The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anxiety

chapter 10

Putting It All Together.

The skills you have learned in this book will grow stronger each day that you practice them.
Conversely, if your skills aren’t used, they’ll slip further from your grasp. They’ll cease to be real
choices, real ways to change. Instead, they’ll become mere ideas, vaguely recalled, with no power
to help you.
Keeping and strengthening your skills will take sustained effort. There’s an old saying that
victory belongs to the most persevering, which is exactly what’s needed now: a commitment to
practice your skills daily—over time.
You may wonder—legitimately—where you’ll find the motivation to keep doing something
so challenging. And all this talk of perseverance may sound very nineteenth century and preachy.
But there is a way to practice daily what you’ve learned, and it doesn’t take a huge amount of
willpower. What it requires is getting in the habit of spending about fifteen minutes a day practic-
ing your skills.

DAILY PRACTICES FOR EMOTIONAL HEALTH

The daily practices are, in essence, an exercise regimen to maintain your emotional and psychologi-
cal health. The practices have five parts:

1. Mindfulness

2. Deep relaxation

3. Self-observation

4. Affirmation

5. Committed action