Hi everyone! My name is Diana Garcia, and I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Florida and the owner of a private practice called Nurturing Minds Counseling. 

This is Day 6 of 12 of my Holiday Self-Care Series, where I provide 12 tips to help you deal with any holiday stress. So far in the Holiday Self-Care Series, I’ve covered the following:

  1. Holiday Self-Care Series: Day 1: A quick way to practice some mindfulness skills by practicing a three-minute breathing exercise.
  2. Holiday Self-Care Series: Day 2: All about listing your triggers during the holiday season.
  3. Holiday Self-Care Series: Day 3: Helped you notice the specific thoughts associated with your triggers. 
  4. Holiday Self-Care Series: Day 4: Focused on being able to identify and label your emotions.
  5. Holiday Self-Care Series: Day 5: About allowing and validating your emotional experience

If you haven’t read those yet, you could benefit from checking those out first. 

Holiday Self-Care Series: Day 6: Opposite Action

For this tip, I’ll be guiding through a skill to help you deal with emotional urges.

Watch Video: “Holiday Self-Care Series: Day 6”

Read Blog: “Holiday Self-Care Series: Day 6”

For today’s tip, we’re going to be talking about a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) skill that’s called Opposite Action. In past posts, we’ve talked about identifying your triggers, knowing which thoughts are related to that trigger, knowing what the feeling is, naming that feeling, and allowing yourself to feel that. 

Opposite action is a really good tool when you have an intense emotional feeling that comes on rapidly. The issue isn’t having the feeling but the associated action urge that can come with it. Let’s say I feel a rush of anger and I have the urge to yell at someone, or punch the wall. The anger isn’t the issue here, it’s giving into the associated urge – if that behavior is counterproductive. In many instances, giving into the impulsive urge can come with some regrets or consequences. The more you can acknowledge that you need to find ways to respond differently, the better you will be in the long-run.

How to Practice Opposite Action?

  • Step 1: Identify/Name the Emotion
  • Step 2: Identify and Describe your Action Urges
  • Step 3: Ask yourself if acting on this urge is workable? Aligned with your values? If not, go to the next step.
  • Step 4: Identify Opposite Action
  • Step 5: Act Opposite All the Way
  • Step 6: Repeat Opposite Action for as long as you need

* This is adapted from From DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition, by Marsha M. Linehan. Copyright 2015 by Marsha M. Linehan. Edits were made by this provider.

Lets say the situation is that your brother makes a comment about your parenting style at a family gathering. Here’s an example of what practicing Opposite Action might look like in this situation:

  • Step 1: Notice that you are feeling something new and get curious about your experience. Usually the fact that something shifted physiologically is good clue. You acknowledge the intense heat in your face, jaw clenching, and escalated heart rate. You have thoughts of “Who the hell does he think he is commenting on my parenting style? I can really give him a earful about what a crap dad he is!”
  • Step 2: Identify your Urge to attack back with all the witty and hurtful criticisms about his parenting style
  • Step 3: You think about whether this how you want to show up in this moment in this setting. Is this the type of sibling you want to me? Again regardless of how he’s acting, do you want to respond the same way? If you decide you don’t want to act purely from an emotional place or at least not while you’re still too heated, you go on to the next step.
  • Step 4: The opposite action is either saying nothing at all in this moment or saying something genuinely nice about his parenting style and/or gratitude for his concern about your parenting (but not sarcastically). Truly embodying good intentions here with your tone/choice of words/expression.
  • Step 5: Keep doing this for as long as you need to until the intense urge to attack has subdued enough that you can decide if you want to do anything differently.

In this instance, you might also decide that once you’ve cooled down a bit, you want to talk to him privately and tell him you would appreciate that he keeps his comments about your parenting to himself unless you ask him for advice. Or you decide it’s not even within your values to address it all. It all depends what matters to you in this situation as well as what you’re willing to deal with.

I hope this sixth tip on opposite action helps you in the upcoming holidays or even in general. You can use this tip whenever you need feel an intense emotion and action urge that you know isn’t the best for you to act on. Remember the more you practice it, the better you will get at it.

Check out these other resources to take care of yourself during the holiday season:

Lastly, I hope you continue nurturing your mind, body, and soul, whatever that looks like for you.