Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster: ACT for the emotionally sensitive - Softcover

Zurita, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1925335747 ISBN 13: 9781925335743

Publisher: Exisle, 2018

Synopsis

If you have ever been told that you’re ‘too sensitive’; if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by your emotions — as if they’re controlling you and you can’t seem to dial them back; if you’ve ever reacted in a way that you’ve later regretted, but you simply couldn’t stop yourself at the time; or if you simply struggle to understand why you’re feeling the way you are, then this is the book you’ve been waiting for. Drawing on her years of experience as a clinical psychologist, Dr Zurita Ona provides a clear and simple roadmap for every ‘super-feeler’ on how to avoid being hijacked by your emotions. Using the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as well as aspects of positive psychology, you will learn how to distinguish between emotion-based behaviour and values-based behaviour so that you can step back from an uncontrolled emotional response and instead choose a more appropriate one. The result is an effective way to combat the feelings of loneliness and fear of abandonment so many super-feelers experience, as you learn to build and maintain strong healthy relationships, and to look within to identify sources of pain and struggle rather than placing outward blame. Along the way, you will become adept at skills such as self-acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, mindfulness, and conflict resolution. In the end, super-feelers will discover the truth that they are more than their emotions, and that no matter how intense the situation, they can always choose to act in a way that is consistent with their personal values, in order to experience fulfilling, loving and caring relationships.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Patricia E. Zurita Ona, or Dr. Z., is a clinical psychologist who specializes in OCD, trauma, all types of anxiety and related conditions, and emotion dysregulation problems for children, teens, and adults. She's the director and founder of the East Bay Behavior Therapy Center, a private therapy center in Walnut Creek, California. In addition to private practice, Dr. Z. is a clinical faculty member for the Wright Institute, and regularly attends both national and international conferences.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster

Act for the Emotionally Sensitive

By Patricia Zurita Ona

Exisle Publishing

Copyright © 2018 Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-925335-74-3

Contents

Introduction, 
Section I: Life as a Super-Feeler, 
Chapter 1: Am I a Super-Feeler?, 
Chapter 2: Why Your Quick Fixes Aren't Working, 
Chapter 3: New Opportunities: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Super-Feelers, 
Chapter 4: Clarifying Your Values: Vivir Mi Vida La La La!, 
Section II: Me and My Emotions, 
Chapter 5: What Are Emotions?, 
Chapter 6: What Is the Function of Emotions?, 
Chapter 7: Charting an Emotional Strategy Course, 
Chapter 8: Watch Out for Those Gut Feelings!, 
Chapter 9: Emotions about Emotions, 
Chapter 10: Cranky Town, 
Chapter 11: Isolation City, 
Chapter 12: The Emotional Trilogy, 
Chapter 13: The Choice to Feel, 
Chapter 14: Tying It All Together, 
Section III: Me and My Inner Voice, 
Chapter 15: The Birth of Your Inner Voice, 
Chapter 16: Sticky Thoughts About Emotions, 
Chapter 17: Creations of Your Inner Voice, 
Chapter 18: Narrating, 
Chapter 19: Tying It All Together, 
Section IV: Me and My Body, 
Chapter 20: How Do I Want to Care for Myself?, 
Chapter 21: How the Brain Responds to Danger, 
Chapter 22: Attention and Busy Bee Brain, 
Chapter 23: Self-Soothing Land, 
Chapter 24: Tying It All Together, 
Section V: Me and the People I Care About, 
Chapter 25: Relationships Are a Messy Business, 
Chapter 26: Relating to Relatedness: Attachment Styles, 
Chapter 27: Nonverbal Communication: Your Body, Posture, Face, and Voice, 
Chapter 28: Conflict in Relationships, 
Chapter 29: In Your Shoes: Curious and Empathic Behaviors, 
Chapter 30: Giving and Receiving Feedback, 
Chapter 31: Tying It All Together, 
Section VI: Me in This Moment, 
Chapter 32: It's All About Mindfulness, 
Chapter 33: Mindfulness in Action, 
Chapter 34: Tying It All Together, 
Section VII: Me, My New Map, and the World We Live In, 
Chapter 35: Life Has Messy Moments, 
Chapter 36: Your Tipping Point, 
Chapter 37: The Final Wrap-Up, 
Appendix: Beyond the Scope of This Book, 
References, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Am I a Super-Feeler?

* Have you been told you are too sensitive or that everything is a big emotional deal for you?

* Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by your emotions — like a knob turned all the way up for anger, anxiety, guilt, sadness, and other emotions?

* Do you experience your emotions so intensely, as being overpowering, that you cannot manage your behavior or think clearly in the moment?

* Do you regret how you behave because in a given moment you do exactly what you feel?

* Are you exhausted from going up and down, left and right, because of overwhelming emotions?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, chances are you are a super-feeler.

Everyone, at one point or another, feels overwhelmed with crushing emotions and doesn't know how to handle them. Super-feelers, however, feel their emotions as if they have a switch that turns on and off —they feel too much, too quickly, and they act too soon, as if they're being kicked, stomped on, and knocked down to the floor by those feelings. (Be aware that throughout this book, the terms emotions and feelings are used interchangeably. Also, to avoid confusion, let's distinguish emotions or feelings from moods: mood is a long- lasting state, while an emotion or a feeling is a transitory experience.)

If you're a super-feeler, your emotions are running your behaviors, 24/7, with no vacations and no holidays. For instance, when you feel guilty, you're pulverized with guilt; when you feel anxious, you're crushed with anxiety; when you feel sad, you're flooded with sadness. You experience your emotions quickly and intensely; believe every thought, interpretation, or hypothesis that comes into your mind as if it were the absolute truth; and then do exactly what the emotion tells you to do. Later on, you regret your actions because you get hurt and the people you care about get hurt, too.

Going through this dance with your emotions, up and down, left and right, back and forth, is exhausting, and you find your life is full of broken relationships, loneliness, difficulties holding a job, and perhaps, even suicidal thoughts. It's not easy for you, and it's not easy for the people around you.

As a super-feeler, you're dealing with emotion regulation problems — as all people do at times — but because of your makeup, you feel most of your emotions at a maximum level, turned all the way up, and despite your efforts, you frequently get stuck on a reactive chain of emotion after emotion, almost on a daily basis. You may wonder ...

How Did I Become a Super-Feeler?

On the day of my thirty-fifth birthday, my boyfriend and I were hosting a party together. This relationship was my fifth attempt to create a family life with someone I love. I met him through an online dating website, and after dating for eight months, I felt that he was the one. We argued a lot, sometimes for hours, days, and even weeks, but I still believed he was the one.

On the day of my birthday, I was really upset with him because he wasn't helping me as much as I wanted him to. I got so mad that I started yelling at him, calling him names, complaining about how he never helps me, how he's a slob, and cannot seem to keep up with me, even for such an easy task as putting together a party. I was so angry that I took off for an hour to the coffee shop next door and sat there crying, texting him, still angry. When I got back to the apartment, my boyfriend was gone, and his most important belongings were gone, too. There was a piece of paper on the hardwood floor: 'For eight months I asked you to pay attention to your anger, the way you treat me when you get angry, and even when I'm here with you with all my love, you cannot do it. I'm scared and cannot do this to myself. I'm out of this relationship; I'm done.'

- A SUPER-FEELER

Have you been in Stacey's shoes? Despite her desire to have a family life, her emotions dictated her actions 24/7 in the relationship with her boyfriend, and she ended up with a fifth breakup. Why does this keep happening to her? What makes her get so angry at her boyfriend so quickly and so often?

Here is a three-part response to make sense of Stacey's behavior: 1) her temperament, 2) her limbic system, and 3) her learning history.

YOUR TEMPERAMENT

Your genetic makeup predisposes you to a particular type of emotional baseline from which you respond to your internal and external world; we call this "temperament." Some people are wired to be sharpeners and others are levelers. Levelers are usually more mellow-yellow, as my students once said, and it takes a lot for them to have a reaction. Sharpeners, on the other hand, tend to be more sensitive, attuned, and impressionable; they react more to their surroundings, people's facial expressions and tone of voice, noise, sensory stimuli, and so on. Super-feelers tend to have a sharpener temperament in general.

YOUR LIMBIC SYSTEM

The limbic system is the area of the brain in charge of emotional processing, and it has a set of structures that interact together. There are two organs that play a key role: the amygdala and the hippocampus.

The amygdala, even though it is about the size of an almond, has the incredible power to alert us when a situation is perceived as threatening, signaling a "danger alarm" in our brain and compelling us to take immediate action. The hippocampus stores the specifics of a situation, including the dry facts, and basically acts as the memory of the limbic system. The amygdala and the hippocampus together, as safety guards, check whether a current situation matches or is similar to an alarming past encounter, and if the match is positive, then the amygdala signals the danger alarm. It's as if your body hears a fire alarm or a car honking at you when you're crossing the street.

The challenge with the interaction between the hippocampus and the amygdala is that, given the hundreds of experiences you go through on any given day, most of the time there are pieces of data, situations, and events in the present that are connected to past encounters that have been perceived as uncomfortable, risky, or threatening. Because of this association between the past and the present, the fire alarm of your limbic system gets activated over and over again, even if you're not in danger at that moment.

Different neurological studies have suggested that super-feelers have an overactive amygdala, which explains why they often exhibit a higher frequency of emotional and behavioral reactivity across various situations; super-feelers, in a nutshell, are biologically predisposed to feel too much, too quickly, and to behave reactively in the moment.

YOUR LEARNING HISTORY

Did you ever attend a class called Emotions 101? Of course not. We learn as we go. Since you were born, you've been learning through every single encounter you have in your life. As a baby, you learned about the world through your senses; it's a sensory world based on what you see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. When you learn to talk, you continue learning through the use of language and by making all types of associations, relationships, and connections in a symbolic world: words, sentences, memories, and so on. You're constantly learning, every moment, without end. Sometimes you learn information by explicitly being told or taught or by searching yourself; other times, you're just exposed to information that you're not even fully aware of. Can you imagine in this moment all the information you have in your brain, things that you know you know and all the things that you don't know you know?

As a super-feeler, you learned to handle your emotional landscape based on all the direct and indirect memos you received from the people around you, from the different relationships you participated in, and from all the societal messages about the "right" way to handle emotions; it's your learning history.

For instance, Stacey recalled different memories when she was 11 years old in which every time her brother was playing with her favorite toys, or her mom refused to give her dessert, or her father didn't want to take her to swim, she felt outrage and then screamed from the bottom of her lungs at everyone until they gave up and responded to her needs. In Stacey's words, she didn't know what else to do to get what she needed at times because she felt that nobody listened to her as the baby daughter. Stacey learned to deal with intense anger and other emotions as best she could, and this became part of her learning history. Later on, because she couldn't tolerate the intensity and stress that came with feeling angry, hurt, or disappointed, she sometimes used drugs, cut her wrists, or tried to make sense of her struggle by blaming others.

It's the interaction among your temperament, limbic system, and learning history that creates your personal signature as a super-feeler.

It's Courageous to Be in Your Shoes

It's really hard to go through the swing of emotions up and down, left and right, and up and down again when your emotional switch is on, dragging you into emotional hell, and your limbic system is working really hard to get your attention, organizing your body around a particular action-urge, and demanding you do something right away. It's tough — really tough.

Nobody knows what happens under your skin when your emotional machinery gets activated and all the effort it takes you to not do whatever those distressing and obnoxious feelings tell you to do. It's actually courageous to be in your shoes and to handle your feelings, given how little latitude your amygdala provides in any particular moment. Many super- feelers, in an attempt to manage their intense emotions, rely on unconstructive responses. I call these "quick fixes," because they might work in the short term, but they get you into even more trouble in the long run. These unhelpful — even risky — responses are the subject of the next chapter.

CHAPTER 2

Why Your Quick Fixes Aren't Working

When your emotional machinery gets activated, you go from one feeling to another, like an emotional chain, and if some of those feelings are uncomfortable, like any human being, you will naturally do whatever it takes to suppress, minimize, or neutralize your discomfort right away. We all do things that pay off immediately, especially when we are distressed; it's as if getting an offer today of $100 for a talk is more attractive than an offer of $150 next week for the same talk.

Trying to Manage Feelings with Quick Fixes

Super-feelers, with their best efforts and intentions, do what they can to manage their crushing emotions, and sometimes they manage them with quick fixes. Let's briefly look at each one.

SCOTCH, SEX, WORK, AND CHOCOLATE

It's 11:00 p.m. Monday night, and after having a long day at work, Jeff, a super-feeler, arrives home ready to eat. There is Bob, waiting for him, and after greeting him, Bob says, "Why didn't you reply to my text this afternoon?" Jeff quickly looks at him, and even though he is tired, he stares angrily at Bob and screams, "Is this how you greet me on a Monday night at 11 p.m., after a long day of work, and the beginning of the week? This is just unbearable. I don't know what else to do with you and, of course, now you're going to have a puppy face as if it's my fault for us to be arguing. Why don't you just keep your mouth shut?" Bob doesn't respond, and quickly moves toward the living room.

For the next hour, Jeff tells Bob how often he says the wrong thing at the wrong time, and how he needs to relax himself with a stiff drink because it helps him control himself and fall asleep. Bob doesn't say a word; it's as if he's paralyzed, confused, and numb; he looks at his phone and reads his earlier text: "What time will you be home so I can have dinner ready for us?"

Jeff continues drinking and complaining about Bob's inappropriate text.

Here is the issue: at some point, you have learned to handle the emotional turmoil that comes with dealing with other people and upsetting life situations by using quick responses that simply feel good in the moment, distract you from your pain, and even make it go away for a couple of moments. All of these quick fixes, such as drinking, acting out sexually, or excessively focusing on your job, work so well, and feel so good, that you go back to them over and over; in a sense, you over learn them.

IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT, EAT A SNACK

Recently, when going over different ways a client handles difficulties at work with her boss, she reminded me about an old commercial from Weight Watchers. Recognize this song? "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands ..." In the commercial, the song was modified to:

If you're happy and you know, eat a snack.
If you're angry and you know it, eat a snack.
If you're sad, and you know it, eat a snack.

When you're hurting, it does make sense that you will do anything you can to get rid of your discomfort, and escaping to a place that's more enjoyable and pleasing is always an option. Do you ever escape from a distressful feeling by using your favorite snacks, treats, or food to calm yourself? Or do you manage those crushing feelings by avoiding eating or even counting how many pieces of a food item you consume?

Distressful feelings are caused by all types of things that happen outside of you and within you; sometimes, super-feelers get troubled by how they feel when looking at their body or particular body areas or by the bodily sensations that come along with looking at different food items.

SHOPPING

Every time Anastasia had an argument with her mom and felt frustrated by it, she quickly went to the mall to buy herself a pair of shoes or a purse. Her closet had more than twenty purses of fancy brands and thirty pairs of stilettos; together, they totaled $25,000.

When Anastasia lost her job six months ago, she went back to live with her parents because she couldn't afford the cost of living alone, and she started taking online classes to improve her career. Spending $25,000 in purses and shoes was significantly over what she could financially afford.

Anastasia had a long history of problems with her mom, feeling unseen, unheard, and compared with her sister; every time they had an argument, regardless of how it started, Anastasia felt like her body went into fire mode and she could even visibly see the signs of it when looking at herself in the mirror. "It's a combination of things I feel in the moment, like angry and frustrated," she said. Over the years, Anastasia learned to get out of that emotional hell by soothing herself with things she enjoyed the most: purses and stilettos. Even though she couldn't afford them, it was a quick fix.

Have you been in Anastasia's shoes at some point or another?

TO BE ALIVE, TO BE DEAD, OR TO CUT

Dorothy: When I turn thirty, I'll stop my pain.

Matt: I'll finish my life on Valentine's Day.

Chris: When my mom dies, then I'll commit suicide.

Stephanie: The day my kid turns eighteen, then I'll put a stop to my suffering.

These are some of the announcements made by super-feelers at some point in their lives. Going through emotional hell is exhausting for super-feelers, and their sensitivity to rejection, abandonment, and other ongoing negative feelings is so intense that all they want is a way out of it.

A client of mine, Joe, told me once: "I have been in misery since I was twelve. I'm thirty-three and I'm here, still in misery; my misery doesn't go away." Asking more about Joe's struggle, I learned that he often goes through intense feelings of loneliness and despair. He becomes so overwhelmed by these feelings and doesn't know any other way to interrupt them except by cutting his wrists, sometimes with a single cut, sometimes with multiple cuts.

Who wouldn't come up with thoughts about suicide or urges to cut when every struggle feels like a third-degree burn? It's a hard place to be when the emotional switch is on and you have been living an emotional roller coaster of intense emotions. At some point, your inner voice says, "There is no point in trying; my life is over."

Fantasy Island: Trying to Stop Your Feelings

Another way super-feelers manage their unpleasant feelings is by trying to just stop what they feel. But did you ever place your hand at the mouth of a water faucet while it's running, as if trying to keep the water from coming out? If not, I would highly recommend that you go to a sink and turn on the faucet. Let the water run, and after a couple of seconds, place your hand, palm up, on the faucet and press against the water. What happens? You just made a mess, didn't you? Every time I do this exercise, the water sprays all over. Similarly, when we're trying to suppress emotions, they gush out all over.

Here is something to keep in mind: each emotion is a multilayered experience. You don't have to take my word for it, just check with your experience right now. Bring to mind a sweet memory you had last week, hold it for a couple of moments, and notice the different aspects of the emotional experience: reactions in your body, feelings that come along, the intensity of those emotions, the thoughts that show up in your mind, and even the go-to actions you had in those moments.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster by Patricia Zurita Ona. Copyright © 2018 Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona. Excerpted by permission of Exisle Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Exisle
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1925335747
• ISBN 13: 9781925335743
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248