Let's Talk about COPING SKILLS

Let's Talk About Coping Skills

Moody Talk DBT Skills #1: Mindfulness

Welcome to our first Moody Talk of May - Mental Health Awareness Month 🧠

Instead of focusing on one emotion, I am going to discuss the principles of DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and skills that can be used to help with disregulation or distress. The four principles include Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, Distress Tolerance and Interpersonal Effectiveness.

This week we will talk about practicing Mindfulness with the "What" and "How" skills. Mindfulness is not just Meditation 🧘‍♀️ - it's for situations, as well.

I mention a great book called "The One Thing" by Gary Keller. It talks about multitasking and how it isn't helpful to do your tasks correctly. If you're doing 2 different tasks, you're only partly doing those tasks ✅

As always, if you have any questions or comments about this month’s emotion, please don’t hesitate to comment below! If you would like to discuss a specific aspect of Mindfulness, please let me know. Leave a comment or send me a DM! 🙏

If you are having a hard time coping with your emotions or you feel hopeless, I hope you will reach out to a trusted loved one, your doctor/therapist or the 988 suicide text hotline. You are not alone. You are loved 🌈

Worksheets:

What is Mindfulness What Skills How Skills

Moody Talk Mental Health Awareness Month #2: Interpersonal Effectiveness

Today’s Moody Talk focuses on another principle of DBT which is Interpersonal Effectiveness. We discuss two tools used to help keep important relationships and also your own self respect in difficult conversations.

GIVE focuses on having a meaningful discussion while showing respect for the other person and giving your full attention without showing negative emotion. It’s a great way to help both you and the other person feel heard while getting out all the information needed to get needs met.

FAST is another tool to help communicate your needs while keeping your own self respect by not giving in. It can be really hard to not want to give up and cow tow to another person, especially if you want to keep this relationship going. By standing by your opinions and requests, you can stick to your own morals and values.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about this month’s emotion, please don’t hesitate to comment below! If you would like to discuss a specific aspect of Interpersonal Communication, please let me know. Leave a comment or send me a DM! 🙏

Worksheets:

GIVE FAST

Moody Talk Emotion Regulation #3: Using Check the Facts, Opposite Action & Problem Solving

This week’s Moody Talk we are focusing on another principle of DBT - Emotion Regulation. This is a very important part of DBT because it requires us to understand the emotions we may feel in a situation and how intensely we may be feeling it.

Check the Facts is so important because many times we may have an initial emotion that fits the situation but then we jump to a secondary emotion. We could have learned to bounce emotions at any time in our lives based on our environment. I move quickly from Fear into Anger because it feels more manageable.

Opposite Action gives us the tools to better understand that we can do HARD THINGS. It asks that you drop black and white thinking and approach a problem with the idea that doing the very thing we don’t want to do allows us to learn tolerance of that emotion and turn it around.

Problem Solving helps to identify goals you have for specific situations and finding solutions to best fit those goals. It doesn’t require that you do the hardest solution but one that gets you what you want and need.

Worksheets:

Check the Facts Opposite Action Problem Solving

Moody Talk Distress Tolerance #4: Using TIP and ACCEPTS

This last Moody Talk finishes up the series on skills for the four principles of DBT. We will be discussing Distress Tolerance.

The first skill TIP is used for when the intensity of your emotion is past the "Just Breathe" by using techniques like paced breathing and changing body temperature.

ACCEPTS is building a toolkit to have handy when having distressful emotions. Having an exercise plan or Checking the Facts (see last week's Moody Talk for how to use this skill)..

Worksheets:

Using TIP Temperature Exercise

Paced Breathing Relaxation ACCEPTS