Vicarious Resilience
Vicarious Resilience
Improve the Moment
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode Emma Carlson, a counselor who works with children in crisis talks about dealing with difficult situations before they become a crisis. She walks us through the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skill called 'Improve the Moment'
If you live in the White Rock/ South Surrey, British Columbia area, are interested in a counselling session with me, you can reach me at dannettercc@gmail.com, check out my website at http://dannette.ca or find me on Psychology Today.
Okay, thank you for joining us again to another episode of vicarious resilience. Our guest today is Emma Carlson, Emma has an extensive knowledge of working with people who are in crisis, as well as having her own private practice, and having some unique experiences that that really add and compliment the work that she does. So, Emma, welcome.
Unknown Speaker :Thank you so much for having me tonight I'm happy to be here.
Unknown Speaker :Do you want to maybe tell us a little bit about your background in counseling.
Unknown Speaker :Absolutely. And so I started off with my background in neuroscience and then branched into counseling psychology in my current work I work on a suicide prevention team working with high risk youth ages kindergarten through grade 12. And then in my private practice work, I work with high performers. And so athletes, primarily, but also working with people who often work in really high pressure or high stress situations and have the need to excel in those areas.
Unknown Speaker :Wow, that's a quite a range.
Unknown Speaker :K to 12 plus high performance that's really interesting.
Unknown Speaker :Well, it's all working with kids so I think that's the area that suits me best but the skills that you work with with kids are often very applicable across the across the age span, so.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, that's great. Okay.
Unknown Speaker :So maybe we can talk a little bit about because this is a, this whole podcast is around resilience and building people's resilience, and when people build their resilience then, it affects other people in a positive way. And so one of the things that that I'd like to discuss is, what are we resilient about in life people go through difficulties. And sometimes that those difficulties and struggles, can lead into a crisis. Or you can just talk a little bit about how you decide when someone is in having some difficulties in their life having some emotional difficulties and struggles. And when does it lead into a crisis.
Unknown Speaker :That's a really great question, and I think a lot of us go through the day to day and experience, you know, ongoing struggles and difficulties. And then, it seemed like things tend to pile up things stack one on top of another and maybe there's a trigger event. It doesn't have to be large, necessarily, but it can be. And it leads to this kind of state of crisis, so I would define crisis as a series of emotional, physical, cognitive responses to an event or multiple, multiple events that tend to overwhelm someone's resources in leading to a real inability to cope or manage. It is a feeling of a state of ongoing panic that prevents optimal functioning and in daily enjoyment in life and creating these deep seated feelings of stress and anxiety that persist over time. Imagine if all of your resources to cope were contained in a bucket, a crisis would come along and it would not just jostle your bucket or maybe a little bit of those resources would spill out the crisis state would come over and really throw that bucket out of balance, and then it would almost yell at your bucket for, why are you not functioning better. So that's how I would define the crisis.
Unknown Speaker :Okay. All right. So, when you when you're meeting with someone and trying to gauge for them or helping them gauge where they're at. Do you use, like to use a scale What do you use.
Unknown Speaker :Well, for me something that's really important to do is we want to get a sense of how bad is it, and that can be a really actually hard question to discern, so sometimes I use what I would call a scaling question, a one to 10 scale to kind of define for that person. How bad is it now, my scale isn't necessarily going to match their scale, so sometimes I like to put a little bit of boundaries on the outside and then we talk about what that number means for them. So, generally I would phrase the question is, on a scale of one to 10, one being stuff is bothersome and not really impacting your life and 10 being you're totally overwhelmed and you can't cope and everything seems impossible. Where do you feel like you're at. And how has that changed over the last little while we're going to notice that's gone up recently, if there's been any times where there's been little dips where they've gone down back to a more regulated state. And if they're staying up in that eight to 10 range by their own definition that for me would signify that this person is in crisis.
Unknown Speaker :Okay. All right. So, for our listeners. If you are feeling like you're in those upper ranges, where your coping skills are depleted, or you're really struggling right now and you just don't feel like you're able to handle it on your own. Please ensure that you're reaching out to a counselor or calling a crisis line or getting in contact with a trusted person who can help you co regulate and make some of those decisions, because when you're in a panic mode, then it's difficult to access the rational part of your brain. So what we want is for people to find a way for them to calm down so they can access the rational part of their brain, so I'm going to do that. So that you're reaching out if you're in that state.
Unknown Speaker :And also it's important to remember that it's okay not to be able to make decisions in a crisis mode. What's really important is to be able to safely write out the crisis without making it worse, and helping yourself get to a state where you can start making change in your life, and potentially not get back to that crisis state again.
Unknown Speaker :Well, really well said thanks Emma, of course.
Unknown Speaker :Um, so we were talking a little bit just before we started recording today about DBT. So, do you want to tell us a little bit about what DBT is
Unknown Speaker :absolutely DBT stands for dialectical behavior therapy, and it is a type of therapy. That really focuses on blending two forms of existence, the, the state of acceptance, where that all of the experiences that you're going through the behaviors and the things that your feelings are valid and change. There might be like that you do have to make to make different and to move towards a state of more more positive experience, what the goal of DBT is is to create a life worth living and it often blends behavior therapy with aspects of mindfulness, and includes kind of four areas of of the therapy experience. Mindfulness work, teaching mindfulness distress tolerance. So learning how to cope crisis, interpersonal effectiveness, learning how to better your social relationships and emotion regulation, managing and controlling your emotions so that they don't affect your thoughts and behaviors in a negative way.
Unknown Speaker :Okay, and you know, interestingly enough, even though. When I started this podcast I wasn't specifically thinking about DBT. But, it so happens that, as I've been interviewing people and pulling out the skills that they've been using in order to be more resilient and and overcome the difficulties in their life. These four areas mindfulness distress tolerance invoking the social skills and emotional regulation are four of the skills that people are consistently mentioning that they're using in order to overcome difficulties,
Unknown Speaker :friend, my work in in crisis intervention and suicide prevention DBT is my bread and better. It really helps me get to the heart of what's going on with my clients and help move them through or help them move through their lives in a way that feels more regulated. And so that we can start making some big change towards safety. Awesome.
Unknown Speaker :Okay, so now we can go over all of the skills in DBT but today we can focus on one of them. And it's called improving the moment. So, would you like to just walk us through what improving the moment means
Unknown Speaker :absolutely free. It's really important to always remember that life's full of curveballs life is going to come at you, whether you're ready for it or not. So one thing we want to do is we want to help shore up that resilience that we've been talking about that's the whole core of this podcast. We want to give you some resources to help make sure that even if we do get in those states where we're moving through that, like those steps towards a crisis maybe we're in that 124125 range, those lower level states of distress that we can give you something, or that you can do something for yourself that prevents you from moving to those upper states of crisis where things really do get out of control, and we're starting to just have to write it out without making things worse. So, improve is actually an acronym, so I am p r o ve. That gives you a list of tools that you can kind of keep in your coping toolbox towards that you can employ it anytime that in to help regulate yourself thought through the letters one at a time, and hopefully discuss what each of them stand for. So, I stands for imagery. So what that means is using your imagination to help visualize yourself maybe in a better situation that you're in now, transporting yourself to a safe place in your mind. And you're allowed to, you can allow yourself to tap into the big details of those image and really use your mindfulness skills to help regulate yourself. You can even visualize the situation that maybe you're stressed out about or having to stress about going well and and fixing itself. So that can help regulate you in that moment M stands for meaning tapping into the things that are most important in your life thinking about what your values are, and trying to shift your thoughts and actions so that they're in line with those values. And this could also be something of doing something, allowing yourself to engage in something that brings you a sense of meaning and purpose. P stands for prayer. Now that doesn't mean prayer in the traditional religious context, but it can. What I take prayer to mean is allowing yourself a sense of oneness with the universe and your place in it. Using you're using that mindfulness skills to focus on your presence in the world, connecting to something greater and allowing yourself to open yourself up in that moment. R stands for relaxation. Using skills to help reduce body tension, whether this is something you do like taking a bath or using deep breathing skills or helping yourself engage in something that feels comfortable and calm and when your body feels calm your mind will likely feel calm as well. Oh, is one thing in the moment, or one thing at a time. Generally, when we're in a state of crisis, we often tend to try to do 40,000 things at once, and that just tends to add to our stress. So by really focusing on one thing at a time. You can use your mindfulness skills to slow down, tuning to the present moment, what's going on in your body, what's going on around you to allow you to move forward in a really mindful present way that can allow you to make good decisions. V stands for vacation. And, of course, with everything going on in the world right now. Not many of us are able to take an actual vacation, but the V in improve the moment with vacation means taking a break from your regular routine. This can mean taking a break from being an adult. This can take mean taking a break from your life and your while your typical schedule. This could be doing something that brings you a sense of comfort from when you were a kid or anything like that that allows you to step outside where you are in this moment in a safe way. It's a mini vacation to escape your thoughts and enjoy. And then finally, he is encouragement, being honest with yourself and providing yourself with really realistic but hopeful encouragement to go through a difficult time. This could even be something as simple as reminding yourself. This too shall pass, focusing on the positive light hearted and directing your thoughts on a healthy track. If this is something that's really difficult for you to help you encourage you to find someone who encourages you engaging with someone who's a really positive influence on you who can provide you with that emotional encouragement, and that's improved the moment they seem really simple, but using these things kind of in order. Often, often can really help regulate people and bring themselves back to a state of calm, where the crisis, even though it may be bad. It doesn't seem as bad in the moment and it allows you to make good decisions about it.
Unknown Speaker :Wow, those are those are great skills Emma and that's exactly what we're looking for his skills that people can walk away with and begin using today. skills that they can learn now, so that if they are in crisis in the future, or if they're starting to have difficulties they have some skills in their back pocket that they'll be able to take out and use right at the moment so that they don't enter into that crisis state. So that's, that's fantastic. I just, I was thinking about when you're talking about meaning, and having, like sort of identifying what your values are and making sure that your actions are in line with your values. And one of my favorite authors and and psychologists is Viktor Frankl. And, yeah, so I mean men search for meaning right, it's sort of always been a bit of a basis in my life that I keep going back for. And those who have the why to live can bear with almost anyhow.
Unknown Speaker :That is so true. Yes, it is. Isn't it Yeah, thank you so much for having me tonight. This has been wonderful.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, thanks a lot, Emma and,
Unknown Speaker :you know, I think that, Emma is going to be a bit of a recurring guest here on vicarious resilience.
Unknown Speaker :So maybe speaking to you again.
Unknown Speaker :Anytime love to be here.
Unknown Speaker :Okay. Catch you later Emma, bye bye
Unknown Speaker :Hi Jeanette.
Unknown Speaker :When I reflected on my interview with Emma, I thought about another Viktor Frankl quote. It's that when we're no longer able to change a situation, we're challenged to change ourselves. Each time you tune in. I'm hoping that you're going to walk away with more skills in your toolbox and the encouragement to try them out to review the skills that we learned today, were from dialectical behavior therapy. It's worth googling and check note, and the name of it was called improve the moment. So the first one, I is for imagery visualizing yourself in a safe place. M is for meaning. It's making sure that your thoughts and your actions are in line with your values, P is for prayer. And it could be a religious prayer, or it could just be finding your oneness in the world, finding where you belong, and feeling like you're a part of the world are is relaxation. If you relax your body, then it triggers your mind to also be relaxed. Oh is for one. One thing in the moment, one thing at a time. So not rushing forward and trying to take on. You know 10 1215 things, and never completing any one of them just focus on one thing at the moment, what are you doing right now. V is for vacation. And it's not necessarily getting on a plane, but it is taking a break from your routine, so maybe it's getting up going out for an ice cream, or a walk or just a breath of fresh air, taking a few minutes just to break up your routine. And the E is for encouragement. It's encouraging you to try out your new skills or to find somebody who can encourage you to keep trying. Those are the skills involved in improve the moment. I encourage you to try them out now before you're having difficulties. So if you're ever in a situation where you're having difficulties, you already know what to do. That brings us to the end of this episode. I'm your host, Dannette Hoenisch. Thanks for listening. Transcribed by https://otter.ai