Archive for September 2010
Making use of changes in your body to change emotion
Intense emotions are often accompanied by physical sensations, which can include changes in body temperature, heart rate, and breathing. A person may feel flushed, have difficulty paying attention, and become disorganized or fragmented. Since out-of-control emotions can lead to out-of-control actions, a person who doesn’t have a clear understanding of what controls emotions may simply feel out of control of his or her self.
Changing your physical experience of your emotion may work to reduce the intensity of an emotion. Some people are so tense, rigid, and shut down that they suffer from high blood pressure, headaches, or other physical problems. They walk around in threat mode, sort of speak, to the extent that they lose touch with what is going on around them.
One way of changing emotions involves acting or behaving in a way that is incompatible with the emotion itself. (Note, this skill works best when your emotion, such as anger, gets in your way and you have a desire to change it). For instance, if you are tense, closed, and rigid, you might want to try relaxing your face and unclenching your jaw. Unclench your fists and let your stomach release. Try slowing down your breaths and inhaling deeply- count to 8 on the inhale and 10 on the exhale to slow yourself down. If you are talking, keep your face relaxed, open, inquisitive, and curious. Notice your tone of voice, and notice how emotion influences how you speak. Try changing your posture to open and receptive instead of closed and restricted. And just notice if changing physical aspects of non-verbal behavior impacts, influences, or decreases your emotion.
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In a Day: Effective relationship repair?
Sometimes problematic behaviors can burn out relationships, sabotage friendships, destroy families, or simply send the message that a relationship is unwanted. In some cases this may not have been the intention, but it is nonetheless the consequence. Sometimes clients report that they have done hurtful, aggravating, or vindictive things to other people and they don’t have any idea of how to make it right.
If you are in need of doing relationship repair, what would you do to set things right, to make up for what you’ve done, or to prevent the hurtful behavior from occurring again? How does what you did change how you will be in future relationships? And what important steps might you take in addition to the repair work?
I found the movie In a Day to be a compelling movie about relationship repair. I also thought it was quite interesting when the character receiving the repair work wasn’t initially receptive to the repair. It got me thinking about what would have been more effective, and if it would have worked in this particular situation. It also got me thinking about the valid aspects from both sides. If nothing else, this movie tackles relationship repair in a way I’ve never seen before, and it’s worth watching.
(PS- In a Day starts out with a scene that’s a little hard to watch- but don’t worry, it gets better).
Emotional waterfalls
Emotional sensitivity has to do with our threshold for emotional stimuli. A sensitive person, tuned into the emotions of others, may be quick to respond to emotion. Have you ever been in a situation in which a friend, colleague, or family member started to become emotional, and the emotion had a contagious effect? Sort of like them being anxious led to you being anxious, and then there was an overall increase in everyone’s anxiety?
People in high anxiety mode may easily get into falling-apart behaviors, and falling-apart behaviors generate oh-feeling-so-much worse. Oh-feeling-so-much-worse then perpetuates falling-apart-behaviors, and falling-apart-behaviors perpetuates more of the oh-feeling-so-much worse…and on and on.
In my Master’s program at Seattle University we learned that our own anxiety played a huge role in our ability to be effective as therapists. If we went full throttle into anxiety-generating-falling-apart-mode with clients —well, let’s just say it wouldn’t have much of a very therapeutic effect.
Sometimes clients have asked me: “Why do I have to do the changing if the problem is the other person?”
Learning how to moderate your own anxiety while the rest of the universe is going crazy is indeed very difficult. Staying centered takes a lot of hard work- especially when people around you yell and scream, blame you for things that are unjust or unfair, make extreme threats about the relationship, or have the power to take away things that are important. It’s probably in fact the case that these types of situations would drive anyone crazy, and indeed send them down an emotional waterfall.
Learning how to regulate my own anxiety has helped to do the work that I do with clients. It’s helped me to see more clearly what is going on in front of me, to get into active problem solving mode, and to be more influential in my relationships. Most importantly, it’s allowed me to grieve relationships that won’t change, to accept the limitations of other people, and to extract myself from emotional waterfalls. Being able to walk out from emotional waterfalls is a nice feeling.
Indeed.
So…WHY SHOULD you have to do the changing if the problem is the other person?
Finding meaning around the world
The cool thing about doing DBT skills groups is that there are lots of other people that are doing DBT skills groups all over the world. This week we have been turning out attention towards the finding Meaning from the IMPROVE skills. Since I’m not the only one teaching this material, I decided to tap into the bigger DBT community this week by asking how, exactly, do other people teach “finding meaning” in DBT skills groups?
Patti Hancock from Ottawa, Ontario sent me this response, and graciously gave me permission to post it on my blog:
“In my conversations with clients I always emphasize creating meaning as opposed to searching for meaning. Many people search for years and find little…..I like the subtle message that the word create implies…taking an active role in obtaining a meaningful life. I also emphasize that creating meaning in ones life takes work …. sometimes hard work!
I find the following helpful in supporting clients on their path to a meaningful life; generating discussion and work around their values, encouraging clients to connect with people they like, highlighting their accomplishments, talking about the importance building mastery and asking them to identify situations that gave them an “ah-ha” moment of insight….then discussing how feeling competent and doing things that give them a sense of accomplishment can bring meaning, and of how the situations associated with those “ah ha” moments were meaningful for them.
I encourage the joy of experiencing something…..(many of my clients are focused on meaning that they feel will come from “having” something) I encourage finding delight and appreciation in life’s little things.
Learning from others… I share my experiences of searching for meaning, and of my switch to creating a more meaningful life and encourage them to read biographies of people they like or are interested in.
I encourage risk taking- and get a commitment from clients to try at least one new experience daily.
Reflection- to help clients discover lessons from their setbacks and develop resilience to keep going…trying… creating!!”
Committing to Cartoon Elephants
So here’s the deal- I sketched out the ideas for two books a few years ago. They were titled The emotion-phobic user’s guide to handling cartoon elephants and The emotion-phobic user’s guide to handling the crises of cartoon elephants. The intention at the time was to eventually get the cartoon elephants out to people who needed them most. What actually happened was that, despite good intentions, the cartoon elephant books got abandoned.
Behavior change starts with the first step. It’s easy to say “yeah, I’m gonna do that” but it’s a whole ‘nother thing to actually DO it. When faced with difficult behavior change (writing a dissertation, cutting back on heavy alcohol consumption, changing one’s life) one might become easily overwhelmed by the difficulty of the task. Behavior change starts with a commitment. It starts with identifying the very first step. Then it is doing the very first step. Sometimes it is a matter of breaking it down into smaller steps, and getting oneself to do the smaller steps. Making the commitment public (such as blogging about it regularly) is one such step that could assist you in actually following through with the smaller steps.
The idea of getting my cartoon elephants out to the persons who need them most is exciting and overwhelming. It involves editing, re-writing, and re-doing some of my original watercolor cartoon artwork. It involves asking questions, getting answers, and doing some research. It is a huge chunk of my time. I notice that when I have approached the idea of taking my elephants and making them accessible, I have this sense of urgency to do something, which is generally followed by putting it out of my mind entirely. Which results in not doing anything. Does this sound familiar?
My goal is to try and get the cartoon elephants in press within a year. (Phew. I can’t believe I just said that). The steps I have taken this week include 1) purchasing a few books on the nuts-and-bolts of self-publishing 2) contacting my graphic design person and getting information, and 3) re-writing and editing what I have so far (two pages down!).
So if you want to take up the Cartoon Elephant Challenge, here is what you have to do: 1) identify what changes you will need to make 2) Get three steps down on paper (break them down if you have to) that get you headed in the right direction, and 3) Make your commitment public.