Emotion Regulation: Observing Yourself Without Judging Yourself

Self-Destructive behaviors can only offer you temporary relief. In the long term, they are all more damaging to yourself and others. For this reason, it’s important that you begin to notice what the rewards are for all your behaviors, but especially the self-destructive ones. This is the key to emotion regulation of your moods.

Changing Destructive Behaviors

But at the same time, also remember that you shouldn’t criticize or judge yourself if you discover unhealthy rewards reinforcing your behaviors. Remember that the principle on which dialectic behavioral therapy is based states that two apparently contradictory things can both be true. The most important dialectic is accepting yourself without judgement while simultaneously changing destructive behaviors so you can live a healthier life (Linehan, 1993a).

It’s not wrong to admit that some of your behaviors need to be changed; you can still be a good, kind, and loving person. Your behaviors provably exist as they do because you were never taught how to deal with your overwhelming and distressing emotions in any other way. if you had been shown a healthier way to deal with your emotions, you’d probably do it, wouldn’t you? That’s what the skills in this workbook are all about–teaching you healthier ways to cope with your feelings.

Reducing Your Cognitive Vulnerability

You’ve already learned how your thought influence how you feel. Remember thinking “I am such an idiot,” will make you feel worse about yourself and what you have done or not done. This type of thought is called a trigger thought because it triggers, or causes, emotional pain and suffering. If you frequently dwell on trigger thoughts, you probably experience overwhelming emotions more frequently than other people. However, we all have trigger thoughts that popup up from time to time.

The goal of developing emotion regulation skills is to learn what to do with those thoughts when they do come up. Some of these thoughts are criticisms. that we were told when we were children b our parents, guardians, teachers, and others. But other trigger thoughts are self-criticisms that we use to insult our self or make our lives more difficult.

A trigger thought can be a powerful negative force in your life if it constantly comes to your attention and leads to distressing emotions. But remember, in addition to trigger thoughts, we can use coping thought. “Mistakes happen; nobody’s perfect,” and then we are able to feel more at ease. coping thoughts can be an equally powerful force if you know how to use them.

Exerpt taken from “The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills Workbook” by Matthew McKay, PH.D

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Kevin Leapley, MA, LPC, CSAT

Sexual Addiction Therapist at Front Range Counseling Center

Kevin Leapley specializes in both marriage counseling and sexual addiction therapy for men. Kevin has received specialized training by Dr. Patrick Carnes and obtained his CSAT (Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist). Kevin has also received extensive training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and is a certified Emotionally Focused Therapist .

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