How to Flip Intense Emotion
Hi there!
Welcome back to the MoodiNews. Every Thursday, we discuss a variety of matters related to mental health and self-improvement.
I’m so glad you’re here.
Today, we will be continuing our current series on: THERAPEUTIC ONE-LINERS! YAY!
The phrase that we will be reviewing today is: Can you think of a time when you felt different?
This one-liner comes from Dialectical Behavior Therapy; it is part of a series of skills (called distress tolerance skills) that we teach in therapy to help people better tolerate emotional distress.
While the question, Can you think of a time when you felt different? might seem innocuous at first, it’s actually a very powerful clinical intervention.
In fact, for individuals who struggle with emotion regulation (i.e., big, unmanageable feelings and/or reactive behavior in response to stress), today’s one-liner can be a game-changer.
In therapy, we teach people to use the one-liner, Can you think of a time when you felt different? during moments of heightened emotionality—for example, intense feelings of rage, hopelessness, or worry.
The idea behind this phrase is to throw a nice, hefty wrench into the kinds of destructive thought patterns that often persuade people to react unskillfully to distress.
Here are some of the reasons why the one-liner, Can you think of a time when you felt different? works so well to halt emotional dysregulation:
It forces us out of our heads with mindfulness (i.e., the practice controlling our awareness), thus engaging different neural circuitry (outside of fight, flight, freeze) and enhancing our self-control and cognitive flexibility in the moment
It humbles us emotionally, because it forces us to contradict our own emotional experience in real-time, therefore lessening (or even reversing) the power and intensity of our current feelings
It reintroduces us to a positive memory that offers us a chance to possibly change our overall perspective about the current situation—which is an otherwise very difficult task for most people under stress
Essentially, the question, Can you think of a time when you felt different? is effective because it pumps our ‘mental brakes,’ caps our hyperarousal, and offers us glimpse into a different viewpoint that disrupts emotional turmoil.
In conclusion, today’s therapeutic one-liner, Can you think of a time when you felt different? is a question that can be asked anytime that a person starts to escalate to the point of losing control of their emotions.
It’s almost always possible, even under stress, to think of a time when you have felt more calm, cool, and collected—which can help you then proceed with more mental bandwidth in any situation.
(Keep in mind, too, that today’s phrase can be great a tool to use when trying to regulate not just yourself, but also a child, friend, or loved one who is stuck in rigid or emotional thinking—just be sure to validate first when a person is emotionally distressed, before you push for change!)
From both personal and professional experience, I can attest to the efficacy of today’s one-liner in keeping people grounded under stress.
So, the next time that you’re flooded with big emotion, ask yourself if you can’t think of a time when you felt different with regards to whatever is stressing you out.
Posing this question in the heat of the moment can be a great way to restore your executive mental functioning, reduce your reactivity, and assist you in making more skillful choices when your emotions are running hot!