WHAT skills#
Emotional RegulationWeek 3Identify#
Identify what is happening so you can do something about this feeling.
Remember If you don’t acknowledge your situation, then it is harder to make the productive choices.
Describe#
- “I feel angry”
- “It’s like a fireball inside me, ready to explode”
Evaluate#
Ask yourself:
- How does this feeling help me?
- How does this hinder me?
Action#
Once you know what’s happening, you can do something about it.
There are two entries for this skill. While they have the same name, the implementation changes depending on whether it is for distress tolerance or for emotional regulation.
Example#
Sarah feels anxious when she is asked to do a presentation at work.
As the time grows closer, she starts to feel depressed when she thinks about how anxious she is feeling. This in turn leads her to feeling useless and worthless, and then she feels that she can no longer do the presentation and she starts to try and think of ways that she could avoid it (which she can’t). She starts to feel very stressed.
After the presentation, she feels guilty that she has made such a fuss about something that, in the end, was relatively easy.