Life Transitions

DBT Skills to Help Lean Into Life Transitions

A hot topic that has been coming up this past month in my DBT Women's Young Adult group and my DBT Women's Group is life transitions. Getting a new job after college. Moving to a new city. Getting new roommates. Going through a relationship breakup and being single.

All of this is creating anxiety. It's because it's hard to sit with the unknown, it can bring up doubts and insecurities, and it can be challenging to try new things. So even though some of these transitions are exciting (like getting the job you applied for), it can also bring up anxiety due to the uncertainty of not knowing how you will cope with a new situation.

Here is the gist of the most common feedback I have been giving these clients in group. Perhaps this can help you, too if you are currently going through a life transition:

1.) Learn to Cope Ahead: Identify what would be your version of not being skillful with what is ahead of you (this is where it would help to know your past history and how you didn't cope well before) and based on that, decide what is your idea of being skillful. And then based on that, identify what DBT skills you would need to use. For example, if you are moving to a new city and your goal is to make new friends, but your temptation is to withdraw, then you would need to Cope Ahead for how you will join new groups, initiate with others, and form new bonds with people. This might use the Opposite Action skill (going against your urges to isolate), and the Commitment skill (verbalizing your commitment to forming community rather than allowing depression and avoidance behaviors to control you).

2.) Accept the anxiety. Part of coping well with life transitions is to not be anxious about this anxiety. When this occurs, we call this going into secondary emotions, which then leads to more vulnerability to fall into problem behaviors (binge eating, overusing alcohol, impulsivity). Getting anxious about anxiety is a common problem I see with my clients who have trouble tolerating the original emotions of anxiety. So a key part of overcoming this is validating the anxiety, accepting the anxiety, and riding the wave of this emotion rather than pushing it away. It might mean telling yourself, "It's normal to feel anxious about moving to a new city. I have not grounded myself yet in this new city and I am in the process of figuring things out. I am learning to tolerate my anxiety."

3.) Radically accept you have limited control over knowing and controlling the future. Sitting with ambiguity can be a real challenge. Especially when we tend to want to know the future to soothe our anxiety. Therefore, a healthy coping skill is to accept that things will happen out of our control and we may have to learn to cope with it on the spot. Some things we may not be able to cope ahead for. Having a willingness to lean into the discomfort and trust yourself in the process of figuring out challenges as they come is a healthy attitude to have when you are walking into new situations. Something will be uncomfortable and new, but this is actually how we learn and grow. But we have to first have the acceptance that we can't always control the future, there are limits to how much we can "plan ahead."

What is going on in your life right now that is a real transition for you?

What emotions is it bringing up for you?

Which of these coping skills would be most helpful to you and why?

DBT Skills group is where these skills are taught more in depth: Coping Ahead, Radical Acceptance, Riding the Wave of Emotions, Opposite Action, and Commitment. Also, using Radically Open DBT concepts help when over-control behaviors is used to cope with anxiety. In RO-DBT, it is taught how actively leaning into new things even if uncomfortable is how we can learn and grow.