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when your emotions are lying to you (and what to do instead) DBT mini-season pt.6
70 Plays17 hours ago
Your feelings are real. But what if acting on them is making things worse?
In this episode of Friendless, host James Avramenko continues the DBT series with three tools for navigating emotions without being controlled by them.
We cover Opposite Action — the skill for when your emotion is justified, but the urge it's driving you toward would damage something you care about. We look at Problem Solving — for when the emotion does fit the facts and there's something concrete you can actually do. And we explore Building Positive Experiences — the proactive, preventative practice of filling your emotional reserves before crisis hits.
James shares personal stories from his medical leave, a financial spiral, and the anxiety he felt recording this very episode — and what it looked like to apply (or not apply) these tools in real time.
In this episode:
- The "action urge" behind every emotion — and when following it makes things worse
- How avoidance teaches your brain that the threat is real
- Why you can't half-ass opposite action
- The difference between a catastrophe and a problem
- Why positive experiences aren't a luxury — they're emotional infrastructure
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Transcript
Introduction to Opposite Action in DBT
00:00:00
Speaker
Opposite action is basically DBT's way of saying, I know your brain wants to do that, but hear me out. What if we did the opposite? Which, you know, when you think about it, honestly, is pretty rude, but effective.
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome back to Friendless, sweet peas.
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm your host, James Avramenko, and this is episode six, Emotional Regulation, part two.
Emotional Regulation and Real Emotions
00:00:31
Speaker
Last episode, we did the understanding work, what emotions actually are, what they do, how to name them accurately, how to check whether your emotion is responding to facts or to a story.
00:00:42
Speaker
This episode, we're going to do a little bit of a pivot. What we're going to be talking about is what to do when your emotions are real, genuinely, legitimately real, but acting on them would act end up making things worse.
00:00:58
Speaker
Because this is a situation that I know i have found myself in a lot. I know a lot of people have found themselves in a lot. where you you're not misreading the situation.
00:01:08
Speaker
The feeling is totally justified. But the the thing that the feeling wants to do is going to end up doing damage to something that you care about. Maybe it's going to just not solve anything. It's just that there's this sort of justified gut reaction to it.
00:01:24
Speaker
And that is where opposite action comes in. We're also going to cover two kind of supporting
Justified Emotions and Opposite Action
00:01:31
Speaker
skills. We're looking at problem solving, which people jump to far too quickly.
00:01:36
Speaker
But this is for when, you know, the emotion is justified and there is something that you actually can do about the situation. And then on the other side, we're going to be looking at building positive experiences, which is a preventative skill.
00:01:50
Speaker
It's not about crisis management. It's about building these sort of emotional reserves. So, Every emotion comes with an action urge.
00:02:02
Speaker
We talked about this a little bit in the last episode, but it's this idea of there is there's sort of a ah verb to every emotion. You know, generally speaking, you know, fear makes you want to move away. Right. Makes you want to run.
00:02:16
Speaker
Anger wants you to move forward. It wants you to fight. Sadness wants you to move away. It wants you to withdraw. Shame move away as well. You know, makes you want to hide. Right. And sometimes those urges totally make sense. You know, fear of a real threat.
00:02:31
Speaker
Running probably is a good idea. You know, if you if anger pops up, you know, there's there's there's anger, you're feeling it a genuine violation, then setting a limit is appropriate. Sadness after a loss, you know, withdrawing to grieve is is healthy, right?
00:02:47
Speaker
But sometimes those exact same urges, responding to those exact same emotions, end up making things dramatically worse. Fear of social rejection makes you avoid social situations.
00:02:59
Speaker
The avoidance ends up keeping you isolated. And then the isolation feeds the fear. And now the fear is so much bigger than when you started. Shame about, you know, struggling with something, it makes you hide.
00:03:15
Speaker
The hiding keeps you from getting support. The lack of support means you keep struggling alone. And now that shame is even heavier. Loneliness, you know, loneliness makes you pull away.
00:03:27
Speaker
Pulling away makes you more lonely. And now you're more entrenched than you ever were before. This is that cycle. The the emotion has an urge. The urge makes the emotion worse, which makes the urge stronger, which makes things worse. It just builds and builds and builds.
00:03:42
Speaker
Opposite action is a tool that is implemented to interrupt that cycle.
Personal Story: Using Opposite Action
00:03:50
Speaker
I'll share an experience I had recently where I tried to sort of apply this, not to sound like a broken record, but throughout this medical leave that I've been on, that is wrapping up very soon, I've gone through periods of feeling just massively lonely.
00:04:03
Speaker
You know, that like, that like, you know, Look, i'm I'm a theater major, so I'm going to be a little dramatic here. You know, it's that it's that it's that that loneliness they feel that just like heavy your chest is tight. You're lost under that weight. You know, you've kind of convinced yourself that, you know, nobody cares and there's nothing that you can do about it. Right. And.
00:04:26
Speaker
When I'm in those kind of deep pressure moments, my instinct and the very first thing my brain always suggests is isolate, pull away, cancel plans.
00:04:39
Speaker
Don't reach out. Assume everybody's busy or doesn't want to hear from you. Just, you know, stay home, stay quiet. Don't be a burden. Which is, you know, classic loneliness logic.
00:04:52
Speaker
And if I continued to follow that urge, I would end up making that loneliness even worse. and Objectively, you know, measurably worse, right?
00:05:05
Speaker
Because isolation feeds loneliness. When you're lonely and you pull away from people, you're not protecting yourself. You're reinforcing the exact belief that's making you lonely in the first place.
00:05:19
Speaker
The idea of, you know, nobody wants me around. Every time you cancel plans because you assume people don't really want you there, you're teaching your brain that the loneliness is justified, that you are right to be alone.
00:05:33
Speaker
And so in that moment, you know, the opposite action, something that I continue to work on and and try to do myself. But, you know, in in throughout the last few months, what I've done is you reach out, right? That's the opposite.
00:05:45
Speaker
if If the urge is withdrawal, you lean in. Right. So for me, it's reach out, say yes to plans. initiate connection, even if it felt vulnerable, even if it felt scary, you know, even though it felt like I might be bothering people, you know, even though that that that sort of loneliness is like screaming, you know, nobody wants to do this. Nobody wants to hear from you.
00:06:09
Speaker
Do it anyway. Right. Now, did I do this opposite action? but Sometimes. but but You know, sometimes I reached out. Sometimes if somebody invited me out, so sometimes I said yes, you know, even when I really, really didn't want to.
00:06:24
Speaker
Sometimes I was the one to initiate texting friends with plans, you know, um and then sometimes I still isolated. Sometimes the the emotional urge still won.
00:06:35
Speaker
Sometimes I canceled. Sometimes I stayed home and I totally spiraled. And that. I mean, it kind of has to be OK, right? You know, because The thing to remember with all these skills, but you know, with the one we're talking about right now, opposite action is really hard when the emotion is loud, when loneliness or whatever it is you're feeling is at a nine doing the opposite of what it's telling you to do can sometimes feel like just walking directly into the fire.
00:07:04
Speaker
Right. But I did notice that the times that I acted opposite. The times I reached out, the times I, you know, whatever. That initial emotional urge of loneliness or sadness or whatever was, you know, it it it diminished.
00:07:20
Speaker
didn't disappear, but it got smaller and just that much more manageable. Right. and And
When to Implement Opposite Action
00:07:25
Speaker
again, you know, broken record moment. That's the point. It's not to make these emotions disappear. It's not to never have these thoughts again.
00:07:35
Speaker
It's just to work with them in a more manageable perspective and size. And that really is just the core insight of opposite action. You know, sometimes emotions are really reliable guides and sometimes they are leading you directly into the thing that you are actually most afraid of.
00:07:55
Speaker
And, you know, fear avoids, right? Avoidance makes fear grow. Shame hides and hiding makes shame heavier. Loneliness withdraws, right? And withdraw makes loneliness worse.
00:08:09
Speaker
So you've got to remember, you know, like we said, you know, emotions are innocuous, right? The emotion isn't doing a bad job. The emotion itself is doing its job as it's supposed to. The action urge makes complete sense given what the emotion is, you know, has been hired to do, right?
00:08:27
Speaker
But following it faithfully every time without questioning, you know, well, I think we know what happens when people just blindly follow orders, right?
00:08:40
Speaker
but So, you know, opposite action is intended as the interruption. If, if, if it's safe, do the opposite and just sort of see what happens.
00:08:52
Speaker
So how does that actually work? First, and I think this is important to sort of lay the foundation. Opposite action is not a tool you use every time you have a difficult emotion.
00:09:04
Speaker
um That's, you know, emotional bypassing. um That would be essentially suppression with an extra set. um So it's not every single time. It comes with two really specific contextual conditions.
00:09:18
Speaker
One being... The emotion doesn't fit the facts. So you've checked the facts, you know, like we talked about, you've realized that your emotion is responding to a story, not to what's actually happening.
00:09:32
Speaker
You are you terrified of this social event, but there's no actual threat, right? you've You've convinced yourself something's wrong in a relationship, but there's no evidence of that. You're overwhelmed by a task, but, um you know, when you break it down, it becomes manageable.
00:09:47
Speaker
The emotion is real. but it doesn't fit the actual facts, which means following its action urge isn't going to serve you. The second condition is when acting on the emotion won't help your goals.
00:10:03
Speaker
So even if the emotion is justified, you know, the anger is real, the hurts real, the situation is genuinely bad. Acting on the action urge is going to damage something you care about.
00:10:14
Speaker
So you're furious at a friend who said something really hurtful. And, you know, the anger fits, but yelling at them is going to damage the friendship, you know, and you want that connection. So the anger is is justified, but the action urge isn't serving your goals.
00:10:32
Speaker
So you're going to use opposite action when one of these conditions is true. If your emotions fit the facts and the action urge serves your goals, that's, you know, just a justified emotion with an appropriate response.
00:10:45
Speaker
No need to do the opposite. Right. OK, so so you're you're only yeah you only use opposite action when one of these conditions is true. If your emotion fits the facts and the action urge serves your goals, that's just a justified emotion with an appropriate response.
00:11:02
Speaker
No need to do the opposite. So when you've decided opposite action is the right call, how do you actually use it?
Steps to Implement Opposite Action
00:11:13
Speaker
Step one is identify the emotion.
00:11:16
Speaker
What are you actually feeling specifically? You know, we talked about naming, right? So don't just say I feel bad, but name it. You know, I'm i'm angry. I'm angry. upset about whatever, right?
00:11:27
Speaker
Next is identify the action urge. What does the emotion want you to do? Right? So I'm feeling fearful of this event. So I'm feeling like I should avoid it.
00:11:39
Speaker
I'm feeling angry at this person. I feel like I should attack or snap or lash out, whatever. You know, I'm feeling shameful of this thing I said. So I want to hide. I want to disappear. I want to stop showing up.
00:11:50
Speaker
You know, sadness is making withdrawal. It makes me want to stay in bed, stop engaging, right? What is the actual urge? um What is the verb behind the emotion that you're feeling?
00:12:02
Speaker
Step three is do the opposite completely. And this is one that can be. yeah Surprisingly easy to screw up because you can't half ass opposite action if If you're doing, let's say, let's say if you're doing opposite action to sort of counter shame emotions and you reach out to somebody, but you do it in this like really apologetically, self-deprecatingly, you know, leading with how you probably shouldn't be bothering them.
00:12:31
Speaker
Like that's not opposite action. That's still hiding. You're just kind of adding extra layers of of work for yourself. Opposite action is showing up without apology.
00:12:42
Speaker
you know, reach out without already undermining yourself. Just, you know, it's about letting yourself be seen without immediately kind of preempting the rejection, right? Just full commitment, basically acting like the emotions weren't there.
00:12:55
Speaker
It's not suppressing them. It's not pretending you don't feel them, but it's it's not letting them take the steering wheel, right? So let's kind of, I thought I would give a few examples of a few different emotions. So you can kind of see how it sort of shifts, right?
00:13:11
Speaker
So let's say you're feeling afraid, you're feeling fear for a sort of a specific social anxiety, right? So the emotion here is, you know, fear of rejection or judgment at a social event. The action urge is maybe going to be can't be, maybe be cancel, stay home, avoid the thing, right?
00:13:28
Speaker
So the opposite action is going to be go to the party, even it's just for 10 minutes, you engage with somebody at the party and you commit to that engagement. You don't go in a sort of a defensive crouch.
00:13:42
Speaker
You don't stand in the corner just, you know, counting the seconds till it's over. But you actually show up and you engage and you you make yourself be a part of the party. avoidance is going to teach your brain that but this threat is real.
00:13:58
Speaker
And so every time you cancel because of this social anxiety, your brain is going, oh, totally great call because that was actually totally dangerous. And it's so smart for us to avoid this. And we should totally avoid this again in the future.
00:14:12
Speaker
And then that anxiety grows to the point where it's now 10 times harder to show up at a simple gathering than it used to be. Right. But if you show up and then you see that you survived it, you're teaching your brain that that threat is manageable.
00:14:26
Speaker
And, you know, obviously the anxiety doesn't disappear overnight, but each time you do this, it gets smaller. um something like anger, right? So if the emotion here is, let's call it real justified anger at someone that you care about, right?
00:14:43
Speaker
And so that action urge is you want to be really sharp. You want to yell at them. You want to send them a message, you know, in full caps, right? And just like really lay into them. The opposite action is lean into a calm tone.
00:14:57
Speaker
Get curious about their perspective. validate their side before stating yours. Maybe ask a question instead of making an accusation. Now, this doesn't mean suppress your anger.
00:15:12
Speaker
It doesn't mean pretend it's fine. It means you are choosing not to weaponize it in the moment. You address the issue, but you address it in a way that keeps the relationship intact.
00:15:25
Speaker
Sadness, right? So the emotion here, so we're talking like a real heavy sadness, you know, the kind that kind of makes makes your bed feel like it's kind of the only option. Something's happened, it's pulling you down.
00:15:36
Speaker
The action urge here is to cancel, to withdraw, stop engaging with the world. This can be contextual. Obviously, it's not like, oh, you you're Mother died yesterday.
00:15:49
Speaker
Better upset action, you know, because that's one of those the emotion matches the story. but But if you're wanting to get moving, the opposite action from there is to get up, you know, do one small activating thing, you know, move your body, even if it's just a little bit. Maybe you contact one person, you reach out. Right.
00:16:07
Speaker
And now this is not so that you can be happy. Right. You know, this isn't force yourself to feel better. It's just. interrupt the withdrawal with this one small action.
00:16:19
Speaker
Right. And that's that's what we're looking at with all these different emotions. It's not pretend you don't feel this. It's make it just a little bit more workable so that you can still be sad, but it's not all it's not all encompassing.
00:16:37
Speaker
hey You know, a simple example for me You know, recently I continue to have these anxiety spikes around recording new podcast episodes. you Case in point, this episode that you're listening to right now, you know, if I say, you know, recently I was having an anxiety about recording a podcast episode recently literally means a few minutes ago in case that, you know, wasn't totally clear. Right.
00:17:02
Speaker
And, and the urge behind that, anxiety and that fear was to procrastinate, right? To avoid, to convince myself I wasn't ready yet. You know, I need to prepare more. I need to think it through. I'll do it
Overcoming Anxiety with Opposite Action
00:17:15
Speaker
ah tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. i'll Push it, push it, push it. You know, super classic avoidance dressed up as prudence, right?
00:17:22
Speaker
So my opposite action was just start recording, you know, even if it's bad, even if I delete it, even if I'm not ready, just take what notes I have masquerading as a script currently and just press record and go.
00:17:38
Speaker
And at first it felt absolutely awful. I could not get the intro in. I could not get myself rolling. You know, my anxiety just kept on popping up and screaming, stop it.
00:17:50
Speaker
This is scary, right? you know, my heart's racing, my my my thoughts are moving at 1000 miles an hour. You know, you're messing this up. This isn't good enough. You're not prepared. People are going to hear this and they're going to think you're terrible. Just just cut it out.
00:18:03
Speaker
But i I just kept doing it, kept going, kept going. Finally got the intro in and then kept rolling and you know we're what five five ten minutes in we're 20 minutes in wow wow and the anxiety has come down you know it's not gone I'm still constantly tripping myself up it's not like I'm like suddenly calm and confident but It went from, let's say, like a nine to a five, you know, from this like I physical cannot do this to OK, yeah, this is still uncomfortable, but I'm doing it anyway. Right.
00:18:38
Speaker
And if you are listening to this now, that means I made it to the end and I managed to have some kind of usable recording. Probably not perfect, but done. Because the reality is the anxiety behind this was lying to me.
00:18:52
Speaker
You know, yes, it was trying to protect me from a threat that it it thought it perceived, but that threat doesn't exist. And so it's something I think about often when I hear a statement like that your anxiety is lying to you.
00:19:06
Speaker
it It is, but it's not malicious. Don't hate your anxiety for it. It's doing its job. It's just that we've trained it to perceive the wrong threats. You know, there's no real danger in recording this episode. Worst case scenario is that I record something I don't like and I delete it later, or I i just put it out and we'll move on to the next one. that's That's not a threat. That's just called trying, you know, and and opposite action proves that.
00:19:34
Speaker
It's just showing my brain the thing that you're afraid of isn't actually dangerous. You can survive it. You can do it even if it feels scary. And the next time I have to record something, The anxiety is going to be there, but who knows? Stare to dream. Maybe it'll be an eight when I start.
00:19:50
Speaker
and And maybe after that, it'll be a seven. And that's just, that's how it works. Slowly and over time. Now, the thing is, i I want to be honest about the times it doesn't work as well.
00:20:04
Speaker
I often am telling you stories of like, and it all worked out, you know? So I also want to tell you times where I know what the opposite action is. But I just can't.
00:20:15
Speaker
You know, it's it's it's moments when when that sort of ingrained shame is so loud and the urge to hide is so present. And and I know i should just reach out. I know reaching out will help.
00:20:28
Speaker
And I know that the isolation is just going to make things worse. But reaching out, you know, i described it as it feels like walking into a pit of fire, right? It feels like exposing myself to the exact same thing that that that I'm afraid of in that moment, rejection, judgment, you know, confirmation that I was right to feel ashamed in the first place.
00:20:50
Speaker
And yes, there are moments where I can push through that and I can reach out, but sometimes it just it it can't happen. Sometimes the emotions too out. Sometimes the stakes are just too high.
00:21:03
Speaker
And sometimes even knowing exactly what I should do, my body just refuses to cooperate. And I am continually learning that that is okay.
00:21:17
Speaker
Opposite action isn't about perfection. It's not about winning every single time. It's not about never letting the emotion win, right? You know, if anything, it's about not being in competition with your emotions, but that's digression.
Problem Solving and Emotional Resilience
00:21:33
Speaker
It's a about slowly building the muscle to act against unhelpful urges. Some days you have the ability to do the hard thing.
00:21:44
Speaker
Some days you don't. And both of those days are part of the same practice. Sometimes you do it. Sometimes you don't. Either way, you are learning. Because, you know, even even when I don't do the opposite action, even the times when I do hide and I know I should be doing whatever, I'm still building a level of awareness.
00:22:07
Speaker
I'm still noticing the pattern. I'm still seeing the choice, even if I can't make it in that moment. Right? You know, awareness is half the battle, right? Isn't that what you know, G.I. Joe said, you know, and now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
00:22:22
Speaker
That's some real solid advice right there. Probably the only piece of advice to take from those end of episode vignettes, but ah anyway. just
00:22:37
Speaker
Problem solving. This is the skill you use when opposite action doesn't apply. When your emotion does fit the facts. You know, when there actually is a problem, fire alarm's going off because there actually is a fire.
00:22:50
Speaker
In that case, you do not do the opposite of the emotion. You address the actual problem. The way you do that is, put very simply, step one, you define the problem.
00:23:03
Speaker
Not the catastrophe, not the vague dread, the specific actual problem. Not all my life is falling apart, but what specifically is having trouble right now?
00:23:19
Speaker
What's the one concrete thing that is wrong? So it's not I'm failing at everything. It's What specifically are you behind on? What is the task or the solution? Oh, didn't complete this. Oh, I need to work on that. Right.
00:23:32
Speaker
Getting really specific. It takes the problem from being overwhelming to being workable. Step two is you break it down into pieces as small as you need them to be. What are the absolutely smallest actionable steps?
00:23:45
Speaker
Not the full solution, not fix everything, but what are the actual component parts? So if it's a work deadline, what are the pieces of that deadline? What can you do today? What can you do tomorrow? What still needs doing? What incremental progress can you make? You know, is it if it's relationship conflict, you know, what are the specific issues?
00:24:05
Speaker
What's one thing you can do or you can ask about right now? If it's, you know, let's say it's financial stress, you know, what is the one piece of the financial picture that you can break down and look at right now? So, you know, make it as small, an actionable step as you need. If you need it to be write a to do list and the first step is write that to do list, you know, write first step, whatever you break it down, it small, small, small and celebrate everything. Right.
00:24:34
Speaker
Step three is you then choose one step and you do that. You don't solve everything. You don't have to do it all in one go, in one moment, in one day.
00:24:44
Speaker
You just take it one single step at a time because one step is always going to be enough. Progress at any speed is always better than stalling out with bigger, ah bigger fears.
00:25:01
Speaker
For me, I recently had a big spiral out around money a couple of weeks ago. yeah I just had this really big catastrophic vision in my head of, you know, I'm going to run out of money. I'm going to be homeless. I'm going to lose everything.
00:25:15
Speaker
Just total financial collapse, ruin, apocalyptic, everything. Right. You know, and then I actually just sat down and I broke it down and I made myself look at the actual pieces instead of the the the overwhelming feeling.
00:25:31
Speaker
um And here's what I actually came up with was that, you know, I needed to rework my budget and see where I actually was at financially. I needed to finish my taxes, which actually luckily for me this year were super easy.
00:25:47
Speaker
And I needed to just cut back on, you know, a couple subscriptions to sort of free up a little bit of a cash flow. Three action steps. That's it. No catastrophe, just three little things I can do.
00:26:00
Speaker
I did one, looked at my budget, sat down, i actually looked at the numbers instead of just avoiding them and kind of going on vibes. Then I did the next one. I imported all my tax forms into, you know, simple tax or whatever it's called, you know, and and got that rolling.
00:26:18
Speaker
My financial problems still exist. They didn't disappear. I didn't suddenly find some windfall and, you know, all my money problems were solved. I'm literally in the exact same position I was in but before my meltdown, but it all just became manageable because now I wasn't in, oh, I'm going to lose everything. Now it was, I have these specific tasks I can do and hey, I've already done two of them. So, you know, I'm doing great.
00:26:45
Speaker
And that right there, there's a difference between the catastrophe and the problem, right? Catastrophe feels impossible, but a problem has pieces and you can work with those pieces.
00:27:01
Speaker
Last skill of the week. And this one is a little bit different from almost everything we've covered so far, because everything else in this module has been reactive, right? You know, an emotion arrives. What do you do?
00:27:14
Speaker
Opposite action, problem solving, depending on the situation, whatever it is.
00:27:19
Speaker
Now we're looking at building positive experiences. And that is a proactive behavior. It's not crisis management. It's about building emotional reserves so that you are less vulnerable to crises in the first place.
00:27:37
Speaker
The idea is really simple. When your emotional life has positive experiences woven into it on a regular basis, your baseline is higher. You're not running on empty because you have something to draw on.
00:27:51
Speaker
So there's two sort of loose types, you know, short term, long term,
Building Emotional Resilience with Positive Experiences
00:27:55
Speaker
right? So short term positives are just those little small joys, those daily pleasures, right? You know, it's the, think of Agent Dale Cooper, right? You know, gonna let you know a little secret every day, once a day, treat yourself, right?
00:28:08
Speaker
You know, the things, that give you that moment of genuine ease or delight or comfort. You know, it can be a cup of coffee, it can be a song that shifts your mood just five minutes outside, you know, texting somebody you love, petting your cat, you know,
00:28:25
Speaker
a YouTube video that really makes you laugh, whatever. These these don't need to be big. They don't even need to be meaningful. They just need to be genuinely positive for you. And, you know, like we've talked about before, not the thing you think you should enjoy, the thing that you truly enjoy.
00:28:41
Speaker
And then the other side is long-term positive. So these are things that are building meaning over time. These can to be creative projects, learning a skill, a community that you're a part of, a relationship that you're nurturing, you know, work that matters to you. It's a ah goal that you are moving towards no matter what pace, because these give you something to orient towards.
00:29:05
Speaker
They're something that that that makes the hard days feel like they're in service of something. And the reason that the skill is in emotional regulation is because positive experiences don't just feel good in the moment.
00:29:18
Speaker
They build resilience. They give your nervous system evidence that life does contain good things. And that evidence is going to matter enormously when hard things come.
00:29:30
Speaker
For me, you know, Some of the short-term positive things that I reach for on a kind of daily basis. I'll give you some examples. You know, I i go for a little walk around my neighborhood every day.
00:29:41
Speaker
i try to make a point to walk at least for a couple minutes. Sometimes that all that ends up being literally like two minutes around just my block. But, you know, and I use this for for really a variety of reasons, but I always make sure I go and always cannot off the top my head think of a time where even after a two minute walk I've felt worse you know it's almost always helped me feel a little bit better even when I don't want it even when it's you know when it's cold it's rainy and my brain is saying like curl up it's not gonna help I go and yes it does help um another one for me is I let myself every day
00:30:21
Speaker
indulge in a little snack, you know, chips or candy or whatever it is. And, and it might sound trivial. Sometimes it like, you know, people hear snacks and like their own, I know a lot of people have relationships with food. I have my own relationship with food.
00:30:35
Speaker
So to me, it's actually really not trivial to let myself just like have this because look, like I have been sober for, you know, two and a half years. I quit vaping almost two months ago.
00:30:47
Speaker
I, I, i I don't do anything fun anymore. You know, I'm allowed to have some nibs when I want them. Right. And I admittedly used to feel kind of guilty about that. I've cut enough other things out that the candy stays ah and it lets me have a little bit of a short, so a shortcut.
00:31:11
Speaker
You know, if I need, if I need a quick little pick me up, have some candy, whatever, who cares? You know, long-term positives. are are for me has always been and will continue to be having creative projects right ah you know currently i'm working on both a collection of essays and a novel that i kind of flip between depending on what my brain wants that day i've also started challenging myself to to new forms of writing i just got into trying out songwriting which is terrifying and kind of humiliating but really gratifying and then of course like
00:31:44
Speaker
This podcast is a perfect example. You know, I've got the collaboration with Book Warehouse that's building and all the live recordings, and that's just been such an incredible, positive experience. The way that this show has kind of morphed and adapted along the way with all the shifts in my life has really made it into this kind of constant kind of support buoy for me.
00:32:04
Speaker
It's something that I continue to rely on for, you know, for expression, for connection, for, for processing. And, and, you know, do all of these things help? Mostly, yeah yeah, you know, you gotta remember it.
00:32:19
Speaker
No one thing is the cure-all. Nothing truly wipes the slate clean. You know, a walk doesn't fix everything. Writing a song isn't gonna erase the hard stuff, but taken collectively and incrementally, they all add up to helping.
00:32:37
Speaker
They give me something to to reach for when things are hard. You know, they give me evidence that life contains things worth showing up for. And that is what makes the difference.
00:32:52
Speaker
Okay. Quick practice. We're gonna do a little decision tree.
00:33:00
Speaker
Think of one emotion you are carrying right now. Maybe something from today, maybe something ongoing. Name it specifically.
00:33:11
Speaker
Does this emotion fit the actual facts or is it responding to a story? If it doesn't fit the facts or if acting on the urge is going to harm your goals, what's the opposite action?
00:33:26
Speaker
What does the emotion want to do and what's the opposite of that? If it does fit the facts and there's something you can do, what's the actual problem and what is the smallest first step you can take?
00:33:42
Speaker
You don't have to do anything right now. Just notice where you land in the decision tree.
Conclusion and Next Steps
00:33:51
Speaker
Now, one reflection question for you.
00:33:54
Speaker
What is one positive experience, short-term or long-term, that you can intentionally add to your life? Not a big thing, something doable.
00:34:06
Speaker
Something that would give your nervous system even just a small deposit of that life contains good things currency. because you're gonna need that reserve. Hard moments come and it is a lot easier to navigate them when you're not running on empty.
00:34:24
Speaker
So that is emotional regulation part two. We looked at opposite action for when the emotion is real, but the urge would make things worse. You do the opposite fully with commitment. We looked at problem solving for when the emotions fit the facts and there's actually something you can do.
00:34:40
Speaker
You break it down, you take one step. And then we looked at build positive experiences. Don't wait until you're in crisis to start. Build the reserves. So that's three full modules down. We looked at mindfulness and emotional regulation.
00:34:53
Speaker
So we kind of understand the landscape. We also covered distress tolerance. So we have our crisis survival tools. course, do it all.
00:35:04
Speaker
Same through line. You're not broken. Your emotions make sense. The patterns make sense. and there are tools that can help you navigate Next step, final module, interpersonal effectiveness, which is about one of the messiest parts of being a human, interacting with other humans.
00:35:27
Speaker
yeah ah So we're going to ask things like, how do you ask for what you need without either people pleasing or accidentally burning the relationship down?
00:35:37
Speaker
You know, how do you set limits and still feel like yourself afterwards? How do you stay in relationships that matter to you without losing who you are in the process? So that's going to be the next couple episodes. And I've been thinking, honestly, you know, for a podcast called Friendless, these next ones feel pretty appropriate.
00:35:55
Speaker
but ah but That is coming up and I hope I will catch you there. But as always, I'm not going to worry about that right now. And neither should you because that is then and this is now.
00:36:06
Speaker
So for now, I will just say I love you and I wish you well. Fun and safety, sweet peas.
00:36:44
Speaker
you