It was written on a bumper sticker and hanging in my ex-therapist’s office. And I remind myself of it every single day. If my day is filled with dark thoughts, I remind myself as often as I can. I’m tempted to write an entire post about the statement, but it just seems so `perfectly simple’ as it is.
If you choose to remember the words, I hope they are helpful for you too.
Keep on singing!
We can probably all agree that thinking negative things, especially about ourselves, can increase our negative emotions. That’s putting it nicely: Thinking negatively can really create a living hell. How can we stop?
First off is mindfulness. Lots of mindfulness – until you can actually watch your thoughts to the point that you may be able to challenge them with new thoughts, or replacement thoughts. If you challenge and replace negative thoughts often enough, your brain will start to do it automatically. It’s really important to know that replacement thoughts aren’t the same as `positive thoughts’. Our minds are smart enough to know when we’re flat-out lying, so replacement thoughts are often more useful when they’re neutral. I’ll start, because I have lots of negative thoughts allll the time.
1. I’m a loser because I’m on disability, because I can’t support myself, because I need to ask for help…blah blah blah.
Challenge thought: I’m not as healthy as I’d like to be, and there are stigmas associated with that..but I have a lot of positive qualities too. Even though I need support financially, I contribute a lot to the community, and help a lot of people out. And I have really good intentions, and follow through on my word. I’m all-in-all a pretty decent person.
Please note: If I had challenged ‘I’m a loser’ with, `I’m a great person’, that would have felt like a lie to me. It might work for some people – but the dbt therapists I spoke with generally try to go for a way of challenging the thought that is actually true. Really what you are doing is taking the judgment out of the negative thinking, and replacing it with what are the true facts. Often the true facts are a little `kinder’ than the judgments. 😉
Thought two: This pain is going to go on forever, and I just can’t stand it. I feel like it’s going to make me crazy.
Note: I used to have this thought about my emotional pain, and still do sometimes. But this week I’ve been more focused on intense chronic pain that I go through bouts of.
Challenging thoughts: This is a loooong one, girl! Actually, this pain has always been time-limited, so chances are it won’t go on forever, although it really does suck right now! And you have stood it before, so remember to try to stay in the moment and you can stand it again.
I feel like it’s going to make me crazy? Well, I’m having the thought that it’s going to make me crazy. What does `make me crazy’ even mean? I don’t even have a definition of `crazy’, and I don’t think there even is one. The truth is that I really desperately want this pain to go away. And who wouldn’t? That doesn’t make me crazy though. If I try to stay in the moment, I know I can get through this bout, because I have proof that I can do it – I’ve been going through periods like this for a long time, and history tells me that I can and will get through this. (And I’d probably add some encouragement here for actually having been able to challenge a thought during such intense pain). Pat on the back! Ouch. Maybe not!
Diffusing thoughts: Diffusing thoughts is another way to make them less powerful, and even funny. I think I spoke of this somewhere else – but hey, some things are worth repeating. “I feel like a loser. My family hates me, so I must be a loser…because families don’t just reject people unless there’s a serious and valid reason’. Well, as much as I’d like to challenge that, I’m going to diffuse it.
I’m going to look at the words, and in my `minds eye’ I’m shrinking them. Now they’re tiny. I saw them in the color red, but I’m going to make the letters light grey. They already seem less-well, existent, important, real. Now I’m going to mix the words up. “Unless loser hates family me must reject reason and valid…. Now it’s actually becoming fun. I mean, they’re just words. They cannot hurt me unless I let them.
Another thought: “You’re fat. You look like a frickin’ pink pig”. Oh, another one I’d love to challenge. Buut, there are so many other skills to try, I’m going to try a different one. I have a blues song in mind that I think is called “So good”. I’m gonna sing the words to that. “You’re so fat. Sugar and Spice, yeah. You look like a pig, yeah. All things nice, yeah. So gooooood! So goooood! I WANT YOU!!! Cue sexy saxophone solo! Yeah, my thought is pretty funny at this point. In fact, I’m dancing to it.
So, now that I’ve told you that I think I look like a pig, I think the least you can do is go and try some of these methods of making your negative thoughts less powerful yourself. Is it a deal?
PS: My physical pain this week trumped doing the homework from last time a bit. Although I am working on it. Did you notice? I tried, tried not to use the word `feeling’ when I meant `thought’. But I snuck it in there once. Just for practice. 😉
I think a lot of `our problems’ are because language is so…well, problematic. Writing this blog, I’ve been noticing that I’m using the phrase, ‘I’m feeling like…and then following it with a thought’ – and I’m implying there’s a connection between feelings and thoughts that isn’t necessarily there. This may seem like just a petty little semantic problem at first – but especially for us dbt-ers, I think it’s actually a really important distinction.
I’ve only been seeing my new therapist (NT) for a little while, and there’s been a pattern of me saying that I’m feeling – then adding an `emotion’ or a `thought’ – and her responding with, `where are you feeling it? What does it feel like? What color is it? Is it heavy, etc.? Pulling all these words apart, here’s what I’m left with:
*Feelings are sensations. It makes sense, right? I mean, feelings are related to touch. But we don’t always use the word to mean `sensations’. In order to be aware of what our thoughts are though, it’s pretty crucial to know that feelings are NOT thoughts. They may be related to thoughts, but they are not in themselves thoughts. They are sensations. ‘Nough said.
*Thoughts are…well…umm….thoughts. 😉 Our brain comes up with thoughts. Thoughts in and of themselves don’t have any power or weight. If we believe them, or judge them…we can give them power. When we give them power/believe them, they can be linked to bodily sensations/feelings. But they’re not linked all the time.
My homework this week – and if you’d like to do it too, I’d love to hear your feedback – is that when I identify an `emotion’, I am to first `feel’ the emotion. This is the skill `mindfulness of current emotion’. Then I am to observe the thoughts that are accompanying the bodily sensations.
This will take a lot, a lot of mindfulness. But we’re gonna do it. Right? Oh no, butterflies in belly. Thinking: People are gonna read this and be saying, `hell no, who the f*ck do you think you are thinking we give a crap what your homework is, let alone thinking we’re gonna do your stupid practice’. Emotion: Humiliation, sadness. More feelings: downward pull on mouth, blinking back tears. There ya go. Loads of fun! 😉
That’s it for now. Simply to separate out the two, and to start using the words correctly. Because it’s an `assignment’, and I’m impatient, I’m already tempted to do all sorts of things with my thoughts to see how it affects my feelings. But I’ll try to keep myself in check, and it’ll be helpful to believe that some folks out there are doing this with me..and not talking crap about me. So that’s what I’ll think. 🙂
Hi there. So, I’m going to give you a quick update. Quick because I’m in physical pain, and my brain is having a hard time thinking logically.
Last time we chatted I was upset about an email response I’d received from my ex-therapist, and was `reading into’ the email quite a bit, and having some pretty extreme thoughts. It didn’t help that ex-therapist’s (ET’s) colleagues had not returned my emails from last week. So, I was wondering if there was some collective boycott of me. I knew it was extreme thinking, and really it was a bit comically arrogant of me to think they all really sat around spending their time talking about me. But, it could have been true. It really could have been.
After `licking my wounds’ for about half an hour and going full-hog (is that even English?) into self-pity (hey, I timed myself. 30 minutes under the covers), I got out my diary card and after skimming through it, started problem-solving.
What did I want? What I wanted short-term was access to some dbt material that ET has. I mean, I also want her to be my best friend forever;), but she’d already told me she was busy til spring, so I’m going to wait until spring to ask if she wants to chat. But, I’m working on a project now and access to the material she has is pretty crucial. That’s short term. What’s the best way for me to go about getting what I want? Verrry gently asking, making sure to let ET know that I’m only asking for this one thing, and I really appreciate/respect her time limitations.
Long-term? Honestly, thinking and acting in accordance with what I want in the `long-term’ is somewhat new to me. Thinking long-term really helps wise mind kick in with some really solid ideas, and usually tempers my need to `react’ immediately. Lawd knows, reacting immediately has felt good…and has also been the Least effective way for me to live. I still want to react – but thinking about what I want long-term gives me the 5 second gap I need to not go with my reactive, or emotional mind. What I want long-term is: to either foster a friendship with ET, or know that I need to drop that as a possibility, and just get on with radically accepting how excruciatingly disappointing that is.
First things first. I need to `check the facts’, and find out if indeed ET and her colleagues are avoiding me.? Did everyone indeed hate me? Was there a conspiracy against me? There was one person within the group whom I could actually call and just ask straight up whether my thoughts were accurately reflecting the situation. So, I left her a message. In the meantime, I wrote ET a very short email saying I had one very quick question: May I borrow the material?
ET wrote back saying she’d be happy to give me a copy of the material. Give me!?! I flew to the other side of the emotional spectrum. Yaay! She likes me! She wants to help me! She was telling the truth when she just said she was busy! There was no collective boycott of me. Yaayyy, the world is a great and perfect place!
Granted, the `everything is great’ side of the emotional spectrum is much more pleasant than the `my life is shit and I’m the world’s victim’. But neither of them is valid. So I had to check the facts Again! Is the world really a perfect place…just because ET is giving me something? That really seems like not only an extreme, but potentially dangerous thought. What if ET changes her mind? Do I really want her actions to determine whether my world is perfect or not? Even if I get the materials, is my world great? No. It’ll be mediocre at best. Certainly better than if I hadn’t got the materials, and much, much better than having found out that she really did dislike me. But I was really setting myself for another `fall’…by saying that `if I get something, I’ll be fine’. It’s still living in the future, and attaching myself to something outside myself….something material, to change my emotions. It’s similar to keeping up with the Jones’. It’s very American – and causes a lot of misery.
By the time ET’s colleague called – sounding friendly – I didn’t feel any need to quiz her. I just wanted to be grounded in a nice conversation, in the moment, feeling my feet firmly on the ground. Maybe feet firmly on the ground is a more healthy place for me than in the `giddy sphere of happiness’. I’m not sure that I know how to be happy without being off-balance, without waiting for `the other shoe to drop’, without giving someone or something the power to knock me over. These days somewhere in the admittedly unexciting `middle’ is the best place for me. I’ve heard Marsha’s term ‘quiet desperation’, and it’s a perfect description for this place I’m in right now. It’s not comfortable here. My thoughts tell me (well, scream at me) that I must, must pick an emotional pole. But I’m just gonna sit here and feel how uncomfortable this feels. Stomach in knots, jaw clenched, headache… That’ll be my homework for this week: Mindfulness of this desperation, this discomfort.
Did someone lie and promise you a rose garden? Mwahaha!
Yours in pain,
Skill Monster
Phew. So, just got an email from my `dbt mentor’ and ex-therapist that is having quite an effect on me. I had sent a couple of emails letting her know what I was up to (hoping to reinforce her? Impress her? I don’t know exactly what). Anyway, she knows I’m working on a dbt project and when we were in therapy together she had been very positive about it. I sent her an email this morning asking if we could meet/chat, and she responded with ‘I’m really, really busy…and will be for a few months’. OUUUCCHHH!!!!
I’m shaking, my face feels numb, and my eyes are stinging. I have the urge to go and crawl under the covers. I’m thinking things like, `I thought she really cared about me…but obviously not’. ‘I can’t do this without her’. ‘She doesn’t even like me and wants to blow me off’. ‘She has time for group, clients, all her projects…everything else in her life…and not 15 minutes for me?’. ‘I’m shit’. `She hates me’. `She and all her colleagues hate me’. `I’m such a fucking loser, I can’t believe I trusted someone again and they fucked me over. Everyone fucks me over in the end.’
I know they’re just thoughts. But all the physical sensations coupled with the thoughts make them really, really LOUD. They’re screaming at me, and for some reason my biggest response is feeling numb. Numb emotionally and physically. I feel like I’m just flinging my fingers around to hit these buttons. My limbs feel like they’ve lost their power. I’m just `droopy’. `Who gives a fuck about any of this? This stupid fucking blog? My stupid fucking life?’.
I’m not `going to’ any thoughts of suicide or self-harm, which I guess is progress. No. It is progress. But god damnit, when shit like this happens I feel like I’ve gone a year back in time.
Maybe the difference is that I know that my thoughts are extreme. I did `check the facts’, and while I’m still really afraid that all my thoughts are true – that she does dislike me, and all her colleagues do too – I don’t have proof of that. I don’t know it’s a fact. I feel like it’s a fact. Trust me; my body is reacting as if I just found out that `all of them’ hate me. In reality, I did try to contact them all a week ago just to get some feedback about this blog and haven’t heard from any of them. I want to look at that as `proof’ that they’re all avoiding me – that they even decided together to all avoid me. But I don’t know that’s true. So, shit. I’m just going to sit here with my shitty, sad feelings.
I did, btw, respond to her in a very short, polite email, using some GIVE skills (GIVE: (act) Gentle, Interested, Validate and..ummm…Encouraging? I’ll look it up. I used the GIVE-skills route because even though I do feel pissed off and abandoned, I don’t want to burn a bridge with her. Maybe there isn’t even a bridge there…but I’m just going to act as if there is until I get proof that there isn’t. I know she’s really busy. I just honestly did think I was special. Ha. Yes, I do feel like I’ve been kicked in the head.
Okay, well, my emotions are all over the place. I’m gonna dunk my head into some ice water and cry. Then I’ll look at the diary card to do something a little less self-indulgent. But right now, I’m just feeling really sorry for myself. And while part of me is thinking I’m overreacting, and this is just `proof’ that I’m `crazy’…I also wonder if I’m not feeling exactly how most humans would feel.
I don’t know. I’ve been told, and believed that I’m `too sensitive’ for so long that I don’t know what `normal’ is – or even if I’d want to be `it’.
*Sigh*
THIS SUCKS!!!
Well, one might think the choice would be easy. But not with this brain! Being judgmental can be really….among other things, satisfying.
I have a bit of a twisted relationship with gyms. I’m usually a member of one, but I don’t go. I pay my fee every month as punishment for not going. Then I hate myself, both for wasting money, and for not getting off my ass and into the gym. My intentions when joining are always good. I promise myself I will go. And yet…..opposition happens, and I do almost anything to avoid. Willful girl!
Currently I’m a member at the Y. I joined because there was a climbing wall, and a sliding fee. I only used the sliding fee. I even have the gym schedules on my door! And on my desk! And in the bathroom! And on my phone, ringing me! Ugh. I’ve actually managed to look in the mirror and on the desk and not see the fluorescent schedule. It literally doesn’t compute in my brain. And when the phone reminds me, I generally swear at it.
But, a couple of weeks ago, the Y added Nia classes. I have been fascinated with the `idea’ of Nia for quite a while. A blend of yoga, dance, martial arts…go at your own pace…tribal, pulsing music…everyone looking beautiful and like they just got back from burning man or some natural hot springs (well, on youtube at least). So, I told myself that I wasn’t allowed to think. I just had to go. Period.
Let me first say that all things crystal-bunny-ish and new-agey make me cringe. I’m uncomfortable with self-expression that is waaaay over the top. It’s the English in me. When I’m in situations where people refer to themselves as beloved goddesses, I’m not sure if I want to laugh or cry. And you need to know that before I tell you about the class.
The beautiful thin instructor came in smiling beatifically. Her perfect body was wrapped in gorgeous yoga-wear, a bindi on her white forehead…lotus flower tattoo on her forearm. Namaste. The music was a mix of techno-Enya.
I was in the back of the room, and really couldn’t get out without making quite a scene. So, I just resigned myself to getting through the next hour. How much worse could it get? Well, much, much worse.
We were instructed to `reach for the moon’, `reach out and CATCH the fireflies, CATCH the fireflies’, circle our legs as if we were `taking a bite out of something’ (What?). ‘Your branches are trees, blowing in the wind. Ooohhh, the wind is blowing so hard from the left. Can you feel that pushing you over? Aaahhhh, the stretch it brings!”
I was snarkily adding my own comments to things, feeling very embarrassed…and finally just shut my eyes and danced. Danced my own way for a few minutes. Skills? Come to me now. Did I dare…could I possibly…would I allow myself to….Participate? To just shut up and throw myself in without judgments? Well, I’d try it for 3 minutes. That’s generally the rule: I’ll try it for 3 minutes.
I galloped like a horse. Snarky thought came up, I put a stop sign in front of it. I flowed like a river. ‘Nother snarky thought and stop sign. Seriously, this went on for the next 20 minutes. Accompanied by a lot of laughter, both because I really was having fun, and because my thoughts were having little fits about my having fun. Participation and having fun was so much more difficult than being judgmental! Thoughts of protest rose so often that I ended up singing them. (Oh yes, you’ll get to do this too if you’re doing an intensive program, lucky people). You’ll get to sing your thoughts. Snarky thoughts sung to Enya sound ridiculously funny. Especially when you’re catching the moon and pulling it into your belly.
I have gone to 3 Nia classes now. They’re a perfect struggle to participate fully. Last time I went the teacher shouted at me, `I can see your spirit shining. Yes, your spirit is shiiining!’. I laughed. Me? Haha! And spun around like a windmill turning with the wind.
Sing it! Sing to the tune of Cee-Lo’s F*ck You, “I can see your spirit shining.” It’s ridiculous. Perfectly so!
And just so you know that I haven’t actually turned into a crystal-bunny, I’m going to start publishing things that I wrote while I was in the first couple of years of dbt. It’s not pretty, and I’ve been avoiding listening to the recordings I made of the individual sessions. Because I didn’t just wake up one day being able to put a little `yay!’ at the end of my blogs. It was a couple of years of (mostly) hell. Punctuated with a lot of gratitude and practice.
I still don’t know if I have what I’d consider `meaningful life’. I’m lonely, anxious, sad, grieving etc. a lot of the time. But I have the ability (usually) to actively choose the path of non-misery. Not necessarily happiness. Sometimes joy. Occasionally calm. And being able to choose non-misery, or `suffering’, is huge. HUGE. Huuuge….like an elephant singing in the rain. Sing it!
Really, really hoping all of you who are in the midst of the hell can find just a little bit of hope in my writings. I don’t know you, or exactly what your pain and suffering is about…but it really can get better if you stick with this damn dbt stuff.
I’ll be thinking about you, wishing for you to stay with it. Because it’s the only thing I know that works over the long term. Lots of things `work’ to relieve pain and suffering in the short term…but are really going to be harmful to you in the long run. And I don’t know about you, but I signed up for dbt saying that I wanted a `life worth living’. A life. Not a day, or a week. Hang in there! It is worth it!
(((Hug)))
FYI: Bob Stahl is an MBSR teacher and trainer…and, Thich Nat Hahn also has cd’s available. Jon Kabat-Zinn is just…well…almost everything I’ve read or heard by him has just been really down to earth and helpful…although I wouldn’t recommended his book: Coming to Our Senses (I think that’s the name anyway) to anyone even remotely new to mindfulness practice. Oh, and of course, it would almost be sinful not to include the book called: Be Here Now.
If you’re looking for `practice’ vs. `concept/theory’, I’d go (and did go) 😉 for the guided mindfulness cd’s.
http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Mindfulness-Thich-Nhat-Hanh/dp/0807012394/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3_rsrsrs1
If you’re like most folks doing some kind of dbt practice, filling out the diary card is…well…a pain the ass! And you may be experiencing a lot of resistance to filling it out, which (if you’re anything like me), you may be rationalizing so that it doesn’t sound or feel like resistance at all. Do you forget to fill out the card? Does it never seem to be around when you actually do remember to fill it out? *Sigh*. Damn diary card! 😉
The bad news is that to give your therapist, or yourself, is that filling out the diary card is so crucial that it would really be in your best interest to actually fill it out. Don’t take too much time thinking about it; it’ll take maybe two minutes. Are you willing to do some problem-solving re: how you can get yourself to fill it out? Sticky notes? Reminder messages on your phone or via email? Asking someone else to remind you (yeah, peer pressure is verrry effective 😉 ). Whatever you need to do to fill it out – `just do it’. If you’re one of those people who negotiates with him/herself, you need to someone get the diary on the `this is not negotiable’ list. In fact, the less you think about it the better. Just do it!
There are many reasons why filling out the diary card is in your best interest; here are just a couple that come to mind:
1. You already practice a lot of skills! Even before you started dbt you were already skillful. Yay! You’ll learn that many of your skillful behaviors are on the diary card – just in `dbt-speak’. I guarantee that even if you think you didn’t use any skills that day, if you woke up and lived another day, there are multiple skills you can check. So it can be really uplifting and reinforcing to experience the `yay me, I practiced skills!’ moment that filling out your diary card can bring you. And after you fill out the diary card, you can `pat yourself on the back’…which immediately adds at least one skill you can mark off on your next diary card. Actually, more than one…wise mind, encouragement, accumulating positives (okay, that may be a stretch), opposite to emotion action (if it was)….and probably more. Oh, mastery. And willingness. Damn, you’ve already got a pretty impressive diary card for the next day! You go Skill Monster!
2. Just seeing every skill written down, at least once a day, will increase the likelihood that you will both remember the skills later and use them. Because one of the most important aspects of dbt is that the skills `come out of us’ in the `real world’, it is really important that the myriad of potential skills actually pop into our head when we’re in a situation and wondering what to do. In fact, I highly recommend that you carry around a diary card with you (or any reminder of all the skills), so that you can pull it out when you’re stumped….or when you’re on the bus, and want the person next to you to stop talking to you. Or just to study.
We’ll talk at some other point about how some people are `rule-governed’ (they do what they’re told), and others are `contingency-governed’ (they do things because they care about the consequences). Most people fall into one category or another. I am definitely contingency-governed. But, sometimes the consequence/reward/punishment still doesn’t get me to do something I really don’t want to do. In those cases, I have to shut my mind off as much as I can and just make it a Rule. Capital ‘R’. As in ‘Rawr!’. Two examples of things I need Rules for: showing up at meditation practice, and filling out the diary card.
Honestly, it took me a couple of months before I regularly filled out the diary card. It took a lot of problem-solving for me to fill it out. In the end, I simply (yeah, as if `simple=easy’ *snicker) had to take away any choice in the matter. No thinking allowed. Just do it.
Sheeesh. I don’t even like Nike. 😉
For some people who come into the program feeling so overwhelmed by their emotions, TIP skills will be a vital area of practice.
TIP is an acronym that stands for:
T-Temperature change: While many people in dbt use ice (I’ll talk about this later) to get their emotional distress down, others find it more effective to take a warm/hot bath or shower. *DO NOT USE THE ICE TECHNIQUE IF YOU HAVE A HEART CONDITION OR HAVE HAD A HEART ATTACK*.
I-Intense exercise: Running around the block, doing jumping jacks, turning on a song and dancing around for a little while…all of these things can use up some of the energy that is fueling our distress.
Progressive Relaxation: There are many ways of doing progressive relaxation, but in a nutshell, you are going through your body and mindfully relaxing one area at a time. If your distress is very high, you may want to squeeze all the muscles in each area very tightly for a few seconds…and then release. Don’t forget your face! Scrunch it up tightly, and release. Some people don’t feel comfortable or capable of doing the relaxation exercises when they are very keyed up. Some are even `triggered’ by the relaxation response (me!), because it is new and scary. BUT, if I’m not super keyed up to begin with, the progressive relaxation actually works well for me. And it may for you too. Don’t give up on it if it doesn’t work once…try it a few times. You can find guided progressive relaxation video’s on youtube. I’ll check some out tonight and get back to you with some good ones.
Please remember that you don’t need to use all the skills. Some will seems more natural and/or effective for you, and those will likely be your `go-to’ skills. If you really like the `ice’ technique, it’s perfectly fine to use that one.
If you don’t know what the `ice’ technique is, I’ll give you a little overview. If you really want to go for it (and this is not a particularly pleasant thought or experience for most people…until they find that it works;) ), fill a sink with cold water and add some ice. If you don’t have ice, be creative. Add a pack of cold peas…or something ice-y that will lower the temperature of the water even more. If you don’t have a sink, fill a big mixing bowl. Okay, so, you’ve got some frickin’ cold water in a sink, right? Now, you’re going to hold your breath and dunk your face and head in for as long as you can hold your breath. Then come up, exhale, inhale and dunk again. Repeat as many times as you need to until you feel quite a bit calmer. The most I’ve dunked my head is 4 times in one session. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. My face and eyes hurt like hell….but I really was a lot calmer. Now Ice is my go-to TIP skill. (Fortunately, the longer you practice other dbt skills, the less you’ll need to use the TIP skills…but they’re always good to remember)
The ice-dunk simulates the `dive reflex’, which is what would happen if you actually were in freezing cold water and your body needed to conserve its energy to try to survive. In such a situation, your body would essentially start to slow or shut down functions that weren’t absolutely vital for survival. Our anxiety/emotions are not vital, so they get calmed waaaay down. Honestly, as horrible as this skill might be to practice at first, it became the favored skill of most participants in the two active groups I was involved in.
Some people could not, for various reasons, dunk their entire heads in water. They would vigorously rub lots and lots of ice over their face and heads for 15-30 seconds. Others would put ice packs on their heads. Marsha talks about taking bites out of frozen lemons and oranges. I’m not sure how that would correlate scientifically with the dive reflex, but if it works, who cares???
I also know of a dbt therapist who use the `ice water’ technique to calm down before going to sleep.
I guess this gives new meaning to the phrase ‘chill out’!
Ha! On that cheeeezy note, I’ll go and scour youtube for some relaxation cd’s. Again, Jon Kabat-Zinn has a couple of great progressive relaxation cd’s. One is about 20 minutes, the other 45 minutes long. They’re both great, and if you have an MBSR (see last post) teacher near you, call him/her up and see how you might be able to get a copy.
Good luck!
I’m going to write a little bit about Mindfulness…what it is, and what it isn’t.
Some people equate Mindfulness with meditation; but they’re not necessarily the same thing. Meditation may be one form of mindfulness – depending on what the `meditator’ is doing? But, not all forms of meditation practice are mindfulness practices. Clear as mud?
Mindfulness is simply `being present’. Simple but difficult. Our minds and emotions tend to drraaggg us away from the present moment, but with practice we can learn to come back. You can be mindful: washing dishes, feeling where your body touches whatever it is in contact with, looking at a candle…. When you are doing these things, they are all you are doing. If judgments or other thoughts come up just watch them float by as if they’re on a cloud, or on a leaf running downstream a river. Then come back to whatever your mindfulness practice is.
Often, the first mindfulness practice we may learn is to be aware of our breath. You may want to concentrate on the area just below your nostrils, and experience the in-and-out flow of air. Or, you may prefer to focus on your abdomen as it rises and falls.
For some people, focusing on the breath can be anxiety-provoking. If you’re one of these people, you can concentrate on other things. My favourite is to be aware of my hands. To just feel them, experience them….not labeling the feeling or experience, but just directly `being my hands’. Of course, I do put words to my experience, again..and again. And I’ll drop the words and come back to just being mindful of my hands over…and over…and, well, you get the picture.
You may feel like your brain is screaming at your for attention. Mine certainly does. Lol. It throw little tizzy fits. I just sit and watch the tizzy fits. Sometimes I can’t resist making a comment to them – but that’s me being dragged into my thoughts again. So, back to my hands.
Another way of saying all this is that you are being: One-Mindful. You are only doing one thing at a time. You are only watching your breath, or your hands, or a candle….
Why is being Mindful important? Well, of all the really good responses to that question, (and there are many), one stands out for me in relation to dbt skills:
You Can Stand Anything As Long As You Stay Present
There. You owe me a million dollars. ; ) It’s true though. If you are thinking that you cannot stand something, and you have to respond right away, or you cannot take the pain you are in anymore…well, I guarantee that you are thinking about the past and the future.
So when crap is hitting the fan (such a visual, huh? ;)), try this: Sit down somewhere quietly and either be mindful of your breath or your hands. If you notice thoughts, just bring your mind back gently to your breath or your hands.
Could you stand your pain for that breath? And the next? As long as you can live in a `series of breaths’, you will be okay.
Practicing at first will be really, really difficult. I highly, Highly recommend getting some cd’s from Jon Kabat-Zinn to listen to. He will lead you through mindfulness practices until you feel comfortable enough to practice on your own.
You may find his cd’s at the local library. Or, you may want to order them. Here’s a link to his cd’s on amazon:
If you’re going to order his cd, check out his book: Full Catastrophe Living. It is fabulous! I keep it on my nightstand.:) I recommend reading that, so that you can get a grasp on what mindfulness is beyond my undoubtedly confusing little blog post.
Another avenue for getting a grasp on mindfulness would be to join a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class. Kabat-Zinn is the founder/creator of this program, and it truly rocks! Some hospitals offer it and offer scholarships. Google “MBSR” + your town, and hopefully you’ll find something.
FYI: For Bay Area folks, the Planetree Healing Library is an amazing resource for lucky you. Go and check it out! They have lots of mindfulness cd’s, books…and offer MBSR with scholarships available.
‘Night Skill Monsters!
PS: Again, apologies for grammar, spelling, and the random capitalizing of words. There is a method to the madness; it’s just not consistent. ; ) A dialectic! Sweet!
Daily DBT 