My experience using the skills of dialectical behavioral therapy to present the TCC

Presenting Course Completion (TCC) can generate many anxiety, insecurities and fears. These feelings may be associated with thoughts like: Will I be able to work in my area? How will it be when I graduate? What do I do now? Among so many others ... After all, we know it is not only to do and present a CBT, there are several expectations and emotions involving the whole process.

Sometimes I saw myself not wanting to feel anxiety / fear before the presentation or sadness by the closing of a cycle. I have not always seen me with willingness to use some dialectical behavioral therapy ability (DBT) after all, in addition to being tiring finalizing a degree course, we are in the middle of a pandemic, deprived of several things that rather motivated us and reinvigorated our energies. Dealing with the emotions and thoughts that arise on the way, go beyond knowing DBT's skills. Having a good knowledge about the skills was an important step, but have trained before, know which work best for me and self-knowledge were essential to use Lá more effectively.

Before marking the day to present the TCC, I first thought of all possible tragedies that could happen in the day. I could wake up too late and be late, could have forgotten to leave lunch ready, could wake up nauseous or with bellyache because of anxiety. After thinking about the catastrophe, I did a problem solving by marking the presentation to the late afternoon and canceling the entire agenda of the day. So I would have time to wake up, take a shower, eat and review the presentation calmly and if something wrong would have time to solve.

But these were not the only things that could go wrong, could miss light, drop the internet signal, get a virus on the pc and lose the presentation as we are talking about an online TCC presentation. What I could anticipate was: if you miss light or fall the internet I can use the 3g of my boyfriend; If a virus corrupts the PC files, the solution is to save the presentation previously in different locations and that's what I did. Even if it is not possible to predict all things, imagine what can go wrong and imagine solving these possible tragedies helps us to deal better with them if they actually occur. However, this is an exercise to be done quickly, because spending all day thinking about what can go wrong can make us even more anxious.

On the day of the presentation, I followed with the routine as planned. Anxiety and thoughts obviously was there, but I was using the skills that I have used to use as: pay attention to breathing for a few minutes, make things more than usual, practicing acceptance, staying in a quieter environment and observing the Thoughts without arguing with them. A few minutes before the presentation, I practiced mindfulnessof breathing and sensations in my hands. To know that I usually feel the anxiety with more intensity before and early in the situation where I encounter was essential in choosing the practices that would do that day.

unforeseen happened? Yea! But they were solved. Although it rains, having missed light on the day and I'm super nervous, I can remember my happiness by closing such an important step of graduation and for counting on the presence of people I admire so much together with me.

We all passed and we will go through moments that will cause us anxiety, whether presenting a job, in a job interview, knowing a new person, going to a place where we never went before, etc. The skills are there to help us in these situations. Having emotions is just one of the elements that makes us humans, sometimes they are like a wave that comes and drowns, but sometimes this wave is also nice, warm and welcoming.

This text is authorized by the CEFI Team Trainee Contextus - Karina Guerin