True Recovery

Review

During this section, we discussed:

• Emotions describe us; how we're feeling inside.
• There is a direct connection between our bodies and emotions.  We physically feel symptoms of our emotions, and can even stimulate emotions with our body.
• In DBT we focus on six basic emotions (love, joy, anger, sadness, fear and shame)
• Emotions stem from our judgment thoughts, not the experience itself; mindfulness skills can help us disconnect judgment thoughts from the experience.
• We can feel several emotions at the same time.  At times several are primary, which may trigger secondary emotions.
• Judgment thoughts trigger primary emotions; primary emotions trigger secondary emotions.
• Secondary emotions can, at times, mask primary emotions.  Both are important to understand and acknowledge.
• We often confuse thoughts (judgments or reaction) with emotions.
• Emotions are always adjectives
• Nobody can change our emotions, so verbs or transitive verbs are judgment thoughts.  To see it, put the word in the phrase, "Can someone ___ me?"
• Emotions always fit comfortably next to the word "feel", avoid sticking another word (e.g., "I feel like") between the word "feel" and the emotion word.

Exercises

To understand and identify your emotions, try the following exercises.  Grab a pen/pencil and paper, then read through the "experiences" described below and answer the questions.  When you're done, post your answers to the discussion forum (links at the bottom of this page) to discuss them with other members of this site.

• A close family member or friend hollers, "I hate you!" 
  
  Would you feel just one, or more than one emotion?  What primary and secondary emotions might you feel? 
   
• A friend of yours tells you the following story:
  
  

  I couldn't believe it.  It was our anniversary, so I decided to go all out.  I bought him a really romantic gift and made his favorite meal for dinner.  I had the table all set with candles and a really nice bottle of wine.  He decided I wasn't important enough to come home on time!  He showed up two hours late and just strolled in like nothing was wrong.  He really pissed me off when he said, "Oh, what's all this for?" referring to the set table with cold food.