The Emotion Regulation Module opens with explanations of what emotions are, what they do for us, how to figure out what emotion we’re feeling, and why it’s hard to regulate our emotions. Some of that is review from earlier posts, and I plan to touch on/review those ideas soon. The first skill in the Emotion Regulation Module is Opposite Emotion Action, which ties nicely into the survival mechanism/creative resources explanation because that too is acting opposite of what we naturally want to do.
Here is a flowchart we were given to help determine if opposite action is the right thing to do.
If following the flowchart leads to acting on opposite emotion, then there are several steps to use in doing that.
- Identify the opposite action to your emotion or urge
- Act opposite ALL the way
- Repeat acting opposite until you feel differently
It’s important to act opposite all the way in order to be effective. I posted a list of emotions and their opposite actions that we went through in groups.
