Ep. 3: 90 Seconds of Emotion

Real talk: I run a small frat house, (this is EmJ speaking btw) and on one particular morning when my four boys were young, one was losing his mind about not getting a lollipop for breakfast.  On said morning, my husband was gone, I needed to get kids out the door so I could start my work day, and the escalation of heat in my body was hitting mach speeds. I wish I could tell you that I noticed the feeling, paused the scene and regulated both myself and my cute tyrannical toddler, but instead I yelled at the top of my lungs, “stop yelling!!”. Yes, I yelled “stop yelling,” to which tears ensued and shame colored our morning. A fine parenting moment if you ask me. 

At that juncture, I did not know what I know now about how long emotions cycle through the body, or how co-regulation is a powerful tool in the home and at work. I had not developed a “reset ritual” or understood in a transformative way that emotions are indicators and not dictators. And the work we do as a Triad has brought more to light than I could convey in how to regulate myself and others for the good of all.

People talk a lot about staying calm under pressure. But what does that actually look like in the moment it matters most? How do we FEEL but not let our feelings hijack our lives?

Most of us aren’t trying to be robots. We want to feel things—fully, honestly. We want to be moved by what matters and unbothered by what doesn’t. We want our emotions to inform us instead of running us—and, if we’re being really honest, we want to stop losing entire afternoons to a thirty-second slight.

But how do you actually let a feeling pass instead of spiraling on it for hours? 

In this episode of the Make Life Count podcast, we’re digging into the science and the practice behind one of our favorite tools: the 90-second rule—the idea that the body’s original wave of emotion runs its course in about ninety seconds, unless we keep re-triggering it ourselves.

We’ll get unusually candid—a best friend gone silent, a totaled car, a marriage micro-blowup—to show you what’s actually happening in your body during a trigger. We’ll talk about the three-step formula, feel it, name it, boss it, why the middle of the night is the worst possible time to think your way out of a spiral, and how to pre-decide your response before you ever need it.

Our hope? That you walk away able to let the next wave pass like weather instead of building a home in it. Feel it. Name it. Boss it. Keep moving toward who you actually want to be.

Let’s go to work.

Hosts: Krista Gilbert, Emily Love, Emily Jamieson (EmJ) — The Transformation Triad

Research & Resources Referenced

• Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor — TED Talk “My Stroke of Insight” and her book of the same name: the body’s first chemical wave of an emotion runs its course in roughly 90 seconds. (ted.com)
• Schulze, Mueller, Holt, Putz, Barnow & Pruessner — 2026 meta-analysis linking stronger cognitive control to better reappraisal and less rumination/worry, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42069166)
• Dr. Daniel Amen — “ANTs” (Automatic Negative Thoughts), the framework behind “stomping the ants.” (amenclinics.com)
• Viktor Frankl — Man’s Search for Meaning. (the “stimulus and response” line often attributed to Frankl doesn’t appear in his published work; more likely traced to Rollo May, popularized by Stephen Covey)
• Andrew Huberman & Arthur Brooks (via the Veritas Forum) — on not trusting thoughts that arise between roughly 2:00–5:30 a.m. (specific conversation not pinned down this session)

Connect with The Transformation Triad

• Website: thetransformationtriad.com
• Instagram: @thetransformationtriad
• YouTube: @thetransformationtriad
• Contact: thrive@thetransformationtriad.com

Live your purpose. Love your people. Own your practice. MAKE LIFE COUNT.