Understand emotion SKILL

SESSION ONLINE VERSION

Theme song: “Like a Rolling Stone” video.

MINDFULNESS “NOTICING URGES” EXERCISE

Don’t act on urges.

Step 1: Try to sit very still for two minutes.

Step 2: Notice any physical urges – whether to move, shift positions, scratch an itch, or do something else.

Step 3: Instead of acting on the urge, simply notice it, even when not acting on it may make you uncomfortable.

Discuss: What was your experience like? What did you notice?

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Review your commitments from the “Ride the Wave” session:

·      Surf an intense emotion or urge using the “Ride the Wave Practice Handout”.

·      Complete the Weekly DBT Diary.

·      Come prepared to the next session to share your experience using DBT skills.

1. Until we begin to understand the functions of emotions, why we have them, what their effect is on others, we cannot expect ourselves to change them. Emotions may be comfortable or uncomfortable, wanted or unwanted, painful or pleasurable. They can work either “for” or “against us” achieving our goals in life. When they work for us they are effective. Emotions do three main things:

·      Give us information

·      Communicate to and influence others

·      Motivate and prepare us for action.

2. Emotions are effective when these things are true:

·      Acting on the emotion is in your own self-interest.

·      Communicating the emotion will get you closer to your own goals.

·      Expressing your emotion will influence others in ways that will help you.

·      Your emotion is sending a message you need to listen to. 

EFFECTIVE EMOTIONS ACTIVITY

Turn to the “Effective Emotions Worksheet” included with this session. Answering these questions will help you evaluate if your emotional responses are effective. Write down your response to the first question. “Describe a time when an emotion signaled that something was happening internally.” (For example, I felt nervous on my first day at work or school.) You will finish the rest of the worksheet after this session.

Discuss: Please share your answer with the group.

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3. Emotions are not good or bad, they just are. We use the Understand Emotion skill for emotions that are not effective and we need to figure out how to change them. Thinking that an emotion is “bad” does not get rid of it and can make painful emotions even more painful. It may lead us to try to suppress that emotion. Although suppressing emotions may feel like a temporary solution it causes greater problems in the long run. Controlling emotions takes a lot of work, especially when you are speaking at your best friend’s “funeral” who is still alive and sitting in the audience.

Watch: Watch “Waking Ned Devine” video.

4. Applying DBT’s Emotion Regulation skills will help us to reduced suffering when painful emotions overcome us and manage extreme emotions so we don’t make things worse. DBT

uses the term ‘dysregulated’, when we are unable, despite our best efforts to change which emotions we have, when we have them, or how we experience or express them. Suppressing emotion increases suffering. Regulating emotions can be automatic as well as consciously controlled. Over time and with practice, you will gradually feel more and more free, less controlled by your emotions. Taking time to better understand our emotions help us increase the ability to control or influence which emotions we have. Listen to George Clooney’s “Introlerable” film character’s message delivered at the Organization of Matrimonial Attorneys, Nationwide (N.O.M.A.N.) convention. Mindfulness of current emotions is the path to emotional freedom.

Watch: “Intolerable Cruelty” video.

Discuss: How does cultivating compassion instead of turning cynical help us become more emotionally free? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. DBT helps us learn how to stop or reduce suffering from unwanted emotions once they start. This means experiencing emotions without judging them or trying to inhibit, block, distract from or hold on to them. Exposure to painful or distressing emotions without tying them to negative consequences helps extinguish their ability to stimulate secondary negative emotions. The natural consequences of judging negative emotions as “bad” are feelings of guilt, shame, anger or anxiety whenever distressing feelings arise. The addition of these secondary feelings to an already negative situation simply makes the distress more intense and tolerance more difficult.

Watch: “Stand by Me” video.

6. River Phoenix’s “Stand by Me” film character’s line, “I just wish I could go where nobody knows me.” sums up his feelings of shame, anxiety, guilt, anger and sadness over the stolen milk money incident. Frequently, a distressing situation or painful affect could be tolerated if we only didn’t feel guilty or anxious about feeling painful emotions in the first place. To reduce shame, anxiety, guilt, anger and sadness we need to non-judgmentally observe and describe painful emotions, accept them, and let go of them using mindfulness skills. By exposing yourself to painful or distressing emotions and not necessarily acting on them we find that they are not so catastrophic. You will learn to stop being so afraid of them. Once you are less afraid, the fear, panic, and anger that you feel in response to your own emotions will dissipate.

Watch: “Stepmom” video.

7. Some people like Susan Sarandon’s and Julie Roberts characters in the “Stepmom” film know what emotion they are feeling, others may have no idea most of the time. Which kind of person are you? The simple act of naming your emotions can help you regulate them. It can be very hard to change emotions when you do not understand where they come from or why they are there. Once you understand your own emotions, you can learn how to cut down on the frequency of the ones you don’t want sticking around.

NAME YOUR EMOTIONS ACTIVITY

Step 1: How does it feel to be “like a rolling stone?” Check off every emotion you experienced in the past day.

Admiration

Adoration

Aesthetic Appreciation

Amusement

Anger

Anticipation

Anxiety

Awe

Awkwardness

Boredom

Calmness

Confusion

Craving

Disgust

Empathetic pain Entrancement

Envy

Excitement

Fear

Frustration

Happiness

Horror

Interest

Joy

Nostalgia

Remorse

Romance

Sadness

Satisfaction

Sexual desire

Surprise

Sympathy

Triumph

Trust

Step 2: How many different emotions did you feel? ____ Did any of them come in “waves”, one emotion after another?__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Step 3: Pick one unwanted ineffective emotion you experienced that has stuck with you. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Step 4: Where do you think that emotion came from and why is it sticking around?

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8. Once you understand your own emotions, you can learn how to cut down on the frequency of the ones you don’t want. You can’t stop all painful emotions—but you can make changes in your environment and in your life to reduce how often negative emotions occur.

Watch: “Understand Emotion End Credits” video.

As we roll the Understand Emotion – DBT Skill end credits think about what is the most important thing you learned in this session and what will you do differently because of what you learned. Write your thoughts below.

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Session Commitments

Answer the questions on the “Effective Emotions Worksheet”.

Complete the Weekly DBT Diary.

Come prepared to the next session to share your experience using DBT skills.