I’m currently reading a book called “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dummies” and attending an 8 week session of DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) with my daughter who suffers from intense emotional anxiety. Basically I’m learning that we are what we think. People are either more geared toward their emotional mind or to their rational mind; I’m definitely geared toward my emotional mind. This means that if I hear something about my database at work isn’t doing what it’s expected to do, instead of thinking that I should go into the database and research what’s causing it to have this behavior, I panic first. I break out into a cold sweat and think, “Wow, I’m so dumb. This is my fault because I made the database and now it’s not working.” Dumb, I know, and when I think about it now it sounds really immature to react in such a way, but it’s the way I’m wired. Not that I can’t do anything to change my reaction, because I can, and that is why I’m studying cognitive behavioral therapy in the first place.
So instead of thinking, “Wow, I’m so dumb and this is all my fault”, I should take myself out of the picture and think, “This is an interesting challenge and I’m sure I can figure out what’s causing the database to behave this way.” That is my goal. To begin to think more rationally instead of wigging out for no reason. I’m doing much better. Work hasn’t gotten me upset for at least two months now, and I think that’s a record!
Now I have to learn how to interact better with my daughter. When she has an emotional outburst or is full of anxiety I need to use words to figure out what happened to get her to that place. If we can figure that out together then we can do something about it. Otherwise this anxiety builds up until she can’t bear it and does something harmful to herself. The word I’m supposed to remember is MOVE. Move means to mirror. If she says, “I’m so anxious!” I repeat, “Wow, you’re really anxious.” (Mirror) O doesn’t mean anything except to make the word move, and then you go to V, which is validate. “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately so I can see why you might feel anxious.” I need to really work on validating. Everyone needs to feel validated, and I’m working on weaving this into my daily interactions with all people, not just my kids. E is to empathize. After you validate, you empathize by saying, “I know what it feels like to be anxious, and it’s no fun. Let’s figure out what’s causing this anxiety so we can do something about it.”
It’s pretty interesting stuff. The other major thing we’re discussing is being mindful. Take notice of what’s happening in this moment without putting any judgments on anything. We tend to draw conclusions based on what we see or perceive without really knowing all the facts, and it’s best not to do that. Even when you find yourself making judgments, don’t judge yourself on the fact that you’re judging! Just take notice. Oh, and breathe.
