Are you in touch with your true cartoons?
In DBT, primary emotions are emotions that people have about a situation or event. Secondary emotions are emotional reactions to emotions. Figuring out which is which may be helpful for people that have a lot of trouble sorting out what they feel, identifying what causes feelings, and knowing how to make use of feelings. The overall goal is to enable people to express emotions accurately.
Let’s take the example of anger. Sometimes, when people get angry, they say things they do not mean. They deliver “low blows”, say things that are extremely hurtful, and launch into full attack mode.When anger shows up, it is very possible that other primary emotions (betrayal, hurt, scared, or sad) are also part of the picture.
Imagine how the conversation would be different if the person who expresses anger was actually expressing any of the above emotions. “I was really upset when you didn’t show up. I thought something might have happened. At first I was really worried, and then I started thinking that you might have forgotten about meeting with me altogether. I wasn’t really sure what to make of the situation. I have this tendency to think no one cares about me when this happens. Perhaps you could tell me what happened.”
Another example may go something like this: Feeling afraid but then feeling ashamed for feeling afraid. Sometimes people are afraid of intimacy and connection but act on the shame. For instance, having a really good time with friends (feeling appreciated, included, and valued) is followed by withdrawal and avoidance. Is this you? If so, what words would you put on your fear that would be more accurate? Are there any elephants in the room that you’ve failed to consider?
Posted in Emotion Regulation | 
Tags: Cartoon elephants, Change, communication, Emotion, Function of behavior, interpretations, Relationship, Understanding emotion, validation | 
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How to track elephantine-sized emotions
Last week, I posted a blog about tracking behavior change. One way in which I get clients to assess progress, notice changes, or pay better attention to their feelings is to get them to notice and track emotions. Emotions can be intense. They can be not-very-intense but-still-stressful because they last over time. Often people minimize the impact and significance of emotions. When clients get better at regulating emotions, they get better at identifying what sets off emotions, identifying the significance of what they feel, figuring out what emotions are telling them, and finding ways to cope ahead, minimize the impact, prevent, or make use of emotions.
For instance:
Notice how big your emotion is (elephantine sized?)
Notice how intense your emotion is (how pink is pink?)
Notice your relationship with your emotion (are you stuck beneath an elephant’s foot?)
Notice if you are avoiding your emotion (are you running away from stampeding elephants?)
Notice how long it takes for the emotion to change or leave (holding on to elephantine problems can create even more problems.)
If the emotion isn’t changing, can you change your relationship to your emotion? (make peace with your cartoon elephants- an open invitation.)
What is your emotion trying to tell you? (believe me, elephants have things to say!)
Posted in Behavior Change, Cartoon elephants, Emotion Regulation | Tags: Acceptance, Animals, Cartoon elephants, Change, Emotion, Mindfulness, Understanding emotion | No Comments »
On the existence of cartoon elephants
Last September (2010) and early this year (January, 2011) I posted a blog about my cartoon elephant book project: The emotion phobic user’s guide to handling cartoon elephants. I even completed an interview about it for Psych Central: http://bit.ly/98hCbI
Embarrassingly enough, I got started on the project…and then stopped. Other projects came up, I became distracted with my life and my practice, and…well…you know how the story goes. I am even going to admit here that I spent 4 months not even looking at my elephants. Can you even imagine what happens if you stop looking at your elephants? (And no comments from the peanut gallery…)
Cartoon elephants (emotions!) do, indeed, exist. Sometimes they go missing, sometimes they get confusing and messy, and sometimes they get big and overwhelming.
In the last month, I’ve been doing CPR on my cartoon elephant book project. I’ve gotten about 90% of the rough outline of my project done. One of the things that keeps me going is that I made a commitment to someone to have the rough draft completed by December 6.
Behavior change is hard. One of the things that I ask my group clients to do is track their behaviors. Knowing that they have to make a conscious effort to bring to mind the occurrence of behaviors during the week helps them figure out if behaviors are changing. Planned periodic inquiries about behavior change also helps. In my case, I know that my cartoon elephant mentor will be excited if I meet my deadline. But my mentor will also be challenging me if I don’t!
In your life:
What is the first step towards behavior change?
When will you have made the first step?
What are the consequences to not making it?
What have you tried before that has worked, and that hasn’t worked?
Who will support you in making this step?
How can you track or monitor your progress?
An exercise in mindfulness: Thanksgiving turkeys
In my groups, we spend time at the beginning doing some sort of exercise to slow down, pay attention, come into the room, and notice what is going on. Some of these exercises are specifically directed at paying attention to the breath. When breathing is slowed, paced, and regulated, a person has a better tendency to think clearer and become organized. Using the breath to regulate emotion, attention, and physical arousal is a very critical skill that frequently gets forgotten about in the heat of the moment- especially a very emotional moment.
Breathing exercises can sometimes be difficult. If you were to spend five minutes trying to focus just on your breath, you may notice spacing out, thinking about other things, and generally not paying much attention to the physical aspects of your breath. Therefore, breathing exercises may sometimes be paired with counting, walking, or other more concrete methods to help you get in touch- and stay in touch- with your breath.
Here is an exercise that is a tangible way of following the breath- and can easily be taught to young children as a way to self-regulate. Place your hand on a piece of paper and trace around it. Every time you move up to the tip of a finger, inhale. Every time you move down to the crevice between your fingers, exhale. Try to work on slowing down your breath so that it is even and steady. When you are done, start over. Keep g
oing until you notice feeling calmer, slower, steadier, and perhaps more connected. Be gentle and notice any frustration if it doesn’t “work” right away.
One way to do this exercise is to keep tracing and re-tracing back your hand on one piece of paper. Another way to do this exercise is to not use paper and pen at all, but to trace your fingers with your other hand. This method can be used when you are out and about, in a meeting, or (depending on subtly it’s done) even talking to other people.
However, if you trace a new outline on new paper each time, you can start to accumulate several pieces of paper. If you’d like to add a beak and draw in some feathers on your “hands”, you can start to ask yourself: How many turkeys does it take to get calmed down? If you get really good and regulating your emotions by regulating your breath, you may find that over time the number of turkeys it takes will eventually go down.
Posted in Mindfulness | Tags: anxiety, Breath, Breathing, Holidays, Mindfulness, Openness, Stress, Thanksgiving | No Comments »
What is your emotion getting you to do?
Emotions have a very important role in our lives of getting us activated, moving, and solving problems. If we had no emotions, we wouldn’t know when we were missing out, miserable, in a bad situation, or needing to make some sort of change. Sometimes our emotions are working very hard to give us a strong and important message.
Have you ever considered the benefit of what your emotion might be trying to tell you? Emotions are messages, red flags, and physiological responses that work to capture our attention. Suppressing, ignoring, or inhibiting them over time can lead problems with our overall health and wellbeing.
Sometimes our emotions propel us to take a good hard look at painful, scary, or uncomfortable situations. Fearing the worse, we may actively avoid.
Avoidance of emotion can lead to inactivity. Inactivity is what happens when our emotions are trying to get us to solve a problem, but we fail to act on it. When we fail to act on it, the problem gets bigger. We feel worse and we get stuck even more. Our experiences of helplessness and powerlessness increase.
Sometimes our emotions are working really hard to get us to approach an extremely difficult thing. Approaching and problem solving difficult things in our lives gives us an opportunity to feel accomplished, competent, and more in control over the outcome.
Are you avoiding a situation or problem that your emotion is working hard at getting you to solve? What are the consequences? What would be the first step towards problem solving? What would you have to risk? What might you have to give up? What might you have to lose?
Posted in Emotion Regulation | Tags: Change, communication, Emotion, Function of behavior, Understanding emotion | No Comments »
Slow down, get clear, and become organized
Knowing what you want gives you the power to ask for it, to look for what you want, and to get what you want from the people who are willing and capable of giving it.
Lots of things get in the way with our ability to be effective. Often intense anxiety keeps our focus on the immediate threat. Sometimes this means rehearsing or imagining the worst possible outcomes over and over again. Sometimes our anxiety propels us towards anxiety-driven action. We are prompted to immediately fix, appease, accommodate, or even attack. Sometimes this causes us to lose sight of ourselves, become unglued, or to become disorganized. We stop looking at our expectations, desired outcomes, or even our unique observations. We don’t think about unintended consequences of our behavior on our relationships. We can become busy accommodating everyone else’s expectations to the point of exhaustion- often to find that other people continue to be dissatisfied.
Take a minute to consider what you want, think, notice, and feel. Consider if what you want might include: Being heard, being taken seriously, being respected, or being acknowledged.
Sometimes change involves a loss or regret that another person is not willing or capable of giving you what you want. But instead of getting into a crisis over it, this clarity allows you to re-consider your options, change the way you are asking for it, tolerate the limits of others, or even move on- and possibly keep looking for it from someone who can give it.
When my clients get better, the changes I observe are quite noticeable. Often there is a shift in energy- a slowing down. They appear more confident as they become centered, calm, and clear. They get organized! They are less prone to non-useful conflicts and increase their ability to steer clear of unwanted chaos.
Posted in Interpersonal Effectiveness | Tags: Acceptance, anxiety, Change, communication, Relationship, validation, wisdom | Comments Closed