Therapeutic Thursday: The Differences Between Thoughts, Feelings and Emotions & how DBT can help

All right, welcome back, No Problem Parents, to the very first Therapeutic Thursday episode on the No Problem Parenting podcast. So which themed day of the week are you enjoying so far? We started with Mindset and Motivation Monday, and then we did an episode on Tech and Teaching Tuesday, Wellness Wednesday, and today it's all about Therapeutic Thursday. So I'm your host, Jackie Fineman, and I'm having fun this first week publishing our daily themed episodes.

To kick off this week's Therapeutic Thursday series, I've intentionally started with one of my favorite therapeutic approaches, which actually didn't used to be a favorite of mine years ago. But because I met a specific doctorate level therapist who excels at this therapy, she really changed my mind. And that is dialectical behavioral therapy, otherwise known as DBT. So today I'm going to share what DBT is and the difference between a thought and a feeling.

Many of us think we know the difference between a thought and a feeling, but we find ourselves or catch ourselves saying things like, I feel attacked. And guess what? That's not a feeling. So are you ready to learn what emotions are? Let's do it.

All right, parents, let's dig in and talk about the differences between thoughts, feelings, and emotions and how DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy, can help. So DBT is a therapeutic approach that was developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan. And initially it was designed to treat individuals with borderline personality disorder. However, it has proven effective for a variety of mental health diagnoses and is now widely used in different settings. So anyone can learn DBT, whether you have a diagnosis or not. It is a combination of a couple of approaches. It combines cognitive behavioral techniques with acceptance and mindfulness strategies. And its goal is to create a balance between accepting individuals for who they are while also encouraging positive changes in behaviors. So there's four kind of key components with DBT. Mindfulness, helping people stay present in the moment without judgment. Distress tolerance. It teaches us to manage crises without worsening things. There's emotional regulation, helping us identify and regulate intense emotions. And it also helps us enhance communication and relationship skills with interpersonal effectiveness. So DBT integrates the concepts of validation, acknowledging,

and accepting individuals' feelings with the necessity to change and improve their lives. All right, so let's talk about the differences between a thought, feelings, and emotions. So thoughts are ideas, they're opinions, they're beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. They include perspectives that we bring to any situation or experience that affect our point of view. Feelings are physical sensations like warmth or tension or a sinking gut. And then emotions are reactions that we experience in response to events or situations like joy, anger, fear. I usually say happy, sad, mad, or scared. So I'm going to talk about eight different statements in this quick episode here to just give you this introduction to DBT. But for parents with teens and young adults, my best resource and recommendation that your child has access to right from the comfort of your home or their phone is Dr. JJ Kelly of drjjkelly.com and her company Unorthodox Inc.

She is my go-to. Dr. JJ was on episode 59 talking about emotional intelligence. I recommend you go back and listen to that episode.

She is a fantastic resource for people looking to dive deeper into the world of DBT. if you have a teen or a young adult that claims themselves to be or maybe in fact are the stereotypical misfit. They're struggling to like themselves, to find joy. They feel stuck. Dr. JJ is one of a handful of docs that I know that is just truly authentic. She believes in teaching people the skills to like themselves. Her heart is as true as they come. Her work is absolute no BS and she is just absolutely as genuine as they come. She has a five book series called the Holy shit series. It is worth checking out. There's something in there for every parent, every teen, and every young adult. There are links in the show notes for that. And I'm going to recommend that you go to her website, drjjkelly.com and download her feelings wheel. There's a couple of wheels that you can download absolutely free. And there's also a feelings list. So if you're not sure if you're making a thought statement or having a feeling, the feelings wheel and the feelings list is going to help you. So as I prep to get into these eight statements, I want you to think about feeling statements, those I feel statements. So with feelings, if you're having a genuine feeling, it's usually expressed with I feel followed by an emotion like happy. So I feel happy. I feel frustrated. Whereas thoughts are typically shared without specific emotional

descriptor. So it's more of a, I think that, or I believe that fill in the blank. Okay. So now I'm going to share eight statements that start off as feeling statements, but they're really not feeling statements. I'm going to share some potential feelings that the statement really is trying to express. And then also what the person could say instead. So number one is I feel misunderstood. How many of you parents have heard that? I feel misunderstood. Well, this is actually more of a thought than a feeling. The person's interpreting the situation as a lack of understanding for something. And they're saying, I feel misunderstood, but perhaps the underlying feeling is frustrated or lonely. So instead the person could say,

I think that my perspective isn't coming across clearly and I feel frustrated. Here's another one. I feel betrayed. Well, perceiving betrayal is actually an interpretation of someone's actions, which makes it a thought rather than a feeling. So the actual feeling might be, I feel hurt or I feel disappointed. What the person could say is, I believe that your actions have violated my trust and I feel hurt or I feel disappointed. Now, the statements I'm sharing today are more for your teens and up. I encourage you for the younger ones to go back and listen to our Mission Control, a big feelings adventure series that started with episode 207 and then 208 and 210. So there's some more resources for you for the younger kiddos. All right, the next one is I feel unappreciated. Oh my gosh, parents, how many of us have said that? Well, unappreciated is actually a conclusion drawn from a set of circumstances again, right? So that makes it more of a thought. So instead you could say, I believe or I perceive that my efforts are not being acknowledged. I feel undervalued or I feel neglected. And I have to say, one of the things I love about learning these differences with the thoughts and feelings and how we share them is it causes us to slow down instead of flying off the handle and flippantly having a response to somebody. If you listen to Mindset and Motivation Monday this past Monday, you heard in that episode

how we talked about being more intentional this year. Holy moly, learning the difference between thoughts and feelings is definitely going to slow us down and help us become more intentional in our conversations with our kiddos. All right, the next one is I feel like a failure. Instead, the person could say, I think I haven't met my expectations or I think I haven't met your expectations.

I feel disappointed or I feel inadequate. Number five, I feel judged. Well, instead of saying I feel judged because judgment is an interpretation, which indicates a thought, right? So instead, the feeling might be, I feel vulnerable or I feel exposed. Again, really thinking about what is it that you're feeling versus thinking. This is so fun. All right. Number six, I feel ignored.

Well, the sense of being ignored is again, an interpretation of behavior. So that makes it a thought. So instead the person could say, I'm think my contributions, or I think my presence isn't being acknowledged and I feel neglected or I feel invisible. All right. Number seven, I feel like I'm a burden. How about instead of saying I feel like I'm a burden, we could say something like, hmm, I see myself causing inconvenience right now. I feel guilt or I feel self-conscious. All right, number eight, I feel like I'm not good enough. So since this statement involves self-evaluation, it's a thought. So you could say instead, you could say, I think that I fall short of certain expectations and I feel insecure or I feel doubtful. And actually, I think I'm going to do a bonus because at the beginning of the episode, if I remember right, I said that saying I feel attacked is a thought, not a feeling. So let me give you an example of that one.

If you're saying I feel attacked, there is an underlying thought or an interpretation in that. And so instead you could say, I'm perceiving your words or actions as aggressive and hostile. I feel angry. I feel afraid. I feel vulnerable. So the specific feeling, of course, is going to depend on the situation and whatever you're going through in that moment. And I get it. It takes some work. I'm learning this as well because I think so often our muscle memory, our responses that we're so used to throwing out there are ingrained in us. And so we have these go-to kind of I feel statements that aren't actually feelings. And we can be more emotionally intelligent about that.

And I think that starts with you parents. So whether you're looking to increase your self-awareness or improve your communication skills, remember that emotional intelligence involves recognizing and accurately labeling feelings. And it takes a little bit of work. Take advantage of the insights that are provided by Dr. JJ Kelly and download the free emotions wheels. It's amazing what learning emotional intelligence and feelings versus thoughts can do for your relationship and your connection with your teen, with all your kids, but with your teen and your young adult, communicating your emotions more effectively and just helps you navigate that relationship with greater clarity. So I hope you've enjoyed the episode today. For the younger kiddos, you can go over to a hop, skip and a jump ahead.com and check out the resources there.

Tune in next Tuesday for another therapeutic approach and tomorrow for our first financial fitness Friday. Until then, hugs and high fives, parents. You got this. All right, that's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

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Thank you.