DBT Skill for June: Improve the Moment
Some of the ways we can Improve The Moment Are:
- Imagery
- Meaning
- Prayer
- Relaxation
- One thing at a time
- Vacation
- Encouragement
When practicing this skill, we are not trying to CHANGE the external circumstance, but rather trying to improve the moment to make it more tolerable (or even more enjoyable) for just this moment.
- “Imagery: Imagine very relaxing scenes…Imagine everything going well. Imagine coping well…
- Meaning: Find or create some purpose, meaning, or value in the pain [that’s what I do with this blog, by the way!]. Focus on whatever positive aspects of a painful situation you can find…
- Prayer: Open your heart to a supreme being, greater wisdom, God, or your own wise mind. Ask for Strength to bear the pain in the moment…
- Relaxation: Try muscle relaxing and tensing each large muscle group…take a hot bath…breathe deeply; half smile; change facial expression…
- One thing in the Moment: Focus your entire attention on what you are doing right now. Keep yourself in the very moment you are in; put your mind in the present
- Take a Brief Vacation: Rent a motel room at the beach or in the woods for a day or two. Ask your roommate to bring you coffee in bed or make you dinner (offer to reciprocate)…Get a magazine or newspaper at the grocery store, get in bed with chocolates, and read it…
- Encouragement: Cheerlead yourself. Repeat over and over: ‘I can stand it,’ ‘It won’t last forever.’ ‘I will make it out of this,’ ‘I am doing the best I can do.'”
Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder by Dr. Marsha Linehan, pp.168-169
