The term “positive thinking” has been in our vocabulary for a while and has come to represent different things—everything from always having a smile, seeing the silver lining in every cloud, to the “think and ye shall receive” mindset. Aside from all the hype, though, research has shown many …
A Safe Place
One useful coping skill during times of stress is having a “safe place” we can go to whenever we need to. All we have to do is close our eyes and imagine ourselves there. Because of the way our brain works, imagining ourselves in that place can have the same effect on us as being there in …
Personal Space
In a previous post about boundaries, we mentioned how we use expressions about physical boundaries to apply to emotional boundaries: “He gets under my skin” or “Keeping someone at arm’s length.” The term Personal Space usually refers to physical space, but it can also mean an appropriate emotional …
Personal Narratives
Narratives: what are they? A narrative is a spoken or written account of events or a story. A personal narrative is a story we can express to ourselves or someone else about ourselves. There are several kinds and sizes of narratives—from our daily inner dialog, to our belief system and way of …
Self-reflective Questions
In a previous post we wrote about Self-Awareness. One way to get personal with coping skills is to get to know yourself better! If you are interested in life skills, and are reading these words, chances are you are interested in improving yourself or your life. Do you have a vague sense that things …
Personal Dialogue and PACE
Many people have an active monologue or dialogue going on in their thoughts – a monologue or dialogue with themselves. It can be a conversation that is well worth paying more attention to. Often, we don’t realize that changing what we say to ourselves, or how we say it can have a big impact on our …
A Personal Book
A personal book can take many forms—from a timeline or journal to a goal tracker, workbook, or picture book. It can also be used to write about thoughts and feelings or as a narrative about the past. They all have in common that they are about you, by you, for you and belong to you. They are all a …
Getting Personal with Coping Skills
Introducing some personal, close-to-home coping skills into our lives has serious advantages. With ourselves, we are operating in our sphere of influence. We can waste a lot of time trying to control others and be none the better for it. Even if we hope to contribute to world peace, the only …
Boundaries
Good boundaries make other coping skills more effective. But what is so important about boundaries? How do boundaries apply to life skills? Our bodies, the natural world around us, our culture and civilization, and our “higher” or “inner” beings (what you might think of as soul, spirit, …
More Coping Skills
Several weeks ago, we took a jump up to the 30,000-ft level for an overview of coping skills. We discussed how thinking, emotions, and behavior all affect each other. Then we examined some specific thinking skills, emotion regulation skills, and behaviors, and how we can use them. Now it’s time to …
Behavior and Emotion
Behavior ties in with emotion because emotions come with an urge to act. Behavior is sometimes a direct expression of emotion. If we are skilled enough at emotion regulation to take the critical pause, label our emotion, and choose our behavior, it can be a modulated expression of emotion. But does …
Thinking and Behavior
The diagram in our previous post, Behavior, shows how behavior can affect thoughts, and how thoughts can affect behavior. Let’s start by looking at how thoughts can affect behavior. We mentioned the RAI strategy – Reflect As If. This involves reflecting (thinking) on the person we would like to be, …
Behavior
In a previous post Next Up: Feelings, we used this diagram to illustrate how thoughts and feelings influence behavior, and how behavior also influences thoughts and feelings. What do we mean by behavior, as it relates to emotions and thinking? Behavior can be a direct expression of an emotion, …
E.I. Concepts
Awareness of emotions and emotion regulation brings us back to the subject of Emotional Intelligence, which we wrote about in an earlier post. Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of the 1995 New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence, views Emotional Intelligence as “a profile of specific …
Codependence
Codependence, or co-dependency, as it’s also called, involves the opposite of emotional development and emotional regulation. Co-dependent people have learned to suppress and avoid emotions and disregard their own emotional needs. Mental Health America offers this description of …
Anger Management
It is especially important, and useful, to have effective emotion regulation skills when it comes to anger. Without the all-important pause, where we identify our emotion, ask ourselves what prompted it, and choose our reaction, anger can easily produce harmful behavior. Anger often results from …
More Emotion Management
Emotional self-regulation is defined on the Crisis Prevention Institute Blog as “the ability to monitor and manage our own behavior. With self-regulation, we can calm ourselves down when we’re distressed, and pick ourselves up when we’re low.” Successful management of our emotions does not …
Managing Emotions
Why is emotion-identification one of the first steps in managing our emotions? It is often easier to know what to do with, or how to react to, something we know, rather than to something we do not know. When we can say “oh, I know what this is!” or “I often have this feeling when …” or “I know where …