Show Notes
In this episode, Liza and Molly share their experiences distinguishing between their primary vs. secondary emotions over the past week. We reflect on how early learning history, which includes gender socialization, affects how we understand, respond to, and cope with present events. Then, we get into the skill of the week: Check the Facts, which is the second step in the process of emotion regulation after identifying the emotion. Changing interpretations, beliefs, and assumptions to more accurately fit the facts of the situation enables us to have very different emotional reactions to the same situation. We review the steps involved in Checking the Facts when interpretations like, "they must be mad at me" show up while waiting for a delayed text back. We highlight the final step of this process: actually determining whether your emotion -- and/or its intensity -- fits the facts of a situation (hint: consult Wise Mind!). Finally, Liza coaches Molly on how to Check the Facts related to dog-mom shame and beliefs like, "I'm an irresponsible dog mom" that arise when Wilson misbehaves on walks. We hope you enjoy!
More from Therapists In The Wild
In our last episode of the Therapists in the Wild podcast, we're coming full circle: dialectics was the topic of our first ever episode, and now we're wrapping it up two years later by letting our listeners in on how we have used a dialectical frame to face this ending head on. We review the DBT skills we used to lean into our discomfort, to have difficult conversations that have deepened our relationship, and ultimately, to radically accept this change in a way that felt true to ourselves, our friendship, and, we hope, to our listeners. We try, more so than ever, to practice radical genuineness and vulnerability in this emotion-filled episode. We are more grateful to you, our listeners, than we can possibly express. We hope that you will continue to share the podcast, stay subscribed, and follow us on social media to stay involved in our future projects.
This month's episode is a re-release of an episode introducing one of our favorite DBT skills: Radical Acceptance (Episode 23). We hope you enjoy and look forward to being back next month for the final episode of Season 2!
"Burnout" has become a buzzword since the start of the pandemic, for good reason. Many of us are feeling burnt out, in many areas of life, and could benefit from using DBT skills to cope.
Happy New Year, TITW listeners! As we head into the new year, we're reflecting on the values we want to prioritize and how we can commit to moving toward those values. Since deepening relationships and creating new ones has been on our minds lately, we decided to do an episode on vulnerability. Vulnerability can be defined as "the practice of taking emotional risks even when the outcome is uncertain." We start out by discussing certain forms of anxiety that interfere with opening up even to trusted people in our lives. We then explore what we miss out on when we act on this anxiety (i.e. missing opportunities for closer relationships, as well as feedback, support, and validation). We end by suggesting a few DBT and other skills to use in the moment when anxiety is holding you back from being vulnerable with someone you trust.
This month on TITW, we're practicing self-compassion. Liza and Molly have been studying the work of Dr. Kristin Neff, a psychologist and researcher who breaks down the practice of self-compassion into concrete steps. We've noticed a lot of overlap between Dr. Neff's work and DBT skills, and we discuss the similarities in this episode.