How DBT helps with emotions

DBT teaches you how to identify, be mindful and accept primary and secondary emotions so that you can learn how to regulate your emotions.  Emotions are not dangerous.  It is your body trying to tell you something.  Take the time to listen.

When something triggers you, take a moment to observe how you feel and see if you can name your primary emotion. If you find it difficult to name your emotion, what body sensations are you experiencing?  Where in your body are you experiencing the emotion?  Are your legs and arms feeling heavy?  Are you clenching your jaw or your hands?  Is your heart racing? Is there a lump in your throat?  Do you feel nauseous?  Assess your body sensations and attempt to name your emotions.  If you can't, it's okay. Allow yourself to sit with your body sensations.

Once you have named your primary emotion, look deeper within yourself and identify any secondary emotions you may be feeling.  You may surprise yourself.  When I did this exercise, all I felt was sadness.   Looking deeper within myself, I was able to uncover other emotions. Allow yourself to sit with your emotions without judgement and show yourself some compassion.  Google emotional wheels to help you uncover what you're feeling.

There was a time when I was so disconnected from myself that I repressed all my emotions.  Naming certain emotions were difficult if not impossible at the time.  If you're working on yourself and need a little bit of extra help, I found An atlas of the human body that maps where we feel emotions particularly useful and interesting.  It might give you a clue as to what emotion you may be feeling if you can map an emotion to a part of your body.

How DBT helped me

I wish I could say that my recovery was going great and that I have no issues.  But that would be a lie.  I'm struggling with my recovery this week.  Interestingly enough, it coincides with returning to work after 2 weeks of vacation.  I've been feeling sad this week partly due to some work related stuff that I think is coming to the surface again now that I'm back.  

I have been overeating and binging for the last 2 days.  I feel like giving up.  As you can see, I've been feeling a bit depressed.  

So what is a girl to do when she feels like giving up

Practice her DBT skills.  

Which DBT skill should I use

DBT Opposite Action

It would be easy to give up. Why bother with recovery when I'm failing and binging again? Because, I feel miserable.  I don't want to live the rest of my life struggling with binge eating disorder.  

Instead of giving up, I choose to practice my DBT Skills.   That is opposite action.

Other examples of opposite action is going out to see some friends when you feel like staying in when you feel depressed.  Doing something that makes you anxious instead of not doing it. Sitting with your emotions instead of repressing them.

DBT Dialectical thinking

Instead of thinking with only your emotion mind or your rational mind (black-and-white thinking), we combine two opposite thoughts that seem contradictory and allow them to co-exist.  Wise mind brings together the cold logic of the rational mind with the feelings of your emotion mind.  It's accepting the present moment by acknowledging how you feel (I feel sad and disappointed) and accepting that you can't change the situation right now (I accept that I'm going back to my previous job next month). Dialectical thinking means using "AND" instead of "BUT".  

DBT Mindfulness

Closing my eyes, I take a moment to observe how I feel. Today, I feel sad. 

When you take a moment to observe how you feel, don't push your emotions away. Just sit with the emotion and make room for it.  Allow yourself to feel what you feel. Don't try to hold on to it or to change it.  Let it pass.

Sometimes, you may not be able to know what you're feeling.  Try to observe your body sensations.  A lump in your throat. A tightness in your chest.  Notice the sensation and sit with it.  Don't try to change it.

DBT Radical Acceptance

By being mindful of my current emotion, I am aware that I feel sad.  

It's important to acknowledge how you feel and accept it. By accepting it, it will help us tolerate the unpleasant emotion(s) that we're struggling with instead of turning to binge eating.

Radical acceptance means accepting what we cannot change.  I can't change that I'm going back to my previous job next month.  It doesn't mean that I'm stuck. I'm accepting the situation as it is today and I'm going to compete in job competitions so I can eventually get a promotion.

We can't always change situations.  Some situations are out of our control.  But by accepting it, it will be easier to let it go.  

Final Thoughts

There are many other DBT Skills that you can use to cope with difficult emotions.  This is just 3 DBT skills that I chose to practice today.

How do you cope with difficult emotions?  If you practice DBT Skills, I'd love to hear your experience.

Mindless eating vs Mindful eating

I never stop thinking.  I read a long time ago ( I don't remember where) that it's like having monkeys jumping up and down in your brain, constantly screaming.  That's a funny picture to visualize but it rings so true in my mind. The thoughts never stop!

How does one stop thinking?

Awareness of the present moment such as following my breath and paying attention to what I'm doing.  It helps me reduce my thoughts.  Key note here is reduce.   Not eliminate.  By following my breath or paying to attention to what I'm doing, I'm able to calm down the monkeys.  At least, for a little while.  When I notice that my thoughts are running rampant again, I gently bring my mind back to my breath or the present moment.

Why do I need to be aware of the present moment?

My goal is stop binge eating.  To do so, I need to be aware of the present moment instead of constantly thinking about the future, remembering the past wondering what I should have said or done, or imagining what if scenarios.  In order to stop binge eating,  I'm working on reducing all the mindless eating.  I say reducing because it would be impossible to completely eliminate mindless eating.  There are times where it's almost impossible to eat your entire meal mindfully.  

Mindless eating

Eating in front of the TV is an example of mindless eating.  When I eat in front of the TV, I'm not paying attention to my food.  Sure, it's satisfying when I take a bite and it makes me feel great.  But I'm simply eating to satisfy a craving most of the time or because it's dinner time.  One of my bad habits is eating a meal or a snack in front of the TV.  That's all mindless eating.  I'm paying attention to the TV, binging on Netflix or Amazon Prime TV.  It's time to form a new habit.

Mindful eating

Instead of eating mindlessly, I'm eating all my meals sitting at the dining table.  Well most of them, after all, I'm a work in progress.  For example, when I sit at the table with a stir fry plate, I pay attention to the food on my plate by observing all the different colors of the vegetables, meat and grain on my plate.  Then, I bring the food to my nose and smell it. I love the smells of ginger and garlic. I put the food in my mouth and chew it slowly, paying attention to the texture and my taste buds.  By focusing on my eating experience, I'm slowing down my eating and really enjoying the food.  Thoughts still cross my mind during my experience so when I find myself thinking about work or something else, I gently bring my mind back to eating mindfully.  

Other mindful experiences

Mindful eating is only one example of doing something mindfully.  

I also take walks mindfully by paying attention to the movement of my feet on the ground, the feelings in my legs as I walk or the movement of my arms.  Instead of allowing my thoughts to run free with past and future, I pay attention to the present moment and I stay present in my body so to speak.

When I feel exhausted after a long day, I don't feel like cleaning the kitchen after cooking a meal or even cooking for that matter.  I do the opposite of what I really feel like doing which is nothing or ordering food.  Opposite action is also a great DBT Skill.  Once I'm finished, I realize it wasn't so bad after all and it also makes me feel good because I cooked a home-made meal for my family and/or my kitchen is clean. 

Whether I'm eating, walking, cooking, or cleaning, I practice mindfulness by being fully present in the moment.  It really does make a difference in my life.

How to cope with cravings and urges to eat without turning to food

Food obsession

I can be watching TV, reading a book, working, or even playing a game on my phone and all of a sudden, I think about food.  Usually something highly palatable and sometimes something nutritious. The food thoughts quickly turn into an obsession.  I can't stop thinking about it.  The obsession becomes uncomfortable and impossible to tolerate.  My brain screams "I WANT FOOD!  I WANT FOOD!  NOW!".

Old neural pathway to cope with food thoughts (The Highway)

My brain has two neural pathways when it comes to cravings and urges to eat, which I like to call the highway, that were created by 25+ years of bad habits and old behaviors:

1. Fight the urge to eat: When a craving or an urge to eat hits me, the first thing I want to do is fight the urge to eat. I try to resist the urge as long as I can but I can't stop thinking about food.  It doesn't take long for the food thoughts to turn into an obsession which becomes intolerable.  I usually eat to stop the obsessive thoughts and the uncomfortable feelings that comes with fighting the urge.  And once I start eating, either I eat too much all day and/or I binge.
2. Turn to food automatically:  Sometimes, when the urge to eat hits me, I'll simply eat whatever I'm craving and when I tell myself "I shouldn't eat" that, my brain quickly responds "I don't care" and I simply turn to food.  

How to cope with cravings and urges to eat without turning to food

Creating a new neural pathway (Country Roads)

By participating in new activities, forming new habits and behaviors, I am training my brain to create a new neural pathway, what I like to call the country road, to cope with my food obsession.  

Instead of fighting my cravings and my urges to eat, I choose to experience and accept my cravings and my urges to eat.  It's time for me to stop trying to avoid and escape my experience with food.

How to experience my cravings and my urges to eat to create a new neural pathway?

Instead of fighting the urge to eat or binge, I observe my thoughts and my feelings as they cross my mind.  I make space for them.  When I choose to sit with my thoughts, I find that they don't hold as much power and it is much easier to tolerate.  

Urge surfing is also a great DBT skill to cope with urges to eat. When I feel the urge to eat when I'm not physically hungry, I surf the urge without giving in to it or pushing it away.  I sit there and observe my thoughts without judgement.  I observe the urge as it rises in intensity, riding it to its peak until it finally starts to subside. 

By accepting that I have obsessive thoughts about food, I can learn to sit with them.  I can ride the urge.  By repeating this new behavior over and over again, I am creating a new neural pathway in my brain.  Using the old Highway to cope with my food obsession is no longer working for me. It's time to make room for a new coping mechanism. 

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results." - Albert Einstein.