8. How To: Check the Facts to Change Reactions

In this episode, Liza and Molly share their experiences distinguishing between their primary vs. secondary emotions over the past week. We reflect on how early learning history, which includes gender socialization, affects how we understand, respond to, and cope with present events. Then, we get into the skill of the week: Check the Facts, which is the second step in the process of emotion regulation after identifying the emotion. Changing interpretations, beliefs, and assumptions to more accurately fit the facts of the situation enables us to have very different emotional reactions to the same situation. We review the steps involved in Checking the Facts when interpretations like, "they must be mad at me" show up while waiting for a delayed text back. We highlight the final step of this process: actually determining whether your emotion -- and/or its intensity -- fits the facts of a situation (hint: consult Wise Mind!). Finally, Liza coaches Molly on how to Check the Facts related to dog-mom shame and beliefs like, "I'm an irresponsible dog mom" that arise when Wilson misbehaves on walks. We hope you enjoy!