The second module of DBT swept me off my feet like Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers. After decades, yes decades of “dealing” with my emotions with screams, rants, emotional tirades, running to the relative safety of a hospital ward, or just shutting down all systems and waiting to die, I faced the challenge; emotion regulation.

Suddenly before me stood an answer. Could it work? Could I learn the way out of an emotional hell plaguing my every step? I took up the challenge.

The first DBT module is Mindfulness Skills which taught me tools to become aware, breathe, meditate, and find a middle path between Emotion Mind and Logic Mind. Even as I did the exercises (homework) my mind was saying bandaid. It felt like so many disjointed, perhaps inane, actions designed to just calm me and nothing more. How could this be any solution when emotions run savagely through me?

Emotion Regulation answered that question. The seemingly silly exercises like observing a leaf or a rock, watching a cloud formation as it drifted and reformed, being aware of my body sitting in a chair and breathing deeply saying “wise” on the intake and “mind on the out were a foundation to spring into action to regulate emotions.

I love it, and no I am not finished. I have come through a few panics using my new skills leaving me with some measure of faith that I can get through the next and the next. I ought to mention that the fourth module is Distress Tolerance which helped me to reach a state of acceptance before leaving claw marks or beating myself over the head.

Emotion Regulation, who’d have thought it? I am not a finished product and my emotional make up is not set in stone. I can win this.