EMOTIONAL RESPONDING
DISTRESS
All of us have felt distressed at times—whether brought on by a passing thought or feeling, physical discomfort, or an event in our lives, like a conflict at work or a relationship’s end. Distress refers to the experience of internal suffering - the wear and tear on our emotions, minds, and bodies that difficult experiences can cause. When distressed, we may find ourselves worrying about the future, ruminating about the past, or scrutinizing ourselves excessively. Not surprisingly, our reactions to distress and our mental efforts to manage distress are depleting and oftentimes prolong our suffering.
In distressed moments, we often experience spiraling, repetitive thoughts — like worry, rumination, and self-criticism. Worry involves thinking repetitively about negative events that may happen in the future. Rumination involves thinking repetitively about negative events that have happened in the past or negative feelings that you are currently having. Self-criticism involves talking a lot to ourselves about our unworthiness, inferiority, failure, guilt, and fears of disapproval and rejection. Distressing moments such as facing danger, uncertainty, disappointment, or loss, can bring on a quality of mind dominated by these types of spiraling thoughts.
REACTIVE RESPONDING
It’s important to understand that humans do not simply have emotions that pop up and then subside. Instead, emotions work more like a feedback loop. When we notice the arising of an emotion, we automatically start looking for the triggers outside ourselves or even inside our minds for what has led to this emotion in this moment, so that we can respond to it. Often though, our responses are partially or mostly in our minds as we decide how best to make sense of- and seek control over a potential threat or loss, or even a pleasurable or rewarding opportunity. This way of responding to emotions is natural and healthy most of the time.
However, what we call “reactive responding” occurs when we are faced with a situation, bodily sensation, or emotional state that provokes a jumble of intense negative emotions that we want to “fix,” “solve,” or “make disappear.” Reactive responses often prioritize escaping, avoiding, dampening, or withdrawing from the intensity of the emotional experience, even if it interferes with what is important to our happiness, and obligations to our relationships, work, or school.
BREAKING THE CYCLE OF REACTIVE RESPONDING
A big part of iERT is helping break the cycle of reactive responding when we feel distressed and an important first step is noticing where we are in this negative feedback loop. In iERT, we picture a dirty snowball, which probably has rolled down a hill, and in the process, picked up dirt and grime and twigs and leaves, and has formed a hard icy shell. But, the snowball didn’t start that way! At the top of the hill, right after a snowfall, the snowball is pure, a frozen form of water, with nothing added. Our initial emotional responses are much like a ball of this pristine, fluffy snowball at the top of a hill. Emotions are complex reactions involving a cascade of subjective, physical, and behavioral reactions that, although not always productive in every situation, are designed to motivate us to act in ways that not only benefit our survival but also help us prosper in our environment.
It’s for these reasons that we encourage you to pay attention to your emotions, all of your emotions (even the difficult ones), so that you can find helpful and effective ways to respond that reduce the burden and intensity of your distress.
THE iERT MODEL
Over the next six modules, we will provide information and introduce you to skills that we hope will help you notice when your snowball is rolling down the hill and help you get better at catching it. An important part of what we’ll refer to as our “iERT model” is the “time cascade” of emotion—meaning that the processes we’ve described unfold over time - over moments - in our lives. iERT is designed to help you develop a set of skills to disrupt the rolling snowball at various points along this temporal cascade of negative emotion. Specifically, you will learn to:
Promote Emotional Clarity: Notice your emotions to understand the messages they are trying to relay.
Increase Mindful Attention: Shift and sustain your attention on all parts of your experience.
Increase Perspective-Taking: Increase your ability to view your experiences from different perspectives.
Take Action: Take action from a clearer mind.
Using these skills will help you catch your snowball as it rolls - eventually, you may even catch the snowball at the top of the hill before it begins to roll in the first place.