Sometimes I let my emotions get the best of me. I think to myself, why do I let emotions consume me? I know this is a big issue for me…. So I looked through some of the DBT skills online to help me on this. There is the STOP, Opposite action, ABC please, build mastery, cope ahead, and positive self talk skills for example. This is the website where I pulled these techniques and it may be beneficial down the road to refer to this as much as I can.

The STOP is a skill that stands for stopping, taking a step back, observing and proceeding mindfully. This sounds easy enough, but how do I even put this into practice? When I’m angry, I might act impulsively. What’s going to stop me here? I think the most critical part here is for me to learn how to name the emotion when I feel and act in certain way. I have to be quick to realize and see my own self, but I also have to be self reflective and understand my own behaviors and emotions.

To even enhance the way I stop myself, there is also a technique called Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). Instead of the typical, breathe in and out, this is a technique where one tense up the muscles and relax. It’s done by tensing up different muscle groups and then releasing each muscle group in your body.

This may be very hard to implement since I might not remember this during fights or when I’m feeling strong emotions. This is why I’m going to constantly have to write about this and think about it constantly, so it’s in my head. Even when negative thoughts are in my head, I should be thinking about this.

At the end of the day, I have to realize, being angry and losing control is a battle one loses. One should be able to control oneself to win the battle. I need to learn to control myself and this may require lot of thinking and practice. If I can’t, then I won’t be able to logically think “what do I want from this fight, what am I trying to accomplish right now, and such” during out-of-control situations.

There’s also opposite action skill, which is what it sounds. If you are thirsty, you don’t drink water. If you are angry and want to punch the wall, you don’t do that and stay happy and let the wall punch you. How does this work? Well, the concept is, if you want an angry emotion to stick and increase, you continue enforcing that behavior by doing what body naturally tells you. If you don’t want that emotion to stick around, you do the opposite and let those emotions get unstuck. Once again, the goal here is to ultimately know how to label your emotions properly, so you can do the opposite. I’m not sure if all these are useful, but it’s something I should work on and enforce until it sticks……