Goals
The goal that gives you an understanding of what emotions do for you and gives you words and sensations to identify your emotions
What is: Understanding and naming your own emotions
What do emotions do for us?
They motivate us for behavior, they communicate to (and influence) others, and they communicate to ourselves
What are the 3 skills covered in this section?
Checking the facts
Opposite action
Problem-solving
What is the acronym for the skill we use to reduce emotional vulnerability and build a life worth living?
ABC PLEASE
Give an example of opposite action to fear
Moving towards the thing you are afraid of
The goal that helps you to stop unwanted emotions before they start or changing them once they have started
What is: Decrease the frequency of unwanted emotions
What makes it hard to regulate our emotions?
Biology, lack of skill, reinforcement of emotional behavior, moodiness, emotion overload, and myths about emotions
What are some of the steps we go through when checking the facts?
(1) What is the emotion I want to change?
(2) What is the prompting event?
(3) What are my assumptions?
(4) Am I assuming a threat?
(5) What's the catastrophe?
(6) Does my emotion / intensity fit the actual facts?
How do you accumulate positive emotions in the short term? what about the long term?
Short-term - do positive things NOW, be mindful of pleasant emotions and be unmindful of worries
Long-term - set goals based on what is important to you now and take small steps towards those goals
Give an example of opposite action to anger
Showing compassion
The goal that helps you to build your resilience to cope with difficult things and emotions and decreases vulnerability to emotion mind
What is: Decrease emotional vulnerability
True or false?
Our beliefs about a situation can be directly connected to how we think and feel about it and how we react.
True
(Emotion regulation handout 5)
True or false?
There are factual situations that can trigger very big and intense emotions like fear, anger, sadness, shame and guilt
True
What does it mean to build mastery?
Doing at least one thing each day to build a sense of accomplishment
Give an example of opposite action to sadness
Get moving
The goal that helps you to manage extreme emotions so that you don't make things worse
What is: Decrease emotional suffering
What are the different ways of describing emotions?
Words, prompting events, interpretations of the event, biological changes and experiences, expressions and actions, and aftereffects.
True or false?
You should always use opposite action to change emotions?
False
You only use opposite action when the emotion doesn't match the facts and when acting on the feeling isn't effective
How is "cope ahead" different from worrying about the future?
In coping ahead, you describe a situation that is likely to prompt the problem behavior and then decide which coping skills or problem-solving strategies you would use in that situation. Imagine being in the situation using these skills effectively.
Name some sleep hygiene tips
Going to bed and waking at the same time each day
Avoid caffeine late in the day
Give yourself an hour to fall asleep (get into bed an hour before you want to fall asleep)
Make the room comfortable
Do not catastrophize
True of false: The goal of emotion regulation skills is to make feelings go away.
False
Name some examples of myths about emotions.
There's a right way to feel in every situation, negative feelings are bad, being emotional means being out of control, emotions are who I am, emotions should always be trusted
(see more on emotion regulation handout 4A)
Name the skill you can use in developing solutions to change an emotion
(example: Fear, when justified by the facts - solution is avoid the threatening situation or leave the threatening situation)
What does PLEASE stand for? (tip - taking care of your mind by taking care of your body)
Treating physical illness, balanced eating, avoiding mood altering substances, balanced sleep and getting exercise
What is the overarching goal of emotion regulation skills?
To build a life that feels worth living