The Art of Emotional Fact-Checking

Hey y’all! In this episode, I dive deep into one of my favorite therapy skills: emotional fact-checking. I walk you through the six-step process that's helped me break free from anxiety spirals and stop making assumptions that send me into emotional chaos. 

I get real about my struggles with jumping to conclusions, building narratives that aren't true, and letting my emotions take the wheel when they shouldn't be driving. 

Whether it's dealing with someone not texting back, work anxiety, or just the everyday mental spirals we all experience, this DBT approach is so helpful. If you've ever felt like your brain runs away without you, or you struggle with being emotionally reactive like I do, this episode has a six step practical tool you can use right away. 

I hope it helps you, and reminds you that you can feel deeply and still think clearly! 

Xx, 

Shy ♡

Transcript

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What's up guys? Welcome back to Shy Space, where we talk about all things pertaining to mental health and manifestation. My name is Shy and I'm the host of this podcast and I'm so excited to be back here with you guys for another week, talking about some fun stuff. I actually put together this episode outline quite some time ago when I was, like right before I went on my hiatus for the holidays,'cause I wasn't planning on doing that originally. And so this one's just been sitting and I'm excited'cause it's a good one. It's a very valuable one. I feel like literally anyone in any situation can apply these tips and tricks and just this overall therapeutic process to their lives and their relationships and it's so helpful, especially for my anxiety girlies. I had issues with my microphone last week where it was just picking up a bunch of sounds. So I'm trying to be really cognizant of anything I do while I'm recording today. So she cannot be chewing a bone. I might have to get up and lock her out. Then she's just gonna cry. Anyways. So, yeah, this is a very valuable episode, I would say. I'm very excited to give this information. I just hope it helps because I learn a lot in therapy and I'm very grateful for my ability to learn and process trauma and all those things. And I know therapy's not accessible for everyone, so I try to share what I can. When I can, when it feels, appropriate and helpful and valuable. So yeah, that's what we're talking about today. But yeah, I just I feel like a big thing that I get hung up on with the podcast is like, I don't have to get ready for work in terms of like doing full makeup or hair or anything. I am so lucky to be able to work remote. And Zoom has a nice little filter on it. So like if I'm having a bad skin day or something, I can just put my hair up or put it in a clip and it's just really easy. Like I don't really get ready. I just do my skincare and little couple things in addition to that. And so at the end of the day when I'm recording an episode, I don't want to put on makeup just to do that. And I feel like when I first started the podcast, I did that a lot because I had more time on my hands. I didn't have a horse. And my life was just different. And I miss that. Like I miss getting glammed up to do it.'cause I love feeling confident and feeling glammed, but I'm just fucking lazy. So maybe one day. But the one thing I will say about my look right now is that I really do need somebody to tell me whether or not these eye patches are properly applied. Like I keep seeing mixed information on the internet and I'm just I'm so embarrassed'cause I don't know if they're on right. And I don't know. I need the actual creator of these eye patches to come forward in the comments and tell me what the fuck am I doing? Is this correct? I am obviously like the worst influencer. I'm not even an influencer. I don't know why I said that. That was really embarrassing. Let's pretend that didn't happen. I can literally just cut that out, but I won't'cause authentic queen. Okay, so anyways, we're talking about the art of emotional fact checking today. And first of all, let's talk about what it means to check the facts. Which is specifically a DBT skill that saved me from a lot of unnecessary emotional chaos and turmoil. DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. It's a skills based therapy that helps intense emotion regulation, also helps, uh, teach people mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness skills. So it can be used to treat depression, PTSD, self harm, all sorts of things. So that's what I meant when I said that it is very useful and very widely applicable to lots of people in lots of different scenarios. Now I in particular struggle with depression and some PTSD, like minor just from some trauma that I've been through. And so this has really helped me as I unwind the chaos and the spiral of anxious thoughts that tend to exist in my mind and come up at times when things are stressful or uncertain or whatever it may be. The thing about DBT too and checking the facts that I love is it's not about pretending everything's fine. It's about slowing down and being present enough to see what's actually happening in real time versus what your brain is assuming is happening. This is something that I'm super guilty of because I make assumptions like it's my damn job. I will literally jump to conclusions. Like it's nobody's business. Truly. Like I be jumping, I be leapfrogging it up to these conclusions, and I always get myself into like a clusterfuck of a pickle because half of the time, I just make these assumptions that are not right because I'm so anxious and I'm just seeing things from my perspective that is not a clear POV. So you really do need to like actually slow down and just like take pause and try to like see things from an unbiased perspective and analyze from a very clear head. And on that note, the moment when you catch yourself in a spiral, this is the important moment because it's hard to catch yourself. For me it's hard, and has been hard. Through therapy it's become easier, through the tools that I've learned and all of that. But previously it's been very difficult and it just kind of would happen on an automatic basis, continuously. You have to remember that when your feelings take the wheel, facts are in the passenger seat. And so that's not necessarily the most ideal set up when it comes to the drivers of your brain car. If there's ever any times that like, you feel the same way I do when it comes to spirals where you just think your brain just feels like it's literally running off without you, it's just like literally spiraling out of nowhere, like going crazy over, it could be anything. It could be something big or something small. It could be like, you know, worrying that you're gonna fail an exam or not get a job or lose your job, or it could be because somebody's not texting you back. A person that you have in your life is sounding more short. A coworker seems distant or seems mad at you and then you're suddenly like you're just building this whole narrative. Like, I'm so guilty of that. Oh my God, I used to have the worst work anxiety, and I would just build up all these narratives about how I was like in trouble and like nothing was happening. It's so crazy. The lies that your brain will tell you, your anxiety literally will lie so hard to you and convince you that it's real and convince you that it's your own thought, self originated thought that you need to believe. And that's another big thing that like needs to be addressed from a philosophical standpoint, which is that we are the receiver of thoughts as spiritual beings in these bodies. Like we receive thoughts and then we build upon them once we receive them. And so they feel like they're our own, but they're not. That's why you're supposed to be the observer of your thoughts. Like everybody always talks about that, right? Like rising above, being observant. And not taking every single thought that you have so intensely and harshly to heart in terms of thinking like, why did I think that? What is wrong with me? What am I doing? You know, like, why would I have these thoughts? You guys, I sometimes have the craziest thoughts, and I know people can relate to this, but like lately I've had really scary thoughts where I'm just like, I get worried about like, fake scenarios that wouldn't happen, but like if I just lost control of my car and like, you know, drove off the bridge, like I know everybody has that one. But like it gets really scary for me especially'cause in Texas there's like so many bridges and I'm like, I'm scared. And that's again my anxiety just like running rampant.'cause in what world would I just lose control and just swerve off the bridge. I don't know, I don't think that would happen. Obviously, like medical situation's can rise, but like I'm healthy. So anyways I feel like if I'm being completely honest, half of the time my emotions are actually just reacting to my own thoughts that I've spiraled up, not the actual facts that are happening in real time. And if you feel the same way, then this will be a really helpful tool for you. So step one in the check the facts approach is to identify the emotion that you want to change. So anytime you're stuck in a feeling of some sort, the first thing that you need to do is identify it and name it. And you wanna really name it and really get clear about what it is, not just a general blanket statement of, I'm upset. What type of upset are you? Are you angry? Are you frustrated? Are you sad? Do you feel shame? Do you feel guilt? It can be quite easy to blur them and mix them all together, but if you're able to really differentiate them, it allows you to have a much clearer experience and ability to process the emotions. So then you can say things like, I am very anxious because I feel out of control. That's a big one for me personally, instead of just saying I'm having a bad day. Because that's so general, and it's like maybe your whole day isn't bad. Maybe there's good parts of your day and you're not getting a chance to honor that and speak to that. So what really about your day is, is making you feel this way. And I will say, if you're not somebody that likes to get kind of deep within yourself and analyze your emotions and all that can be really hard to do this. So if you're new to a therapy journey or you're just new to trying to heal and kind of get more in touch with yourself. I would be really easy on yourself and really gentle with yourself and like, get real professional assistance if you can. But regardless, be gentle with yourself because it's hard to be able to differentiate what those feelings are if you're not used to kind of using that muscle or that part of your brain. But it will get easier with time and eventually it will just become something that is really second nature and natural to you. I now am very in tune with my emotions and I'm able to feel them and process them and reflect them and all of that in a very quick feedback cycle. But that's because I've been in years of therapy, so it didn't used to be that way by any means. The other thing too about naming your emotions is that it reminds me personally that I'm separate from it, which I like'cause that goes back to like the unbiased you know, like I'm the receiver of my thoughts and not the thinker of my thoughts. And so I don't need to feel so attached to the meaning behind them. So you can say things like, I have anxiety, I feel anger. I'm not made of it. And it's okay to say that like it's okay to, admit it and acknowledge it and all of that. You don't need to like live in denial. But again, going back to you're not made of it, so you're not gonna live there, you're not gonna keep it as like this core personality. It's like you can have anxiety in this moment. You don't have to be like, I just have anxiety 24 7. Like that's something that I feel like I'm really guilty of having done in the past, and my dad would always call me out on it, is I would just always, always say that I have anxiety and like it's'cause I was always having anxiety, but it's just hard because at that time too, I wasn't really processing my emotions fully to be able to understand what was happening. So it was just this big wave of something's going on and I don't know what it is and I don't have the skills to really get there and dissect it. The tiny bit of separation that you bring between you and your emotions when you, speak them out loud and acknowledge them, and all that makes it a lot easier for you to see what's true and what's exaggerated as you continue to go through life and experience things and have a contrast show up. Now, step two is to describe the triggering event, not the story. So the next question that you wanna ask yourself after, what am I feeling is what actually happened just now? What are the literal facts that my five senses could prove in this situation? Example, they didn't respond to my text, is a fact. He's ignoring me because he is over me, is an interpretation of that fact. So again, separating the two I. In situations like that,'cause I used to do that a lot when I was dating, when I was younger. And once you're able to separate the two with anyone, you realize how many of your emotional storms and outrages and spirals come from you filling in the blanks for situations, for people with stories that you have no idea what's the truth and you like it might not even be true. It could be 1% true, it could be negative 50, a hundred percent true. Like you don't know. What's that saying? If you make an assumption, you make an ass outta you and me, chef's kiss that one. That's gold because seriously, just don't assume things like you just need to get clarity. Especially if it's a situation that makes you anxious. I will say that step two can be hard because this is where judgment often will sneak in, at least for me personally. And if you're somebody who tends to judge yourself a lot as well then you probably will start to judge yourself, and you probably will want to relay the story in a different capacity. But when you just strip it down to the facts, your emotions will actually start to calm themselves on their own. And again, I can say this like firsthand, this is super, super helpful for me. Like I will genuinely talk myself into, I don't like, not reality, but just like stability and just feeling much better. And then again, you can try to just let that judgment pass. It's not your thoughts, it's not true. It's just, it just is what it is and it has no place being here. You just let it pass through. And I also, like, I will say too, I really love this piece of DBT because it's very empowering. I feel like there is power in being able to say, oh, maybe I don't have all the information, so I actually don't have to like go down this rabbit hole of scariness. Step three, question your thoughts and assumptions. This is the one that humbles me the most. I have beef with step three. But basically in a situation, say you have somebody that's not texting you back or they're cold to you or whatever, you can write down your initial thought or just acknowledge your initial thought, consciously in your head and say something like, they must not like me anymore. And then you ask yourself a counter question, you know, you counter that and say, okay, well what's another possible explanation? Maybe she's tired. Maybe she's having a bad day. Maybe she's overwhelmed. Maybe she dropped her phone in the toilet. Maybe her hamster died. I mean, geez, people, there are just so many things that people can go through that put them in a weird mood that make them act weird. Me included me all day, every single day. I'm so weird, and I bet you there's people out here assuming like, that girl doesn't like me. She was weird as hell to me, and I'm like, I promise you that probably wasn't the case. I am just weird as hell and I'm up in this noggin of mine way too often, so getting present in the body. 2026 goals. This part of the process sounds like it's really simple, but this step literally is what will rewire your brain to hold multiple truths at once, because that's exactly what it did for me. I have gotten to a place in my life where I can hold space for multiple truths about multiple situations that are very multifaceted. Take a shot every time I say multi. But it's it's just true, like, and you have to be able to do that because nothing is black and white. I personally don't believe that. I think life is so complex. I mean, maybe some things, but life is so complex in most scenarios that you have to be able to hold space for multiple perspectives and multiple truths in order to just be able to like live harmoniously with others and within yourself. Truthfully, This is also a great time to remind yourself emotions and feelings that you have are not liars always. But they're not fact checkers always either. So you have to remember that they're giving you data, but you do have to analyze it. So you don't always have to be like, oh, that, you know, my anxiety's lying to me. It's not always, that's not always the case because sometimes intuition will show up potentially in the form of anxiety. Again, it's gonna bring you the data, and then it's your job to analyze it and decide whether or not it's coming from an intuitive inspiring guidance, or if it's fear, lack based limitation, something that comes from your parents', society, whatever it may be, an idea that you did not drum up. A good journal prompt for trying to sort this out mentally, if you're wanting to try to like get better at this or just think out loud on a piece of paper is using prompts, like what else could be true? What would I tell my best friend or my sister or my loved one if she told me this story? That one always gets me. That's actually my favorite one. I do have to say that real quick because I always do that. I'm like, what would I say to my friend if they were in this scenario? Because I would literally never talk to my friends the way that I talk to myself when I'm in an emotional spiral. So, I mean, that's just like a tell tail sign where you need to make a change. So step four is to identify the perceived threat. So if you're really deep in it and you know what you've done so far in steps one through three are not getting you to a place of relief, then you need to pause and ask, okay, what am I actually afraid of here? Because usually it's not about the not texting back or the situation or whatever it is at all. It's actually about the fear of rejection, failure, loss of control, whatever it may be. And the fear underneath the feeling is the real driver. So figuring out what that is allows you to have power because you can name it and you can address it, and you can take action towards solving it and getting better. Once you're able to label the threat, it loses its power because instead of being like, oh my God, everything's falling apart and my life is in shambles and everything sucks, and blanket statement. It becomes, I feel scared that I will be abandoned or I am worried about the loss of control when it comes to my life and my job, or something like that. That is something that you can self-soothe and support against, not just spiral around. So it's actually something that you can process and like align with and understand and make sense of and put to rest. And then once you get to the point where you've done that and you realize the threat might not even be real, that's when you will start to feel better and you'll finally be able to breathe again. This is always where I let up. This is always, always, always the step for me when I'm like deep in it that I like, feel that chest expansion where it's like, I can breathe and my chest isn't so tight and like I get, I'm, I'm okay, like I'm back, I'm back on the ground. My feet are both on the ground, like I'm on the same planet. It's just very empowering. So I highly encourage people to do this. I know this is like a very drawn out way of describing the steps, but it's obviously important to understand what needs to be done within each of them and, and the value behind them. All right. Almost done. We got a couple more steps. Step five is to play out the catastrophe and then cope with it. This is another really, really fun one that I love to do when I'm like deep in the spiral. And this part of like the whole skillset actually is mind blowing because DBT teaches you to actually imagine the catastrophe happening and then imagine yourself handling it, which is really cool. So you have to be mentally, you're like, okay, let's say the absolute worst happens. Like I lose my job, I lose everything. Everything falls apart. Then what? Usually in scenarios that are probably not so life threatening, you will realize that even in the worst case scenario, you're still gonna figure it out. You're still gonna survive, you're still gonna circle back, you're gonna bounce back, you're gonna rebuild, you're gonna be able to get through it and. Do it all over again if you had to. And that's a really empowering thing to feel when you're super, super anxious about a perceived threat. Mentally tackling it is so cool. I've done this many times and it is very, very helpful. Just reminds you like you've survived so much shit and you can do it again like you fucking got this. Mentally rehearsing it and walking through that fear to the other side reminds you that you're way more capable than whatever the story is and the narrative is that you have in your head about your capabilities. Way more capable. This one too, I wanna say, is not about toxic positivity. It is very much about reminding yourself that you can cope, even when things don't go the way that you want them to. Because you do have to remind yourself that, and you do have to like empower yourself and prepare yourself because at the end of the day, life is fucking insane. You have no idea what tomorrow's gonna bring. You have to be prepared for things to come up. You have to be agile. You have to be able to adapt and just go with the flow when shit hits the fan. And if you can't, peace and blessings, babe, you're gonna have a really hard time on this planet. Let me tell you that. Let me tell you that it is not all sunshine and rainbows. Sorry. It's a lot of sunshine and rainbows, and you can have even more sunshine and rainbows if you just jive with that. So that's my TED Talk. Okay, last step here. Step six is to ask yourself, does my emotion fit the facts? So once you've checked out all your assumptions, you've gone through steps one through five, you've rehearsed everything you've mentally prepared yourself for the worst of the worst, you can stop and ask yourself: does this emotion that I'm experiencing actually fit the situation that is at hand? Now, this is a really good step because, and it's the last step for a reason, because this is where you fully integrate everything that you just did in a way that your brain can actually like file it and categorize it so that you understand in the future that what you're feeling, thinking, perceiving may not be what you believe it to be. And obviously sometimes the answer is going to be yes, like when you're sad after you experience a really deep loss or you know, you get really angry'cause somebody crossed your boundary. Those types of things are totally valid and absolutely expected to feel that way. But there are gonna be scenarios where like somebody's not texting back or somebody's being cold to you or whatever, where you're just making assumptions and you're filling in the blanks when you shouldn't be. A lot of the time you will also realize that the emotion doesn't fit the facts. It's just fits your interpretation. I experience this all the time, and honestly when that's the case, I just decide to like, again, integrate and like turn it into a lesson. I try to really acknowledge it and just be like, okay, taking a moment to really remember this and, and remember that not all of my feelings are facts because they are so loud and they are so convincing that they are facts when they are in my head speaking to me. So you have to remember that. And when that is the case where the emotion isn't fitting the facts and it's just fitting your interpretation, another thing that you can decide in terms of like what to do with it is really, like I said, be present in the body, breathe through it. This is a big, big thing that I'm learning to do that I love that I'm working on, and it's so amazing. It's so helpful. Maybe you wanna take the opposite action. Maybe you just wanna acknowledge it and let it move through you. It's up to you. You should trust yourself to know what's best, what feels right, and just go from there. There's no, you know, right answer. It's just contingent upon what you need for yourself. And that is really what I feel like is living in the highest self for me, or my highest version of myself, for me, because that's when I let both sides of me the emotion and the reason co-exist without one of them running the show and dominating over the other, bullying the other, whatever you want to call it, like just really living in. Coexistence with the two sides of my mind, I feel like I can flip flop very easily. It's almost like two personalities, like the girl who's just like rational and chill, and the girl who is very stressed out and worried about everything. You have to hold space for both sides of yourself. It's just the only way that you're gonna be able to process it and get through it. And it is also human nature. So I think, I personally wish I didn't beat myself up so much for it because it is human nature. It's like we live in a scary world. We live in a time where everything scary that happens in the world is constantly shown to us against our will. So it's like, I just think we need to give ourselves more grace in that regard. Now since those are all the steps, that is really everything that I had for you all today, and I hope that that was super valuable because it really has been for me. I will say when my therapist brought this up and she sent me like a workbook and I did some research on it, and I used the workbook to put together this outline. It just, it resonated with me so heavily and I really thought that it would resonate with my audience. So if it did, I hope it was helpful and I hope that you're able to use it and apply it in your life in the future. I have struggled with all of this for so long, and honestly, I feel like there was a point in my life where I actually thought that checking the facts was like a form of gaslighting myself almost. Like almost as if I was trying to talk myself out of my feelings and convince myself that I was wrong to feel that way or whatever. But it is actually the opposite. It's just like, it's being that, that voice of reason, that calm, like centered guide that you would hope for in, you know, a parent, a partner, a friend, a sibling, whoever it is, a mentor, you wanna be able to be that for yourself. Yeah, it really is the opposite. It's self validation with a little sprinkle of clarity in there, I think. And it's also saying to yourself and like realigning and revalidating to have that connection with yourself to be like, yes, this is real, but let's make sure it's real. Like, yes, you're experiencing something real, but let's make sure that it's through and through real, and that we're not misperceiving things based off of our experiences, because that's what people do. They project out from their own lens and their own trauma and their own experiences, and it doesn't hold true for everybody. So it's not a universal truth. And every single time, I really, really hope that people will do this and use this because I swear every single time that I have slowed down to fact check my emotions in any scenario I end up responding really well instead of reacting, which is something that I've struggled with my whole life. I've always been very emotionally reactive and just, I'm so sensitive and I'm so emotional that I just like go to the worst, again, assuming, not checking the facts, all of those things. And so this is just a very, very helpful tip and I know that I'm not the only one who struggles with that. I just think that this whole therapeutic approach is amazing. Also the shift from spiraling to becoming self-aware is literally what healing looks like in real time. It is the most amazing and profound thing ever. I'm so grateful to be able to experience it and to be able to have moments where I find myself consciously doing it and actually having the awareness of it. It's just so amazing. It's the best feeling ever. It makes me so proud of myself. Makes me proud of my future and my younger self. Like it's just a great wholesome feeling. So, I highly encourage self-reflection at all times. I will say that. But anyways thank you guys so much for listening. I love you all so much. I hope you enjoyed this. And here's the last reminder I'll leave you with. Your emotions are always valid, but they don't always tell you the truth, and that's okay. You can feel deeply and still think very clearly. That is emotional maturity, peace and power, all wrapped up into one. Thank you guys again. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, evening, week, night, whatever it is, and tune in next week for an episode that I have no idea what it's gonna be about yet, but it'll be great. Love you guys. Bye.