The skill to STOP

Hello Reader,

What a beautiful summer day it is! It would be a shame if your mind ruins it!!!

“Nooo! Not my own mind ruining the day with negative intrusive thoughts again!” – Reader

Good thing you have been building your emotional intelligence and taking care of your mental health, Reader. As long as you notice the thoughts and explore how they are trying to influence you, then choosing the healthy behavior, you’ll be fine.

We have been talking about, what’s known as, a top down approach, working on understanding and challenging the mind. This often will change the body but there are moments where you will not be able to change your thoughts and you might experience the bodily sensations of anxiety, depression, or another mental health issue.

“Oh I have experienced that where I just can’t talk myself out of the intrusive thoughts and cognitive distortions! What is happening?! I want to enjoy this beautiful day too!” – Reader.

Yes, in those moments, we’ll most likely have to work from a bottom up approach or from the body to the mind. The term that is used in this situation is, grounding.

Our body is stuck in feeling and thinking that there is a threat when there is nothing presently that is dangerous. The threat might be in the future or in the past but in the present moment, we are safe. Our body sometimes needs this reminder that it is safe.

There are a few different grounding techniques one can practice. We talk about this a bit in the DBT blog but let's continue on with it. The first that I often teach to my clients is understood by the acronym, STOP. This stands for, Stop, Take a step back, Observe, Proceed with caution.

Stop: You must literally stop everything you are doing in the moment. Put your phone down, stop talking, stop moving, (keep breathing lol) stop moving your leg. Just stop.

Take a step back: This might look like literally taking a step backward, it might be to leave the room or communicating a pause in a conversation. I often teach clients at this point to do some deep breathing techniques while tightening and untightening the body.

Observe: Observe what is happening. Observe what emotions and feelings are coming up for you. Observe and notice what your body is doing. Observe where your mind is wondering to. Observe and notice what it is tempting to do. Be curious. As you are curious, remember to be careful with your words. Catch the “why’s” and change them to “what’s”.

Proceed: Proceed with caution. At this point, think about your future self. Act on what would make the situation healthy. There is most likely not going to be a perfect or an ideal situation but we do want to make sure that our actions are healthy. It can also help to know and act on your values at this point of behavioral change. If you are not so sure what your values are or even don’t know what they are, this is a good thing to explore. A values blog is in the near future so keep an eye out for that.

Go practice this skill as it is a very useful tool to help with responding to situations instead of reacting. Reader, go enjoy your summer day!

Key takeaways:

1)      We can take care of our mental health by either a top down or a bottom up approach.

2)      When working on a bottom up approach, grounding and distress tolerance skills are going to be very important to practice.

3)      One skill to practice is known as STOP.

4)      Stop, Take a step back, Observe, Proceed with caution.