think of Buddhism’s teaching of “no self,” which challenges the very idea of the stable personal narrative.

At first glance, creating and releasing narratives may seem contradictory. But in fact, they belong together. Making and unmaking stories is how we grow. It’s like snapping Lego bricks together to form a house, then pulling them apart to build a spaceship. Both processes are necessary for creativity.

Exercise: Philosophies as Meta-Narratives

Religions and philosophies are the chief examples of meta-narratives. Take a moment to reflect: do you identify with any particular religion or philosophy? Do you value rationality, spirituality, or both? How do these values critique, reshape, or reinterpret the stories you tell about yourself?

Meta-meta-narratives

If meta-narratives reinterpret stories, then meta-meta-narratives critique the very process of interpretation itself. Postmodernism is the most famous example.

A meta-narrative might say: “That story about dream magic doesn’t seem scientifically possible.” Here, science acts as a critique: it sets itself up as the judge of which stories count as “true.” Postmodernism steps in and says: “Be careful. Maybe the dream magic is that person’s personal truth, and science does not hold the only key to meaning.”

In this sense, postmodernism is not just another story but a critique of the critique. It asks us to question whether even our supposedly “higher” standards—reason, progress, rationality—might themselves be just another narrative, with its own blind spots.

Example 1: Understanding the Iraq War

During the Iraq War, American leaders often told a story of progress and freedom: “We are bringing democracy to a people trapped by dictatorship.” This is already a meta-narrative—an interpretation of Iraq through the lens of Western political values. We are assuming that principles developed by people like John Locke can be used to judge, interpret, or critique Iraqi society.

Western law and constitutional traditions reinforce this by claiming principles that stand “above” ordinary laws. For instance, the U.S. Constitution enshrines rights like free speech and due process—principles meant to critique and limit any ordinary law that violates them.

But postmodernism adds another turn of the screw: it critiques even this critique. It asks: “Why assume that your constitutional principles, developed in a specific Western context, have universal authority to judge Iraqi society? What if, by holding up your principles as ‘above’ law, you silence other traditions of justice and legitimacy?”

Postmodernism doesn’t deny that Iraqis may have suffered under dictatorship. But it resists the move where one powerful culture’s “higher principles” are taken as the final measure of another culture’s reality.

Example 2: Understanding Hunter-Gatherer Beliefs

Consider the beliefs of Australian Aboriginal peoples, who often speak of the Dreamtime—a sacred, ongoing era in which ancestral beings shaped the world and whose presence continues to guide life today.

From the standpoint of science as a meta-narrative, Dreamtime is critiqued as “irrational myth”: the world was not literally sung into being by ancestral spirits, so the story is “false.”

Postmodernism critiques this critique. It says: “Why assume that scientific rationality is the only valid lens? Dreamtime is not meant to be a geology textbook—it is a living framework of meaning, identity, and morality. To dismiss it as ‘unscientific’ is to miss its truth entirely.”

The same is true for kinship practices that may seem irrational to outsiders. For instance, rules about which cousins may or may not marry are often seen as arbitrary or restrictive. But within a hunter gatherer framework, these rules might maintain alliances and prevent conflict. Law itself, here, is a kind of meta-narrative—an organizing principle that critiques ordinary behavior. Postmodernism, once again, critiques the critique: “Why assume your framework of ‘rational choice’ or liberal freedom is a superior standard?”

Why This Is Hard to Grasp

Many people find postmodernism confusing.

The word “meta” already implies layers of abstraction; the “meta-meta” nature of postmodernism is a lot to take in.
Science and constitutional law both feel like they sit at the “highest” level—they critique ordinary stories and practices. It’s hard to imagine that even they could be critiqued.
But this is precisely postmodernism’s move: it insists that no story, no principle, no system of critique is immune from being questioned.

That’s why postmodernism can feel destabilizing. It doesn’t replace one grand story with another. Instead, it asks us to recognize that all grand stories—even those that claim to be “above” others—are situated, partial, and fallible.

Exercise: A Critique of the Critique

Think of a time when you dismissed someone’s belief or practice as “irrational” or “outdated.” What standard were you using to critique it—science, progress, law, reason? Now ask yourself: what blind spots might that standard have? How could someone from a different worldview critique your critique?

8. Rituals

Another way of cross-cutting—of connecting different states—is through ritual. Rituals are activities repeated across many states, often anchoring to the same emotion in each case.

Take meditation. When you sit and focus on your breath, you are not only calming yourself in the moment—you are also laying down an emotional anchor. The ritual links your chain of rest states together, contrasting the with your work states.

Rituals aren’t limited to meditation. A family meal, a bedtime routine, a prayer before work, or a song you always play before exercise can all serve as rituals. Each one helps you bring the emotion of one state (calm, gratitude, courage, energy) into another.

In Merlin Donald’s framework, ritual corresponds to the mimetic stage of culture—the stage when human beings first used shared, repeated gestures to bind emotions together and create coherence and contrast between different phases of one’s day, week, or year.

9. Nexus States

Sometimes, self-regulation reaches another level altogether. Instead of managing one state at a time, you can operate from a nexus state.

A nexus state is not just another emotion—it’s a network of connecting stories and rituals about your emotions, one that links your major experiences together. It’s not really a single state at all. Like a constellation made of many stars, a nexus state is made of many psychological states. You don’t experience them all at once, but together they form a pattern, a connecting web that you can’t always see directly but that still shapes how you navigate your life.

Take our pirate. His nexus state is built from a constellation of memories and emotions:

His glum, starving state as a child on the streets, with an empty stomach and no way out.
His proud state when he finally stood up to a wealthier boy who tried to humiliate him.
His desperate state when he agreed to sign on as a pirate, knowing it was dangerous but feeling he had no choice.
His free, expansive state when he first felt the open sea wind in his face, tasting adventure and escape.

Individually, these states could feel overwhelming or contradictory. But together, they form his nexus constellation—a story that explains why he became who he is and why his life has taken this path.

You can build this kind of connection in two main ways:

Connecting via narrative: telling a story that weaves experiences into a larger arc (for example, “My struggles with failure taught me resilience”).
Connecting via ritual: using an anchor that lets one state “see” another (for example, the pirate’s gambling game connects his relaxation experiences throughout his travels.)

A nexus state is not about escaping into one higher emotion—it’s the constellation itself, the network of states and their connections. It’s the way your sadness, pride, fear, freedom, and resilience are strung together into a pattern, like stars forming a shape in the night sky. You rarely experience the whole constellation at once, but it’s there in the background, giving meaning to each state and showing how they fit into the larger story of your life.

10. Escapism as Addiction

We’ve now come full circle. Escapism, as we’ve seen, is not inherently bad—it often provides necessary relief. But it carries a risk: we can become addicted to a state.

If we rely on returning to the same state again and again just to feel okay, we have less flexibility. The escape itself becomes a trap. Think of the person who always numbs anxiety with alcohol, or who always chases triumph to cover shame. The state brings short-term relief, but in the long run narrows the range of self-regulation.

By contrast, when we build a nexus state that spans multiple interconnected states—through narrative or ritual perspective—we have more freedom. We aren’t chained to one “fix.” We can flow between states, seeing them as part of a larger whole.

That is the deeper goal of self-regulation: not just escaping what hurts, but learning to integrate our states so we can move among them with skill and purpose.