I’ve repeated my DBT class several times and here I am off the rails again. How the heck do I regulate my emotions!? Well, the answer is clearly that I don’t. This is out of order in the class but I needed a quick refresher course.
Understand Emotions You Experience
- Identify your emotion. Okay, that would be depressed, agitated. stressed out, frustrated, invalidated, doubting myself.
- Understand what your emotions do for you. Well, if it was fear and I was being chased by a bear that would be very clear to me. Are these emotions telling me I need a less stressful life? I’m already almost a complete hermit. I actually know a couple of the reasons I’m stressed but I can’t say to those companies, ‘leave me alone and quit picking on me, I’m too stressed to handle it’. So my feeling is these emotions are only hindering me.
Reduce Emotional Vulnerability
(oh boy, that’s the kicker)
- Decrease negative Vulnerability (vulnerability to emotional mind). Okie dokey, none of these are going to help me a bit. Treat physical illness, Balance eating, Avoid mood-altering drugs, balance sleep, get exercise, build mastery. Did all that, don’t feel a bit better. Gah
- Increase positive emotions.
- Short term: Do pleasant things that are possible now. Do one thing each day.
- Long term: Make changes in your life so that positive events will occur more often. Build a life worth living. I’m so far from that it’s laughable at this point.
- Be unmindful of worries. ………..
Letting Go Of Emotional Suffering
- Observe your emotion. Note it’s presence, step back, get UNSTUCK from the emotion.
- Experience your emotion. As a wave coming and going.
- Try not to block emotion. Try not to suppress emotion. Don’t try to get rid of emotion. Don’t push it away. Don’t try to keep emotion around. Don’t hold on to it. Don’t amplify it.
- Remember: you are NOT your emotion. Do not necessarily act on emotion. Remember times when you felt different.
- Practice loving your emotion. Don’t judge your emotion. Practice willingness. Radically accept your emotion.
Okay, I am over my head again/still. I just need to hang in here until I learn how to make this stuff work for me. I will never love feeling this way, of that I’m sure.
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4 users responded in this post
Maybe you’re physically a hermit, but you’re talking to ME (and lots of others in the blog class.)
One thing a doctor said to me was ‘play music that you like’ when I was going through a tough time. For me, that’s rock’n'roll. Something you can dance to - or sing along with.
And another time - I had a tooth out & got a blood clot in my jaw. Couldn’t open my mouth to eat properly - couldn’t drink alcohol because of antibiotics - in the chemist every few days getting prescriptions - I bought essential oils as a way of getting soemthing enjoyable happening.
So the music - and the smells?
Good suggestions. I am calmed down, I have no idea if something I did actually helped or not. I’d rather be just plain depressed than be in that agitated depressed state. That has always been the worst. Guess I feel that way when bad things happen that are out of my control. Thank you for the encouragement
Hi Anita, - Just saying hello. We ALL have our “stuff.” You are a brave soul writing about it. For what its worth, I call you, “Saint Anita.” and not because of all the hard time stuff you write about but because of how wonderful you have been in the blogging class - helping everyone, even some of us might seem retarded.
I’m STILL catching up.
I’d like my “stuff” to all go far, far away
Hardly a saint, but glad to help when it’s something I figured out.
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