"How do you power up the system to neutralize the volcanic nature of an intense...

“How do you power up the system to neutralize the volcanic nature of an intense emotion?” - in the DMs

Great question, wonderful phrasing. This is more of a physical than a mental challenge. Emotions (feelings) are experienced and managed in the body first, then in the mind.

Once we can get control of our breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and body tension, we can prevent the hormone storm (adrenaline and cortisol) that interrupts brain function and reason, leading to an emotional outburst.

Yes, heart rate and blood pressure are controllable with the mind. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with meditation and mind control of the body. I could lower my heart rate and blood pressure to undetectable levels. I scared my doctors many times.

To get control of our body during intense emotions, we need to train for it like a sport.

This training requires that we regularly do things that subject our body to incrementally more extreme stresses and then focus on speeding up recovery, such as rapidly slowing our breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and relaxing our bodies. We should then test our progress by trying to do some mental work in that state.

Example stresses: ice plunges, really heavy deadlifts, or stretching until it’s painful.

As we regain control, we should test the mind for reason. Recite some songs, do math, do a sudoku, or do something else that requires mental work while we maintain control of our breathing.

Once we are able to do this in a controlled setting, we can now control our physical responses to stress and emotions in everyday life. This enables our frontal lobe (reason) to remain in charge, mediating impulses and emotions as needed to avoid going into animalistic flight, fight, freeze or fawn states.