Join my free interactive workshop entitled “Let’s Have a Heart to Heart” where I teach effective communication strategies to increase the strength of our bonds and build inner grit, all at the same time! You can attend one or both, November 10th and 17th from 12-1pm.
My teaching is here, so please read to the end of this post. Start practicing today and before attending my workshop. Click here to register.
*Please note, what I am providing is not psychotherapy. Anyone reading this or attending my webinar will receive psychoeducation and guidance for general application. This is not a guide or strategies for targeting any specific mental health problem or diagnosis.
These skills and ideas are from the comprehensive gold standard evidence-based treatment, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan in 1993. Research and application of DBT has expanded significantly and worldwide since the inception. Please click here for information about DBT.
If you or your loved ones believe you would benefit from individual DBT, you can find a list of trained programs and DBT practioners here. If you would like more information about my practice, you may reach out to my assistant, Isabella Levere. Her email is bhbaadmin@bhbehavioralassociates.com.
In this time of horrific violence and mass killings, and a climate of bigotry and extremism beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime, the emotional blows of despair when I watch the news buckle my knees. I am fatigued by it and frightened and sad for my family, my loved ones, my community, the BHBA community and my colleagues and their families and the world beyond.
I am resilient, now. I can get back to a feeling of inner stability and back to work with surprising efficiency and feel even buoyed at times, which is interesting to observe. This wasn’t always the case. I began working within my specialty, DBT in my 30’s. Prior to that I suffered a lot. I was triggered by my environment and my inner world. At a time like this in the world we are currently living in, I would have undoubtedly collapsed from the power of my emotions and possibly lashed out in anger and despair.
DBT skills had an immediate effect on me. Nothing I tried before worked as well or lasted. I noticed a cumulative impact after using them for a short time and now after all these years I am much more capable. I believe this explains my longevity working in the field of suicide and trauma for 25 years and I’m so grateful for them. I fully believe in my ability to cope no matter what I face and know that I can carry on.
My teachers understood that to heal the world you must start with your own suffering. You must boldly face it and then apply the teachings to yourself. Some DBT skills have been around for 2500 years and flow from Buddhism. They are scientifically proven to be effective tools for boldly facing and then coping with the most abject and horrific realities, like realities we are witnessing today.
Right now, we need to be intentional and take personal responsibility for our strong emotions so we can cultivate connection and build community. We need to enhance and enlarge our networks and ensure they are supportive, reliable, safe, and strong. To be successful, we need to pause, then be intentional and align our behavior with our higher values when we interact with others.
The fabric of our community is being torn apart by an inability to hear or see each other. Many are in pain from differences of opinion causing strife and rifts with loved ones. Feeling alone, rejected, chastised, or alienated compounds traumatic experiences and can increase the risk of responding with more intolerance. It can also potentiate violence. When hate is directed at you or your loved because of your actual or perceived identity, affiliation, or perspective you will need a supportive and loving community to turn to for solace and strength.
To cultivate connection and community we must learn and use diplomacy. Our loved ones and children will feel safe when they see us demonstrate tolerance, emotion regulation, strong problem-solving skills, and capability during interpersonal conflicts.
**I am not advocating that you engage with anyone who want to cause you harm, or harm anyone you hold dear. Direct these efforts only to those in your community whom you value, especially if disagree. Diplomatic disagreement demonstrates tolerance and effective communication skills. We cannot practice this enough.
For successfully diplomacy, you must practice and model tolerance and acceptance. It is paramount. I will teach you how, but to do it well you should understand dialectics, the D in DBT.
Dr. Marsha Linehan, a behavioral scientist, devout Catholic, professor emeritus, Zen Roshi and the developer, used methods of dialectics (scrutiny), a Greek philosophy as a map for successful treatment. This method encourages discourse with multiple truths, within us and in the world around us. Engaging with curiosity serves to enrich our learning, cultivates empathy and enhances our collective understanding.
The idea of engaging fully with something new with curiosity as something of utmost importance is part of Buddhist teaching and describes one quality and state of mind during Mindfulness practice.
Dr. Linehan recognized that for therapy to work for those in chronic abject pain, or “hell” she called it, the therapist must take a dialectical approach - engage in discourse with multiple and at times incompatible subjective truths within the patient. The therapist must also navigate skillfully multiple and at times incompatible truths between them, using Mindfulness skills of full attention, curiosity, and non-judgment to assist.
The therapist must accept all of the patients experiences (not behaviors) using verbal validation, “I completely get it”, “I completely understand” “that makes sense” and the like. The quality of the therapeutic relationship must be extraordinary, and communications, especially validation, imbued with radical genuineness, and tender with loving concern and understanding. Successful treatment falls squarely on the therapists shoulders. They must connect on these deeper emotional levels and be vulnerable, humble and humane.
Validation with radical genuineness and tender concern is the most important skill. Without it, receptivity to change is low to none, making treatment unsuccessful. It is also the most important DBT skill for parent training for suicidal and aggressive teens. Parents learn to acknowledge the child’s truth. Being seen is a powerful salve that heals. Validation with tenderness brings about calm, literally soothing the nervous system and engenders feelings of being loved. Acceptance is the highest form of love. When kids and patients and all of us feel accepted we are buoyed, supported, better equipped psychologically, and can reach our full potential. It also opens the possibility for change. Without it, parenting (and any relationship) is exponentially harder.
Research on validation confirms that it is an effective intervention promoting psychological health and well-being. Research on invalidation confirms that it is the cause of great distress, alienation, and psychopathology. Non-acceptance or invalidation can unleash aggression towards the self or others in an effort simply to be seen. Chronic invalidation leads to hopelessness, despair, acting out with self-harm, harming of others, and intractable consuming alienation is correlated with premature death.
Most people agree that there are valid multiple subjective truths. Just to illustrate, there are 8 billion people living across our enormous planet, living in millions and millions of highly influential micro-communities. One’s perspective is based on innumerable influences. Some significant ones are biological makeup, including hormones, emotional complexity and intensity, energetic quality, gene expression, environmental influences, experiences, and family histories. We use all our senses to experience the world and are entirely unique. When someone disputes our truth, it is only natural to defend it! We are who we are, and we are singular and different. And dialectically, we are one in the same, only human and deserving of understanding.
Most agree. Yet when faced with another’s truth we do not like, or cannot understand, we quibble about the facts challenge their reality, debate, dispute, or express disbelief and we try to change their mind, can become indignant, judgmental, confrontational, argumentative, and disgusted. We may even engage in threatening behavior. When faced with our own fallibilities, we can show a similar intolerance to ourselves and go on attack internally.
Why is this so hard? I have seen two obstacles to simply validating. The first is the confounding of acceptance with approval. This problem is so ubiquitous, and sadly only furthers division. People have an erroneous belief that if they accept a reality, it is an inherent approval of that reality. This is not the case. Recognizing that another subjective reality exists is categorically different than agreeing with it, condoning it or going along with it. This error and confusion lead people to withhold understanding. When we do this, we lose the opportunity to see additional realities that expand our own world view and lose out on the practice of just being there for one another. Connecting on a deeper emotional level is lost.
The second obstacle is an inability to tolerate strong negative emotions that arise when the other is talking. If you cannot tolerate negative emotions related to an opposing position, one you do not agree with, or is not part of your reality on a specific topic, you might avoid engaging all together, so you don’t get triggered. Or, you may become triggered and argumentative, demonstrating low frustration tolerance, a lack of grit.
It is important to know that verbal angry outbursts discharge energy. It lowers the intensity of the emotion, providing instant internal relief to our nervous system. This is behaviorally reinforcing. Doing so brings our internal pressure down, making us more comfortable. Enduring the internal pressure from riding the wave to the peak of our strong emotion can feel excruciating. Outbursts occur before the peak. Our brains use this strategy to self-regulate. If we are not mindful, we repeat this pattern, continuing this way - keeping us weak.
Ignoring mental fitness is a serious oversight with significant consequences to society. Chronic emotional overwhelm, an inability to cope is the cause of severe mental illness and premature death. It is a life of extraordinary suffering. We value physical fitness for our overall health. Doctors prescribe exercise so that we are physically strong to protect us from disease. This is equally as important. Being Intentional and riding the wave to the peak of all your negative emotions without acting on them can make you incredibly strong. You can be a role model and hero to your loved ones. Flexing that muscle is very impressive!
Technically when you do this successfully you are exposing yourself to your negative emotions. Research show that this is the only way to effectively build inner strength, distress tolerance, resilience, and grit. You must tough it out and sweat it out.
Here is the 5-step solution for cultivating acceptance and simultaneously building grit. Find someone who you value and whose subjective experience causes you some distress (not too much) and practice these steps. Practice this often and when you feel you are building capability and increased tolerance, try for more challenging topics. Let them know you are practicing listening and radical genuine understanding and ask them for feedback. Then find more people and expand your support network.
1) Listen mindfully. Bring intention to understand with an open heart and mind. Pay very close attention throughout.
2) Connect with curiosity and engage in discourse. Ask questions. Show high levels of interest and care. Be gentle and caring.
3) Withhold judgment – withhold anything that challenges their reality
4) Check in to make sure you fully understand.
5) If you missed something, start again.
There are many potential benefits to you if you do this.
Feel proud that you stayed the course and exposed yourself to your strong emotions by riding them to the peak without discharging their energy.
Feel proud that you committed to mental fitness and got stronger on the inside.
Feel proud that you have modeled tolerance to distress and demonstrated how to build grit.
Feel proud that you have modeled how to avoid non-aggression through choosing tolerance.
Feel proud that you have modeled the foundational skills needed for diplomacy.
Feel proud that you have cultivated openness and receptivity for change and compromise.
Feel proud that you have cultivated love and built connection using validation and acceptance.
Shining a light on another’s truth shows acceptance and you will all grow and flourish through intentional learning. Creating an environment where you and others can thrive by accepting with love yourself, your partner, your friends, co-workers, and children is just what the world needs right now. Affirming often that a person’s truth, feelings, and opinions are worthwhile and that they have intrinsic value, as demonstrated through your efforts to hear them, matters. You’ve taken the time, and it makes a difference. Your community will expand, and you will feel the support of the strong bonds you created.
Know that you are strong! And keep having heart to hearts.
I look forward to seeing you at the webinar and am excited to hear how you are changing yourself and the world. You may reach out directly to me with any reflections. Please save concerns for the webinar, where I will be able to address them at length. I am unable to respond to concerns over email, as it would be too time consuming and laborious. drbellet@bhbehavioralassociates.com.
