Posts Tagged ‘dialectical behavior therapy exercise’
How to Use Grounding to Calm Yourself
“No feeling is final.” – Rainer Maria Rilke There is no such thing as an inherently “bad” emotion. The ability to experience a broad range of emotions is a natural, healthy part of being human. However, most of us know that plenty of emotions may feel incredibly uncomfortable, while many other emotions seem universally desirable.…
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Exercise for Anxiety: How to Tolerate Uncertainty
“It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share.” – Pema Chödrön Uncertainty is often connected with a sense of doubt, anxiety, or fear. This is understandable. The ability to use the information available to us to make the best choice…
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Apply Opposite Action to Painful Emotions
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” – Kahlil Gibran Emotions can often be experienced so suddenly or deeply that little time or energy is given to question the facts or happenings that prompted the emotional experience. When emotions feel visceral and real in this way, we may…
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How to Practice “Radical Acceptance”
“The curious paradox is when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” – Carl Rogers In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the word “dialectic” refers to balancing and comparing two things that seem to be quite different – even contradictory. In DBT, this balance is between change and acceptance. For many people,…
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How to Apply Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills
“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But, let us never fear to negotiate.” – John F. Kennedy In our relationships with others, we inevitably need things from them at times just as they need things from us at other times. The exchanges that we have with others about how to get our own needs…
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What is “Wise Mind?”
“There is a wisdom of the head, and… a wisdom of the heart.” – Charles Dickens There is a natural human tendency to operate from a place of pure reason and pure emotion. When we are viewing the world through either lens, we miss out on the big picture. It can feel cold and lifeless…
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Recognize Your Emotions in 6 Steps
“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.” – Vincent Van Gogh In order to effectively manage our emotions we must first learn how to accurately recognize them. Some people try to ignore their emotional reactions, letting a whole host of emotions…
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Do You Have a Passive or Aggressive Interpersonal Style?
“The secret of many a man’s success in the world resides in his insight into the moods of men and his tact in dealing with them.” – J.G. Holland Our patterns of relating to others have an incredible impact on all of our relationships. We generally learn our adult styles of relating to others through…
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Top 10 Ways to Regulate Emotions – Part Two
Ready to learn about five more strategies of emotion regulation? As mentioned in Top 10 Ways to Regulate Emotions – Part One, strategies six and seven are specifically endorsed by Dr. Marsha Linehan, creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. The following emotion regulation strategies are adapted from The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook (McKay, Wood, &…
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Top 10 Ways to Regulate Emotions – Part One
Emotion regulation skills allow us to effectively cope with our emotional reactions. While we cannot always maintain control over what we feel, we have total control over how we choose to respond to those feelings. The first step to gaining greater control over your emotions begins with learning how to recognize emotions and their effects…
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