Sea of Wellness

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Perfectionism is the belief that everything must be perfect all the time. A perfectionist sets impossible goals, and feels crushed when they are not achieved. Alternatively, someone who strives to do their best sets challenging but achievable goals.

Those with perfectionistic tendencies are often resistant to change, believing these tendencies are a strength. Digging deeper, they find that perfectionism contributes to a number of problems, including procrastination, stress, anxiety, and depression.

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/what-is-perfectionism

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The cognitive triangle illustrates how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors affect one another. This idea forms the basis of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).

Perhaps most important to CBT, when a person changes their thoughts, they will also change their emotions and behaviors. By targeting irrational or maladaptive thoughts, mood and behavior can be improved.

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/cbt-triangle

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Urge surfing is a technique for managing one’s own unwanted behaviors. Rather than giving in to an urge, a person learns to ride it out, like a surfer riding a wave. After a short time, the urge will pass on its own.

This technique can be used to stop or reduce drug and alcohol use, emotional reactions such as “blowing up” when angry, gambling, and other unwanted behaviors.

The Urge Surfing handout describes how urges work, and how to “surf” them effectively. Like an ocean wave, urges gradually build intensity, they peak, and then they fade away. This worksheet teaches clients to use mindfulness as a tool to accept an urge and its discomfort, rather than attempting to suppress it.

While riding out an urge, it can help to practice basic relapse prevention skills. This handout also offers education on managing triggers and using delay and distraction.

Before urge surfing, clients should have some insight into their triggers, and the ability to recognize urges. Like any skill, urge surfing requires practice to master. While practicing, keep in mind that it is normal to experience emotional discomfort while riding out an urge, but giving in is not the only way to remove that discomfort.

Urge surfing is very popular in the treatment of addictions, as a distress tolerance skill in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and as a tool for emotional management in many other disciplines (e.g. ACT, CBT).

Oh, and one last bit of optimism: When urges go unfed, future urges gradually become weaker. The first waves are some of the most difficult to ride.

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/urge-surfing-handout

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When bringing up a problem to your partner, the first three minutes are crucial. Conversations that start with blame or negativity are likely to end poorly.

A soft startup sets a positive tone and helps resolve conflict. By starting a conversation calmly and respectfully, you and your partner are more likely to focus on the problem, rather than who’s to blame.

The soft startup technique was introduced by marriage therapist John Gottman, Ph.D. He recognized that gentle startups reduce defensiveness and contempt, which are detrimental to relationships.

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/soft-startups

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Love languages are the ways people show and receive love. When you and your partner use different languages, it can be difficult to communicate your feelings. By learning your partner’s love language— and helping them learn yours—you will be better able to share positive feelings.

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/love-languages

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DEAR MAN teaches a strategy for effective communication. Using this skill, clients learn to express their needs and wants in a way that is respectful to themselves and others, increasing the likelihood of positive outcomes.

The DBT Skill: DEAR MAN worksheet teaches the DBT approach to assertive communication. The first page breaks down the acronym and provides a description of each step, plus an example. The second page provides a template and prompts for clients to practice DEAR MAN with a situation from their own life.

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/dbt-dear-man

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The theory of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) says that what we think and do affects the way we feel. It follows that if we can change the way we think then we can feel better about ourselves and our lives. One problem is that lots of our unfair, biased, and negative thinking is quick and automatic – we often feel bad without even knowing that we are doing it! Using CBT Thought Records we can practice capturing and identifying our negative automatic thoughts. Once you have caught some of your negative automatic thoughts you can use CBT Thought Challenging Records to practice thinking in fair and balanced ways. With practice thinking differently can become second nature.

https://www.psychologytools.com/self-help/thought-records/

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The term "triggered" refers to the experience of having an emotional reaction to a disturbing topic (such as violence or the mention of suicide) in the media or a social setting. However, there is a difference between being triggered and being uncomfortable.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-triggered-4175432

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Identifying Triggers Work Sheet

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Opposite action is a dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) skill that involves choosing to do exactly the opposite of what your emotions tell you to do.

When you think about it, we all have emotions that can cause us to make choices we’d rather not make. That’s because, at the moment, your emotions override the logical part of your brain.

In short, a particular emotion is directing the show, urging you to take a particular course of action. However, instead of acting on those emotions, you can use opposite action instead.

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Forgiveness is an effective treatment for anger and relieving hurt. Sadly, many people dismiss forgiveness due to misconceptions regarding its nature. This information handout describes what forgiveness is and what it is not.

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Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based[1]psychotherapy that began with efforts to treat personality disorders and interpersonal conflicts.[1] There is evidence that DBT can be useful in treating mood disorders, suicidal ideation, and for change in behavioral patterns such as self-harm and substance use.[2] DBT evolved into a process in which the therapist and client work with acceptance and change-oriented strategies, and ultimately balance and synthesize them, in a manner comparable to the philosophical dialectical process of thesis and antithesis, followed by synthesis.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy

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TIPP stands for – Temperature –Intense Exercise –Paced breathing and – Paired muscle relaxation.  This is a super easy skill to use in times of crisis or high emotional states like when you feel overwhelmed and your emotions are going to consume you.

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Radical acceptance can be defined as the ability to accept situations that are outside of your control without judging them, which in turn reduces the suffering that is caused by them.

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How To Change Your Life in SIX Months

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Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. The theory was formulated by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

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Meaning-making

In psychology, meaning-making is the process of how people construe, understand, or make sense of life events, relationships, and the self.[1]

The term is widely used in constructivist approaches to counseling psychology and psychotherapy,[2] especially during bereavement in which people attribute some sort of meaning to an experienced death or loss.[3] The term is also used in educational psychology.[4]

In a broader sense, meaning-making is the main research object of semiotics, biosemiotics, and other fields.[5] Social meaning-making is the main research object of social semiotics and related disciplines.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning-making