Emotion Regulation Skills:
Ok, we've reviewed Mindfulness and Interpersonal Effectiveness and are now going to discuss Emotion Regulation. This is a tough topic for a lot of people, because...well, we're sensitive to criticism - especially over "being emotional." What I'm going to tell you is that you don't have to let your emotions take over. It takes skill building and practice, AND it is possible. Remember the bicycle analogy? Here is where "the rubber meets the road" and you need to climb on, take a few falls, and LEARN. And trust me - you can learn these, and can control yourself and how you react.
First the goals of the Emotion Regulation skills are to understand what you're feeling, then to reduce your vulnerability, and finally to decrease emotional suffering. To start with, you and your group spend some time discussing myths about emotions, such as, "Letting people know how I feel is a weakness," or "I should ignore the way I'm feeling and act the way everyone else wants me to." Like the exercise in the Interpersonal Effectiveness modules, you then contradict or challenge these myths. An example might be, "I need to pay attention to the way I'm feeling because my emotions tell me something about the situation." This section includes information on understanding what gets in the way of being effective. Most groups then learn and understand a model for how emotions occur, based on situations, brain and physical changes and spoken and unspoken cues. The bottom line is that we label our emotions based on what happens, what happens in our bodies, and what we observe around us.
That particular section is somewhat lengthy and challenging. You're given a set of worksheets with some common emotions (like "love," "anger," or "sadness") are asked to first come up with as many synonyms as you can. Next, you list some events that prompt the emotion, and some interpretations that prompt the feelings. From there, you understand and list some ways that you experience the emotion, express and act on the emotion, and what some of the aftereffects of experiencing the emotion are. It's a lengthy but important process, because a lot of times emotions "mask" one another and what we may THINK we're feeling may actually be something else.
Once you've got a good idea about what the emotions are, you then talk about the purpose of emotions: They communicate and influence others, organize and motivate actions, and give us information about situations. Like the previous section, there is an acronym for reducing vulnerability, too: ABC PLEASE. Here, you learn to treat Physical illness, balance Eating, avoid mood-Altering substances, balance Sleep, and get Exercise. The ABC piece refers to Accumulating Positives (both long-term via values and short-term via pleasant experiences/events), Build Mastery (learning or engaging in moderately challenging and engaging tasks) and Coping Ahead of Time (developing a coping plan for a stressful situation ahead of time.)
"Coping ahead" is a skill that is incredibly useful and important - the more you can do ahead of time, the better your chances are of using it successfully. There are different ways of coping ahead, and I've developed a template for structuring a plan to cope ahead when you're in crisis; it's called a "3X3X3 Plan," and you can find it in the Resources section. Another aspect of coping ahead involves harnessing the power of visualization. Most of us, when we're worried about something bad or stressful, tend to imagine worst-case scenarios. Some of us catastrophize - our imaginations can get away from us and lead us down a path to feeling awful, because we get caught up in imagining the worst-case scenarios. In coping ahead, you imagine the worst case scenario, but with a twist. Instead of allowing yourself to catastrophize and get stuck, you instead consciously and deliberately imagine yourself coping successfully. You visualize what you would say and do to be effective, and with as much detail as you can, you imagine success. It's very similar to when athletes use visualization to imagine winning - they imagine that they are practicing successfully, and they imagine not just finishing, but winning. We call it "imaginal exposure."
Other skills include letting go of emotional suffering and being mindful of your current emotions (there's that mindfulness stuff again!) With letting go, you observe the emotion (sound familiar?), experience the emotion - here's where my analogy of visualing the emotion like a wave building, cresting and ebbing comes from. Remember that you are NOT your emotion, and then practice acceptance (being nonjudgmental - here comes mindfulness again!) Other emotion regulation skills include effective problem solving, checking the facts of a situation, and integrating distress tolerance skills.
I want to spend a little more time on one particular skill in the set, "changing emotions by acting opposite " (AKA "Opposite Action".) I get a lot of skepticism about this working, and I want to take a little time to explain it a little more in depth. The basic idea is NOT that you simply say, "Ok, I'm afraid. I guess I'll just feel better now" - that doesn't work. It's more like, "I'm afraid of talking to other people, because I'm afraid they'll think I'm weird" and then making yourself go up to someone every day and talk to them. You first decide if the emotion is justified, then face the fear, and practice contradicting it over and over and over... When you're feeling depressed or sad, get active - Move! If you're angry, instead of blowing like Mt. St. Helens, you avoid the person/situation that angers you, maybe even doing something nice or actively listening to their point of view (without pushing to have yours heard), or imagine sympathy or empathy for the other person. Hard work, right? Again, it takes practice, practice, practice. The thing is, life is good for handing us situations where we can do just that - we get plenty of opportunities to practice.
Next up: Distress Tolerance skills, or what to do for help when you feel like it's all coming apart at the seams. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact me: [email protected]
Please Note: The content in these articles is intended for informational purposes only. This is not therapy, and if you wish to work in therapy, please contact your local mental health agency or your physician for a referral.
If you are in crisis or danger, please call 911 for immediate help. Please, again, realize that seeking out help really IS a sign of strength and not a sign of weakness. You don’t have to be alone in facing these things – there are people who care and who will help.
First the goals of the Emotion Regulation skills are to understand what you're feeling, then to reduce your vulnerability, and finally to decrease emotional suffering. To start with, you and your group spend some time discussing myths about emotions, such as, "Letting people know how I feel is a weakness," or "I should ignore the way I'm feeling and act the way everyone else wants me to." Like the exercise in the Interpersonal Effectiveness modules, you then contradict or challenge these myths. An example might be, "I need to pay attention to the way I'm feeling because my emotions tell me something about the situation." This section includes information on understanding what gets in the way of being effective. Most groups then learn and understand a model for how emotions occur, based on situations, brain and physical changes and spoken and unspoken cues. The bottom line is that we label our emotions based on what happens, what happens in our bodies, and what we observe around us.
That particular section is somewhat lengthy and challenging. You're given a set of worksheets with some common emotions (like "love," "anger," or "sadness") are asked to first come up with as many synonyms as you can. Next, you list some events that prompt the emotion, and some interpretations that prompt the feelings. From there, you understand and list some ways that you experience the emotion, express and act on the emotion, and what some of the aftereffects of experiencing the emotion are. It's a lengthy but important process, because a lot of times emotions "mask" one another and what we may THINK we're feeling may actually be something else.
Once you've got a good idea about what the emotions are, you then talk about the purpose of emotions: They communicate and influence others, organize and motivate actions, and give us information about situations. Like the previous section, there is an acronym for reducing vulnerability, too: ABC PLEASE. Here, you learn to treat Physical illness, balance Eating, avoid mood-Altering substances, balance Sleep, and get Exercise. The ABC piece refers to Accumulating Positives (both long-term via values and short-term via pleasant experiences/events), Build Mastery (learning or engaging in moderately challenging and engaging tasks) and Coping Ahead of Time (developing a coping plan for a stressful situation ahead of time.)
"Coping ahead" is a skill that is incredibly useful and important - the more you can do ahead of time, the better your chances are of using it successfully. There are different ways of coping ahead, and I've developed a template for structuring a plan to cope ahead when you're in crisis; it's called a "3X3X3 Plan," and you can find it in the Resources section. Another aspect of coping ahead involves harnessing the power of visualization. Most of us, when we're worried about something bad or stressful, tend to imagine worst-case scenarios. Some of us catastrophize - our imaginations can get away from us and lead us down a path to feeling awful, because we get caught up in imagining the worst-case scenarios. In coping ahead, you imagine the worst case scenario, but with a twist. Instead of allowing yourself to catastrophize and get stuck, you instead consciously and deliberately imagine yourself coping successfully. You visualize what you would say and do to be effective, and with as much detail as you can, you imagine success. It's very similar to when athletes use visualization to imagine winning - they imagine that they are practicing successfully, and they imagine not just finishing, but winning. We call it "imaginal exposure."
Other skills include letting go of emotional suffering and being mindful of your current emotions (there's that mindfulness stuff again!) With letting go, you observe the emotion (sound familiar?), experience the emotion - here's where my analogy of visualing the emotion like a wave building, cresting and ebbing comes from. Remember that you are NOT your emotion, and then practice acceptance (being nonjudgmental - here comes mindfulness again!) Other emotion regulation skills include effective problem solving, checking the facts of a situation, and integrating distress tolerance skills.
I want to spend a little more time on one particular skill in the set, "changing emotions by acting opposite " (AKA "Opposite Action".) I get a lot of skepticism about this working, and I want to take a little time to explain it a little more in depth. The basic idea is NOT that you simply say, "Ok, I'm afraid. I guess I'll just feel better now" - that doesn't work. It's more like, "I'm afraid of talking to other people, because I'm afraid they'll think I'm weird" and then making yourself go up to someone every day and talk to them. You first decide if the emotion is justified, then face the fear, and practice contradicting it over and over and over... When you're feeling depressed or sad, get active - Move! If you're angry, instead of blowing like Mt. St. Helens, you avoid the person/situation that angers you, maybe even doing something nice or actively listening to their point of view (without pushing to have yours heard), or imagine sympathy or empathy for the other person. Hard work, right? Again, it takes practice, practice, practice. The thing is, life is good for handing us situations where we can do just that - we get plenty of opportunities to practice.
Next up: Distress Tolerance skills, or what to do for help when you feel like it's all coming apart at the seams. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact me: [email protected]
Please Note: The content in these articles is intended for informational purposes only. This is not therapy, and if you wish to work in therapy, please contact your local mental health agency or your physician for a referral.
If you are in crisis or danger, please call 911 for immediate help. Please, again, realize that seeking out help really IS a sign of strength and not a sign of weakness. You don’t have to be alone in facing these things – there are people who care and who will help.