Creating pleasurable experiences is part of regulating your emotions. It's a DBT skill that can be overlooked. Being mindful of opportunities for joy is part of feeling joy. You may be passing up times that could add joy and meaning to your life. These experiences...

Finding balance between priorities (what's important to you) and demands (what's important to others) is a skill addressed in DBT. Do you have too many priorities or not enough? Too many demands or not enough? There may be many reasons for being too busy. Maybe you...

In DBT, “Build Mastery” means to do things that are a bit difficult in order to build your sense of competence and achievement. When you were younger, you had a natural sense of mastery. You pushed to learn to walk, talk, run, and do things older children could do....

Part of becoming mindful is the ability to know when you are in emotion mind, reasonable mind and wise mind. Emotion mind is particularly difficult. When you're in emotion mind, it's easy to snap at others, "I am not upset," or "I am not wound up or over-reacting."...

Good morning! I woke up with lots of energy today, so I decided to make bagels. Right now, they are cooling, so I'll let you know later how they turned out. You may remember that I’m working on learning to cook, so this is another step. It's all part of trying to live...

One of the main ways that we increase our suffering and create stress is through judging. Our brains tend to naturally judge, judge, judge. You know, "She's a witch," "He's an idiot," "This job is ridiculous," and "This place is horrible."  Think of the emotions those...

Mindfulness can help you decrease impulsive behaviors. Practicing focusing your attention can make a difference between yelling at someone you love and waiting until you are calmer. If you delay until you are calmer, you can speak from wise mind and speak in a way...

Think about the people who annoy you. That's right, the people who get under your skin. They may have habits of complaining continuously, or always having a problem, or of disagreeing with all that you say. Maybe they constantly have aches and pains. Maybe they talk...

Did you know that when people are successful in therapy, they don't usually experience fewer negative emotions and more positive emotions? What actually happens is that they become more comfortable having mixed emotions, both happy and otherwise. Sometimes we may...