Understanding Your Emotions with Suffolk DBT
I share a common understanding with the people I help. I know what it feels like to be born sensitive. Many share with me that it feels like a curse to be emotional and that they feel misunderstood in the world. I say that it can be considered to be both a blessing and a curse.
In dialectical behavior therapy (DBT we talk about acceptance and change. As therapists, we are constantly dancing in the light of helping our clients feel accepted for being emotional and to help them adapt to make the best of such a gift. I know that there are times it feels like the sadness never passes, that happiness is short-lived, and anger is ever-present. I would like to say that emotions change….. in the middle of hopelessness remember that even that will end. No emotion lasts forever. Understanding your emotions is the first step.
DBT Skills Support Emotional Regulation
In a DBT skills group, as part of a comprehensive DBT program, we learn about emotion regulation and what to do with what we feel. Three themes in emotion regulation are:
1) Naming and labeling emotions
2) Reducing vulnerability to negative emotions
3) Decreasing emotional suffering
Naming and Labeling Emotion
Being able to identify what an emotion feels like inside of us, what it looks like to others who are observing/interacting with us, and whether the emotion is a primary emotion or secondary, can help you experience your emotions without allowing them to dictate your behavior. Our emotions are valid and real but it does not mean that acting on them is effective.
Reducing Vulnerability by the PLEASE Skill
Reducing vulnerability to negative emotions is a key component to emotional regulation. The PLEASE skill gives you a detailed guide on how to prioritize physical and mental well-being, so you are able to be less reactive, giving you mental space to choose how you respond to your emotions.
Treat Physical Illness
Balance Eating
Avoid Mood-Altering Drugs
Balance Sleep
Get Exercise
Build Mastery
DBT Helps You Decrease Emotional Suffering
Many DBT skills can help you decrease emotional suffering, but mindfulness and Opposite Action are both helpful ways to accept, and move forward, even when dealing with strong emotions.
1) Mindfully accepting the emotion. It is what it is, you feel how you feel. No need to feel shame or judge yourself, and no need to label your feelings as good or bad. They are what they are.
2) Change the situation using the Opposite Action DBT skill.
In the following video, George Costanza from Seinfeld does a funny version of opposite action.
Frequently Asked Questions About Emotional Regulation
Can I stop having such strong emotions?
Emotional sensitivity is often a combination of several factors, including genetic predisposition, mental health conditions like depression or BPD, attachment behaviors, and simply being a component of your personality. When you haven’t been taught how to manage your emotional sensitivity, and have been shamed for being emotionally sensitive, you might view your sensitivity as a negative thing.
While you don’t need to give up on being an emotionally sensitive person, you can develop skills, insights, and self-acceptance that make living life with emotional sensitivity more of a strength and superpower, and less of a stressor. You can reduce your vulnerability to negative emotions and increase positive emotions as components of a comprehensive DBT program to help you embrace being emotionally sensitive through emotional regulation, mindfulness, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
How can I stop judging myself for having strong emotions?
Mindfulness can help you stop feeling shame and self-judgment for experiencing such strong emotions. When you sit with your thoughts and feelings and observe them as they come and go, including thoughts of self-judgment or feelings of shame, you reduce the influence these thoughts and feelings have on you in the moment.
Thoughts are just thoughts, feelings are just feelings, and with DBT mindfulness skills like Wise Mind, you can develop the ability to pay attention to the present moment, reducing the influence of the past or the future on your current state of mind.
What is DBT?
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an adaptation of CBT that focuses on modifying your behavior.
DBT Empowers You to Feel Your Feelings and Live Your Life at the Same Time
Learning how to be an emotional person does not have to feel like a curse. DBT is an amazing, positive, treatment that can teach you the blessings of being you. For more information on how our DBT skills group can help, fill out our contact form or call Suffolk DBT at (631) 828-2264.
Suffolk DBT proudly provides quality dialectical behavior therapy, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, at their offices in Manhattan and Long Island, New York and online. Their experienced therapists specialize in serving teens, children, adults, and college students struggling with depression, borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, and self-harm. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills and treatment can help you or your kids to manage emotions and work through life’s challenges. Suffolk DBT Manhattan and Long Island offer a free screening call so you can get started right away.