hey everybody and welcome to today's presentation of pacers integrative behavioral health
we are continuing to do our series on borderline personality disorder and today
we are going to focus on emotion regulation as always i'm your host dr dawn elise snipes
yesterday we talked about creating safe and validating environments as well as
vulnerability prevention and when we um react to a situation when we react strongly to a situation
it's important to examine you know what was going on in the moment but also do what linehan
referred to and behaviorists refer to as backward chaining to identify all of the things that kind
of led up to the point that you reacted the way you did um you know sometimes things will happen
on one day and it won't feel like it's that big of a deal and other days it happens and it was
just like more than you can possibly take and that's where backward chaining comes in helpful
helpful because it encourages you to reflect on all of the things that you encountered that day
that may have added stress to your life which ended up resulting in a an extreme reaction
so emotion regulation is another tool that you can use that uh goes along with distress tolerance
and when we regulate our emotions these are things that we are doing when we feel dysregulated when
we feel out of control these are techniques that we can use to help bring ourselves um back down a
little bit we can re-regulate ourselves and it's important to acknowledge our feelings to accept
them non-judgmentally but emotion regulation helps us get into our wise mind so we can then stop and
observe what's going on and then make a plan for what to do next so with emotion regulation
i break it down linehan has the mnemonics accept and improves i break it down more simply because
i find sometimes it's hard to remember all of those different things in those mnemonics to tags
the first one is thoughts examining the thoughts that you're having and looking for
extreme language looking for what they call cognitive distortions but also
keeping a list of thoughts or mantras that can help you feel safe and empowered
and it's going to differ for each person but i find that having positive thoughts and positive
mantras can be helpful another thoughts oriented thing that you can do is focus your thoughts on
something else completely different think about something you're looking forward to this evening
think about something that's going well right now so turn your attention completely to
thinking about something else that is less distressful until you can re-regulate and
be able to effectively observe and plan for how to address the current situation
the second part of activities of tags is activities
um including breathing and breathing is obviously an activity if you engage in activities that can
help you slow your breathing and that can include just breathing in for four holding for four and
exhaling for four that can include meditation that can include doing things that you enjoy
um maybe you're having a really bad day and you just want to get out and take a walk or maybe
it's not something you enjoy you want to do some sit-ups or something things that distract you i
find for me gardening works really well um because it gives me just enough to focus my thoughts
and it's an activity that gets me moving so i'm not thinking about what it is that i am distressed
about helps me get into a more regulated frame of mind and then once i feel more regulated then
i can reapproach or re-examine the situation that was causing my distress keep a list of activities
handy that are helpful when you are experiencing distress to either distract you or to elicit the
opposite emotion i have a whole list of happiness nuggets on the youtube channel there's a playlist
and those are things that just bring a smile to my face and i've shared them with you know everybody
because i want to give you resources that might help bring a smile to your face too
you can make youtube lists you can make um playlists on you know
amazon music or whatever you use to get your music of comedians or things that make you
happy but activities are things that you can do that either distract you
help you slow your breathing or and or make you feel actually feel the opposite emotion
reading a book is another one that comes up a lot
number three g is guided imagery and you can use guided imagery in a lot of different ways
i encourage you whenever you're using guided imagery though to use as many senses as
possible what does it smell like what does it feel like what does it look like and you
can use guided imagery to imagine yourself uh re-regulating or calming down sometimes um clients
find it helpful when they get upset they imagine themselves being all red and we've all seen those
coffee cups that turn one color when it's hot and as it cools down it turns another color
well i have them imagine doing the same thing for themselves when they're feeling disregulated they
see themselves all red and then they imagine that color changing and whether it's from the
top to the bottom or from the bottom to the top or it just fades into from red to purple to blue
whatever works for them but i encourage them to use that imagery i have another client
when she gets upset the imagery she likes to use she envisions herself being surrounded
by angels that are there to help her and take care of her i've had other clients that envision
a force field around them that are protecting them from the chaos that is in the world
whatever guided imagery works for you that helps you feel safe and empowered can be helpful
or you can just use guided imagery to take a break to take a little mental vacation
and i do have a couple of um meditations on the youtube channel that will
provide guided imagery walking you through a scene and this again it's really important to use as
many senses as possible because that makes your brain really work in a lot of different you know
ways to try to create this multi-dimensional vision what is it what are four things that
you smell what are four things that you see what are four things that you hear as you
walk down the wooded path um or down the beach or wherever it is that you happen to be but really
immersing yourself in that experience as much as possible can be really helpful because it
occupies your brain so your brain's not thinking about whatever that is that's causing you distress
it also encourages the release of serotonin and gaba and dopamine because you're thinking of a
situation that is relaxing that is peaceful that is calm and when you're doing this
another side benefit is the fact that generally even without thinking about it
your breathing starts to slow down so the guided imagery doesn't have to last for long
but and obviously make sure your phys in a safe place before you do it
but when you engage in guided imagery even if it's for you know just two or three minutes it can give
your body the the cue that hey you know we can down regulate some of this maybe there's
you know there is not the immediate threat that maybe i initially thought
and then the last thing is sensations and sensations
is something that linehan talks about but it's also very useful because when
we engage in anything with intense sensations it attracts our attention so holding ice cubes
can be one of them um doing a hundred squats can be another one um you know the first five or ten
you're not thinking you're still thinking about other stuff but by the time you get to 50 you're
not thinking about much um going on a run doing push-ups snapping a rubber band against your wrist
splashing cold water on your face listening to loud music or even smelling or tasting something
and it can be amazing it doesn't have to be something that is unpleasant anything that can be
so potent that it attracts your you know your full attention and ideally
with sensations you can like i said you can also do things uh find sensations that
are extremely pleasant you know smelling roses or lavender those are my two um that
can occupy your mind and also because they're pleasurable because they're pleasant
will prompt the release of dopamine endorphins and serotonin so emotion regulation is really a
process that you can use a bunch of different tools for but the goal is to help you
re-regulate your emotions when you are feeling um like you are out of control
like your emotions are dysregulated this is a way of getting everything re-regulated
and i try to avoid using the word control because our emotions are normal our emotions
are natural reactions it's how we react to those emotions that can uh sometimes feel
out of control or can sometimes feel overwhelming
is there a correlation between chronic gaslighting and development of borderline traits certainly
gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse and one of the reactions to or one of the ways
that some people survive abuse is by developing some behaviors to protect them and that can be
all or nothing thinking that can be uh
regularly feeling like you are um not good enough sometimes but then good enough other times
and that also when when you feel gaslighted a lot of times people start feeling the need
to be chameleon-like because the other person or persons are making you feel incompetent and inept
and and so borderline traits can develop as a protective response to gaslighting
emotion regulation is not the same as emotional intellect emotional intellect is being aware of
emotions and being sensitive and being able to interpret emotions whereas emotion regulation
is actually being able to re-regulate your emotions when you feel like you're spiraling
it's also important to remember that borderline personality characteristics and narcissistic
personality characteristics are often behaviors that have developed over time as a result of
exposure to trauma or unsafe environments or both and they are a way that the person has developed
to survive so there is often a lot of it's not uncommon for people with personality disorders
to be attracted to one another because a lot of times they have gone through very similar
situations um and and they have developed their own strategies to survive likewise the
there is a theory in psychology that sometimes we will recreate our family of origin because even
if it was dysfunctional because that's what we know and sometimes being in a situation that is
known feels a whole lot less scary even if it's dysfunctional than being in a situation that is
unknown so we do want to look at the ways that we potentially recreate our the dysfunction
of our family of origin both in our new future relationships uh intimate relationships but also
even things with our friends and at work explore ways that we might be
replaying unhelpful patterns and then start trying to address those
are there any other questions about emotion regulation
and i actually do have a video on gaslighting on the youtube channel i did it
golly about three maybe it's been a month ago now so that's another thing
that if you're interested in learning more about gas lighting you can watch that video
everybody have a fabulous day and i will see you tomorrow