HALF-SMILING AND WILLING HANDS (DISTRESS TOLERANCE HANDOUTS

HALF-SMILING AND WILLING HANDS (DISTRESS TOLERANCE HANDOUTS 14–14A)

Practice Exercise

Half-smiling is a way of accepting reality with your body.

• Imagine that you are at a party where you do not want to be.
• Put on a phony grin, as if you are trying to make everyone think you are enjoying yourselves.
• Notice how your faces feel.
• Now, stop and relax your faces, starting with your foreheads and going down your faces to the lower jaw. Now, with relaxed faces, turn your lips just slightly up at the corners—just until you feel it.
• Did you notice any difference in the two smiles?

• Emotions are partially controlled by facial expressions. By adopting a half-smile— a serene, accepting face—people can control their emotions somewhat.
• For example, they can feel more accepting if their faces express acceptance.
• Example: “Half-smiling when thinking about someone you dislike helps you feel more accepting of them, more understanding.”

Homework:

• When your face is tense and you are grinning, you are sending your brain two conflicting messages: ‘This is awful’ and ‘This is nice.’
• Another instance of sending conflicting messages is when you try to make your face into an impassive mask so that your actual emotions are not expressed. Masking, however, can have a boomerang effect. It leads to increased distress.

Distress Tolerance Worksheet 11 or 11A: Half-Smiling and Willing Hands.

Practice Exercise:

Ways to Practice Half-Smiling and Willing Hands: Exercises

• To half-smile, relax your face, neck, and shoulder muscles, and then half- smile with your lips.
• Try to adopt a serene facial expression. Remember to relax the facial muscles.
• It is not necessary that anyone else see the half-smile, but it is essential that you feel it. The half-smile is mainly a communication to yourself—that is, to your brain—and not to other people.

Why Willing Hands?

• “When you first awake in the morning.”
• “During your free moments.”
• “While you are listening to music.”
• “When you are irritated.”
• “In a lying-down position.”
• “In a sitting position.”
• “While you are contemplating a person you hate or despise.”

• “Willing hands is another way of accepting reality with your body.”
• “The essence of willing hands is this physical position: hands unclenched, palms up, fingers
• relaxed.”
• “Willing hands is part of opposite action all the way for anger. Clenched hands are indicative of anger. Anger is often the opposite of accepting reality. Anger says, ‘What is should not be.’ Anger is an emotion that motivates you to change reality, to fight it, to overcome it. Anger has its place. But here we are practicing reality acceptance.”

• Sit very still and try to make a very impassive face—one with no expression.
• How does this feel?
• Now relax the muscles of the face- from the forehead to the eyes to the cheeks to the mouth and jaw. How does this feel?
• Now, half smile and experience how this feels.
• Differences?

Practice Exercise:

• Sit very still with your eyes closed.
• First, imagine a conflict with someone that happened as recently as possible—one where you got really angry at the other person.
• Do this for a few moments.
• Now, put your hands on your thighs in a willing-hands position as you continue to imagine the conflict situation.
• What was that like?
• Anger is usually an assumption that some current reality “should” be different than it is. As acceptance goes up, anger will go down, and a sense of understanding and sometimes peace will increase.