Emotional awareness is very important to have. A number of coping skills may help you manage your emotions, but how do you know if those coping skills are actually working? Not every coping skill is going to be effective in every situation. One way to determine whether or not a coping skill is working for you is to monitor your emotions.
The instructions below guide you in creating a monitoring form that you can use to evaluate your coping skills. This monitoring form will help you determine if your coping skills are working for you.
Find a sheet of paper, notebook, or start-up a document on your computer.
Whatever you decide to use to create your monitoring form, make sure that it is readily accessible. The sooner you can report on your emotions after they occur, the more accurate you'll be.
Draw 5 columns on the document.
In drawing your columns, make sure you leave enough space because you will be writing what you experienced and what you did in response to those experiences.
At the top of the first column, write, "Describe the situation where you felt a strong emotion."
In this column, you want to describe a situation where a strong emotion came up, such as anger or fear. Try to be as detailed as possible in your description. The more detailed you are, the better able you will be in understanding what coping strategies work best in certain situations.
For the second column, write "What emotions did you experience as a result of this situation."
In this column, describe all the emotions you felt. If you are unsure what emotion you were experiencing, try to describe what it felt like in your body (for example, "My heart was beating very fast."). Before you try this exercise, you might want to practice identifying your emotions first.
Write, "Rate the intensity of your emotions from 0 to 100," for the third column.
Rate how strong your emotions were, with 0 equaling "not strong at all" and 100 standing for "very strong."
At the top of the fourth column, put, "What did you do to manage your emotions. What coping skills did you use?"
In this column, you want to describe what you did to manage those strong emotions, such as expressive writing, seeking out social support, self-soothing, or deep breathing.
For the fifth column, you will want to write, "Rate the intensity of your emotions after using the coping skill from 0 to 100."
In this column, you want to determine whether or not the strength of your emotions changed as a result of using a certain kind of coping strategy.
It is important to be as descriptive as possible. The more information you have, the better able you will be in figuring out what coping strategy works best for what emotion and situation.
If you notice that the intensity of your emotion does not change right away, that is OK. After awhile try to rate your emotions again. Sometimes it takes some time for emotions to reduce in intensity. Not all coping strategies work right away.
If you find that a coping strategy doesn't work for a certain situation and/or emotion, try not to get discouraged. This is important knowledge to have, and in the end, it will help you determine what is the most effective coping strategy for you.
