Today was DBT class again. I taught some thoughts about emotions. One of them was that emotions love themselves.
This is an important point to understand. Emotions are self-perpetuating. They want to stay around as long as possible. Doesn’t matter if it is a pleasurable emotion such as happiness or a not-so-pleasant emotion such as anger. That emotion wants to be with you for a long, long time.
Think about this and you know it is true. When you are happy, you can tolerate all sorts of negative things. Nothing is going to dampen your spirits.
But what if you are unhappy? It can be the best day of the entire year and you never notice. The sun hurts your eyes and the birds are singing off-key! You won $10,000 but it should have been $100,000. Nothing ever goes your way!
Things get more interesting when you add other people to the mix. Being annoyed with one person – he is so grumpy! I can’t stand people! – can lead you to being annoyed with the next person. When that person gets tired of being snapped at for no reason and snaps back? Aha! Confirmation! I should be irritated. All people really are idiots!
In other words, emotions can set the stage so you unwittingly help keep them going. Emotions organize thoughts and behaviors in such a way that they are reinforced. Neat trick.
There is one tried and true DBT skill that can deal with emotions trying to self-perpetuate. This skill is opposite to emotion. Some examples of this would be putting on upbeat dance music when your sadness is telling you that you should listen to a dirge or starting a project when you have no motivation. Opposite to emotion can stop your downward spiral and get you going up again.
It is important not to spiral too far down. You don’t want your negative feelings to become strong enough to become a mood, your usual way of feeling and responding.
It is also important not to forget that emotions are contagious just like the flu. Hanging around people with a positive attitude can bring you up while being with people who moan and complain all of the time can really bring you down. That means you need to pick your associates carefully. Did you ever hear the saying “lie down with dogs and get up with fleas?” Negative emotions in this case are the fleas!
And on a sort of parallel topic, if you want to avoid perpetuating a depressed mood, it is probably a good idea not to get so introspective. In a slightly old study, Lyubomirsky and Nolen-Hoeksema (1993) discovered people who ruminated on their problems in an attempt to understand themselves were resistant to positive distractions like opposite to emotion even when they believed it would elevate their moods.
The conclusion? Sometimes insight is way overrated! It is much more productive to just go and have fun.
To reiterate: emotions love themselves and will try to set things up so they stay around for a long time. The best way to solve the problem is opposite to emotion.