Emotional Regulation

 

Emotional Regulation Skills

Emotions are helpful and important. They communicate information to us about our environment and our experience. Goals of Emotional Regulation include: naming and understanding our own emotions, decrease the frequency of unpleasant emotions, decrease our vulnerability to emotions, and decrease emotional suffering.

STOP

When you feel that your emotions seem to be in control, stop! Don’t react. Don’t move a muscle. Just freeze especially those muscles around the mouth. Freezing for a moment helps prevent you from doing what your emotions want you to do (which is to act without thinking). Stay in control. Remember, you are the boss of your emotions. Name the emotion – put a label on it.

Take A Step Back

When you are faced with a difficult situation, it may be hard to think about how to deal with it on the spot. Give yourself some time to calm down and think. Take a step back from the situation. Get unstuck from what is going on. Take a deep breath and continue breathing deeply as long as you need and until you are in control. Do not let your emotions control what you do. It is the rare incident, indeed, wherein we need to make a split-second decision about anything. Hence, it is okay to take our time to decide how to respond.

Proceed Mindfully

Ask yourself, “What do I want from this situation?” or “What are my goals?” or “What choice might make this situation better or worse?” or “What act will allow for success?” Stay calm, stay in control, and when you have some information and how that may impact your goals, you will be better prepared to deal with the situation effectively. Remember your brain needs time to think all of this through.

Opposite Action

All emotions activate us to respond and the type of activation is biologically wired. The Opposite Action Skill allows us to choose to respond opposite from what our biological response would activate us to do. They get us ready to act. Here are some examples:

Thirst: tells us that we need to hydrate. It activates us to drink water.

Hunger: tells us that we need to give our body fuel. It activates us to eat.

Fatigue: tells us that we need rest. It activates us to sleep.

Switch it Up

The 3 emotions listed above are helpful for our survival; but those that follow require thought before we act and opposite action may be helpful.

Anger gets us ready to attack/ It activates us to attack or defend.

Opposite show kindness/concern or walk away.

 

Shame gets us ready to hide. It activates us isolate.

Opposite raise your head up, give eye contact, shoulders back.

 

Fear gets us ready to run or hide. It activates us to escape danger.

Opposite go towards, stay involved in it, build courage.

 

Depression gets us ready to be inactive. It activates us to avoid contact.

Opposite get active.

 

Disgust gets us ready to reject or distance ourselves. It activates us to avoid.

Opposite push through and get through situation.

 

Guilt gets us ready to repair violations. It activates us to seek forgiveness.

Opposite apologize and mean what we say.

 

Remember:

1 If we want an emotion to stick around or increase, continue to do the action as above.

2 If we want an emotion to go away or become less uncomfortable, do the opposite action.

3If we want this skill to work, we must use opposite action all the way and believe that it will work.

 

ABC Please

ABC Please Skill

The ABC PLEASE skill is about taking good care of ourselves so that we can take care of others. Also, an important component of DBT is to reduce our vulnerability. When we take good care of ourselves, we are less likely to be vulnerable to disease and emotional crisis.

ABC

A Accumulate positive emotions by doing things that are pleasant.

B Build mastery by doing things we enjoy. Whether it is reading, cooking, cleaning, fixing a car, working a cross word puzzle, or playing a musical instrument. Practice these things to build master and in time we feel competent.

C Cope Ahead by rehearsing a plan ahead of time so that we can be prepared to cope skillfully.

PLEASE

Treat Physical Illness and take medications as prescribed.

Balance eating in order to avoid mood swings.

Avoid mood-Altering substances and have mood control.

Maintain good sleep so you can enjoy your life.

Get exercise to maintain high spirits.

Build Mastery

You can build mastery by doing things you enjoy. Whether it is reading, cooking, cleaning, fixing a car, working a cross word puzzle, or playing a musical instrument. Learn as much as you can about the subject in order to be well versed. Discuss what you have learned and write about what you have learned. Practice these things to build mastery and in time, feel competent.

Try Something New

Anyone can master a new recipe and with practice, it can become a family favorite. Finding a recipe for a dish that the family will enjoy is the first part of the challenge. Understanding the components of the recipe and how to follow the steps is next. If you are unsure, ask others who enjoy cooking or google the answer. Collect the ingredients and give the recipe a whirl. Expect mistakes, because mistakes help us to learn. Seek help when you are not sure about how to proceed.

Practice

Washing the dishes and doing the laundry are thankless jobs, yet when they are complete and are done well, we can feel good that the task is complete. Reading a book to a young child and finding joy in sharing that time, is also considered building mastery in relationship building. Playing a board game with friends, or frisbee, or any other sport, can also be part of building a relationship which involves mastery.

Give Yourself Credit

An important ingredient in this skill building is to remember to give ourselves credit for building mastery. We often let the day go as if we accomplished nothing at all. Give yourself credit for all that you accomplished at days end. Watch the video to see how someone developed mastery.

Cope Ahead

Cope Ahead Skill

The Cope Ahead skill is intended to have us consider how we might be prepared in some way to help us reduce stress ahead of the time. When we are asked to do some task, it is helpful to think through to the completion of the task. All of us at one time or another have had to give a presentation. Before the presentation, we likely wrote up some notes or did some research on the subject. We do this in order to increase our chances of communicating a message to others successfully. This is an example of coping ahead of time.

rehearse a plan ahead of time so that you are prepared to cope skillfully with emotional situations.

1 Describe the situation that is likely to prompt uncomfortable emotions. Check the facts. Be specific in describing the situation. Name the emotions and actions likely to interfere with using your skills.

2 Decide what coping or problem-solving skills you want to use in the situation. Be specific. Write out in detail how you will cope with the situation and with your emotions and action urges.

3 Imagine the situation in your mind as vividly as possible. Imagine yourself in the situation now, not watching the situation.

4 Rehearse in your mind coping effectively. Rehearse in your mind exactly what you can do to cope effectively. Rehearse your actions, your thoughts, what you say, and how to say it. Rehearse coping effectively with new problems that come up. Rehearse coping effectively with your most feared catastrophe.

5 Practice relaxation after rehearsing.

Examples:

Ken sent his resume and cover letter to a company for a position and was offered an interview. He used the Cope Ahead Skill to prepare for the interview.

Ken reviewed his resume and the job description and listed the skills he had already mastered. He also researched the company and prepared a list of questions to ask about the company. He realized he would likely feel anxiety and thought about how he had faced tougher situations than this in the past. He imagined how he would calm himself so that he would do well in the interview.

Positive Self Talk

Positive Self-Talk Skill

Sometimes all we have is the power of our own self-talk. There are hundreds of stories of people in dire situations who believed they had no more energy to carry on, yet they survived. Examples of this include Victor Frankl who survived a concentration camp. Another example is Donald Driver, who was raised in economically depressed city, was tempted by the street life, but became one of the best Green Bay Packer receivers ever and is now a best-selling author. Oprah Winfrey is another great example. She endured both physical and sexual abuse, she worked hard to overcome the burdens, and she became very successful. Those people who are successful, very often did not come by things easily. Malcolm Gladwell discusses this particular topic in detail in his book entitled, “David and Goliath.” In fact, the struggles these people endured made them stronger and it gave them an advantage over others.

The Backwards Brain

Emotions occur in the response to some trigger. Triggers can be a sight, a sound, a smell, or a thought. Triggers lead to emotions/thoughts. Once the emotion occurs, we are activated to take action. Many unpleasant emotions  occur due to our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) that we developed as children. These ANTs are based on our perception of ourselves and our world as children before we were seven years old. These are not helpful and we need to change them to thoughts that are based on our adult understanding of the world.

Remember, we practice our ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts) since the time we were 7. Hence, it is helpful to identify the few repeating ANTs that occur most often and change those quickly to something we prefer to believe

What are emotions?

Triggers lead to...

Emotions

...lead to Action