October 24, 2025 • 29 mins
#236
💌 ask me a question or leave feedback on the podcast!
how can you break unhealthy cycles for GOOD?! in this week’s solo episode, i’m sharing the butterfly effect of mental health. i’m breaking down how your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are all connected and the one simple step you can take to change your most problematic tendencies!
i talk about:
• what your emotions are really telling you
• understanding how your emotions are impacting your choices
• vulnerability factors when it comes to your mental health
• the impact that feeling an emotion has on your body
• consequences of avoiding or ignoring your emotions
• figuring out your mental health problem areas (unhealthy thoughts, behaviors, etc)
• the butterfly effect model for fixing your mental health problem areas
• how this model works in the real world (with a step-by-step example!)
• an easy guide for trying this model yourself!
mentioned:
• emotion regulation dbt worksheets
☕giveaway! want coffee on me? every month, i gift one listener a starbucks gift card to enter:
1. leave a review on apple or spotify
2. dm me a screenshot on instagram
📲 bonus entries for story or tiktok tags!
© 2020 SHE PERSISTED LLC. all rights reserved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Sheep Persisted, the Gen.
Z mental health podcast. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton.
Let's get into it. By the end of this episode, you
will know how to change the patterns that are problematic in
your life next time. You were like, I don't know how
I got here, but I don't like where I'm at.
You're going to make one small change that has a really big
result. Hello and welcome back to She
(00:20):
Persisted. We are in studio today if you're
watching, and we are doing a solo episode all about how to
change the behaviors that it feels like you just spiraled
yourself into and don't understand how you got there.
And I'm calling this the butterfly effect for mental
health. What one small change can we
make to have a really big impacton our emotions and the outcomes
(00:41):
in our lives? So let's dive in, if you've ever
looked back at a situation and wondered how did I end U here?
There is a sychology map for that and it can actually change
the way you react and approach situations next time.
I think most of us would agree that Gen.
Z is more self aware than ever. We know what's happening, but we
(01:01):
still repeat a lot of patterns that are harmful to our mental
health or physical health. And one of my favorite skills
from DBT is chain analysis and it shows us why we might repeat
these things that we know are harmful but choose to engage in
them anyways. And when we understand the
complicated nature of these behaviors, we know why we keep
falling into the same patterns. Because every single behavior is
(01:24):
not an isolated incident. It's built from tiny connected
links that are built up of thoughts, feelings, urges and
choices. So by the end of this episode,
you will know how to trace your chain and identify exactly where
to break it to change the patterns that are problematic in
your life. So we're going to talk about
what underlies these problematicdynamics, which is emotions.
(01:45):
You guys hear me say this all the time, but emotions are not
random. They don't come from nowhere.
They are messengers, and they exist to help us survive,
communicate with others, and also motivate action.
Sadness tells us that we've experienced a loss, and so we
isolate and withdraw to avoid losing further resources.
Shame tells us that we've gone against one of our values, so we
(02:09):
go within to reflect on in that and avoid repeating the same
transgression in the future. Joy tells us that we have
something in our life that we value and want to re experience.
And so we're motivated to go outand acquire more resources and
do more things that make us happy.
So your brain isn't being dramatic.
It's trying to protect you and keep you alive.
(02:31):
And to give you guys a little bit more background there, I
love this wisdom from the DBT worksheets about emotion
regulation. It's helpful to understand why
emotions can cause us to act so impulsively or engage in
behaviors that seem so intense. And that's because emotions
bypass the process of thinking, considering all the options in a
(02:54):
situation. They hardwire us to act
immediately again to help us survive and thrive.
And so they can be helpful when we don't have time to think
things through. But in today's day and age, we
almost always have time to thinkthings through.
And so acting without considering the consequences is
what can lead to that chaos and overwhelm.
(03:15):
Another thing that's challenginghere is that I think a lot of us
experience our emotions as unchangeable or as a given.
We interpret it as a fact about a situation.
But our emotions aren't facts. They're a response to facts.
And if we assume that our emotions are facts, we use them
to justify our thoughts or actions.
(03:38):
And this can cause a lot of problems and a lot of chaos when
we ignore the facts and rely only on our emotional responses.
So let's dive into why you're experiencing what you are, how
you got to that point, and how it's resulting in the choices
and behaviors you make in your life.
So this is where the DBT chain analysis skill comes in.
(03:59):
And if you've ever said to yourself, I don't know why I
just did that, this is going to break it down for you.
So what we do in a chain analysis is we break down every
step of the emotional experienceand then we go and look at these
links to see where we could potentially change the outcome.
So before we are ever in a situation, we have these things
called vulnerability factors, and these are things that make
(04:21):
us more susceptible to experiencing intense emotions.
So that is things like not sleeping well, having had a big
argument with a friend the day before, forgetting to take your
meds, being hangry, all of thesethings have a really big impact
on your emotional outcome. And it's not just these simple
things that are more related to the biological experience, but
(04:45):
it's also your baseline that you're functioning at.
If you are going through a really stressful time at school,
if you have family members that are struggling with their
health, all of these things add to that baseline level of
functioning and mean that we're more vulnerable to experiencing
our emotions in a way that's ineffective.
And so on top of these vulnerability factors, we have a
(05:08):
prompting event. And this is what initially
invokes the emotion. You get a text, you see someone
you weren't expecting to, you get a grade on a test.
And it's not what you want. It's the event that causes the
emotional response. And we don't just experience an
emotion in response to that. There is a number of things that
(05:28):
happen simultaneously. We have an interpretation of the
event. So we have thoughts and beliefs
about that thing. And we've talked a lot about how
you think about things that happen has a lot of power.
So if you feel a test and your interpretation is I'm a bad
student, I'm not smart, I am failing this class.
We know that there's a lot of negative implications when it
(05:50):
comes to how you cope with that situation if you try to problem
solve of it and also your self esteem and how you view yourself
as a whole. And the inverse is also true.
So if you failed the test and you say I could have studied
more, that wasn't reflective of what we learned in lecture or I
didn't do well on this test thistime, but I'll do better next
(06:11):
time. Seeing that situation as
specific to that context, independent of your value and
you as a person and also changeable in the future, you
have a much more effective outlook on the experience as a
whole. So at the same time that we are
interpreting the event and thinking about how we feel about
(06:31):
it, there's also all the biological changes that happen.
So this is a lot of what you hear about on TikTok with fight
or flight rewiring your nervous system.
This is the part of the emotional experience that a lot
of people speak to and work to change.
So there's a lot of nervous system changes that happen.
You might feel more physically tense, you might feel your heart
(06:53):
rate increase. You might be more aware of your
surroundings or less aware of your surroundings.
This is the emotional response that is physical as well as
mental. And then you have your
experience. So there are those bodily
sensations, those feelings that we're having about the
experience in response to the event, and then also the action
urges. Are you feeling motivated to go
(07:16):
to office hours and argue for a better grade?
Is your emotion telling you to go back to your dorm and isolate
and withdraw and have a pity party about that test for the
rest of the day? In addition to the biological
changes and the experiences, we also have the expressions of the
emotion. So this is our face and body
(07:36):
language. These are your words, what you
say, but also what you think andyour actions.
And these two things feed into each other.
How you express the emotion impacts how you experience it
and the biological changes. But your experience of the
emotion and the biological changes also inform how you
express the emotion. And at any point within this
(07:58):
process of experiencing and expressing the emotion, we have
an opportunity to name the emotion, to recognize what we're
experiencing, to be more aware of it, to then adjust the
experience and expression. But alternatively, what a lot of
us do is instead of naming the emotion, naming it to tame it
(08:19):
and being aware of the situation, to then change it.
Instead, a lot of us will go back to that initial prompting
event by experiencing A secondary emotion, by feeling
something about the way we're feeling.
So you fail the test, you get the bad grade.
You then feel really sad about your performance.
You wanted to do better. You wanted a better grade.
(08:39):
You expected more of yourself. You then start to feel angry
about why didn't I do better? Why am I not a natural test
taker? You are not having a second
emotion in response to the initial event.
And so we call this a secondary emotion and an after effect.
And then we have a second prompting event, which is our
(08:59):
additional emotional response toour first emotional response.
And so you can see how this becomes a really overwhelming
chaotic experience that you're just feeding into yourself with
these potentially negative thoughts and experiences, not
naming and understanding your experience and just causing a
larger and more overwhelming reaction.
(09:23):
And So what we'll learn is how to break that cycle, to stop
that thought spiral from happening and change the
outcome, but also the experienceof the emotion and how we
express it and to zoom out a bitbigger picture in the moment.
It's not fun to be like really caught up in the emotional
experience and overwhelmed with what you're feeling and just
like feeding into that experience.
(09:44):
But what a lot of us do when we experience a negative emotion is
that we try to escape or avoid that experience because it's not
fun and it's not enjoyable. It's uncomfortable.
And in our attempt to escape or avoid it, we engage in these
problem behaviors or ways of coping with the experience that
are not effective. And you experience relief that
(10:06):
is temporary and momentary. You don't get the experience to
learn how to approach this differently in the future.
You don't learn new skills. You don't build that sense of
mastery and then you in turn have another vulnerability
factor, which is that the next time you experience this emotion
or the stressor, you're more likely to do that same thing,
(10:26):
which is feel negative emotion, escape or avoid it, engage in
that problem behavior for temporary relief, and never
learn to be aware and adjust theexperience.
So not only is there a lot of implications around the
experience in the moment, but also what will happen in the
future and how you will respond to stress next time you
(10:47):
experience it. So the best part of DBT is that
we always have a choice when we react.
We might not be able to avoid the initial emotion, we might
not be able to avoid those automatic thoughts that come up,
but we can either choose a path of judgment or a path of
mindfulness. And so when we approach the
situation with judgement, that'sour interpretations, our
(11:09):
assumptions, we're comparing it.We're asking ourselves, well,
what would that other person do in this situation?
Why am I not acting that way? And that path leads us to self
regulation, shame, anger, fight or flight, shutting down, really
having a negative experience mood wise versus when we go with
the path of mindfulness and notice what are we experiencing?
What are the facts of the situation, accepting these are
(11:32):
the cards that I'm dealt at thispoint, what can I do going
forward? We then are regulating our
emotions and that's skills like radical acceptance, opposite
action, breathing and grounding.So chain analysis is looking at
all these individual components of the emotional experience and
our response and we can really simplify it.
It's those vulnerability factors.
(11:54):
So what did we come into the situation with already kind of
being at a loss? Were we tired?
Were we stressed? Were we sleep arrived, the
prompting event, what happened that resulted in the emotion and
then we have these links that wecan disrupt.
So how we thought about the experience, what the bodily
sensations were like, the physical experience of the
(12:16):
emotion, the emotion itself, theurges that were associated with
experiencing the emotion, and then what actions we took to
either cope with that experienceor try and change it.
And the consequences are in trueDBT fashion, a dialectic, which
is that short term relief versuslong term pain.
(12:37):
And understanding how we want toapproach the situation so that
it's easier for us to navigate next time.
And again, avoidance feels good for those 5 minutes, but it's
the reason that you're a stuck in this cycle.
So how should you be approachingthis in your day-to-day life?
The first thing is understandingwhat is the problem behavior
(12:57):
that I am analyzing. And I don't want you to just
limit yourself to a behavior, though that's likely what you're
analyzing if you are in DBT or in crisis.
But the problem behavior could also be avoidance.
It could be things like not being vulnerable and asking for
help when you go through a challenging emotional
experience. It could be the way that you
(13:17):
think about the experience, likewe talked about how you respond
to a failing grade on a test. It could be that secondary
emotion, like having those thoughts that led to anger or
shame or lashing out. But it can also be these really
tangible actions that we take inresponse to our emotions that
often times make things worse. So after something bad happened,
(13:40):
did you avoid? Did you not tell anyone?
Did you punish yourself for the experience?
What are the ineffective ways that you responded to that
emotion? And you guys have heard me say
this before, but if we don't have awareness, we can't take
action to change the experience.So really understanding what you
want to change allows you to shift that experience.
(14:01):
But if you don't know if you're targeting the thought or the
emotion or the behavior or the conversation you had, you're not
able to adequately approach, understand and change that
situation. The other part of a chain
analysis which people tend to get wrong is the prompting
event, which is that a lot of times when we think about why
(14:22):
we're experiencing an emotion, we attach a lot of judgments and
responses to the initial prompting event.
So if you can in an argument with a family member, you might
be like, the prompting event wasmy sister was rude or my brother
was annoying. Or if you failed the test, you
might label the prompting event as I'm a horrible test taker.
(14:45):
But that's not the prompting event.
That's your interpretation of and your response to the
prompting event. And we need to be really clear
on objectively what occurred. Purely describing the facts that
took place. The prompting event would be
like, I got a phone call, I received a grade back on a test.
Like what can you observe and not attach any judgments to
(15:06):
because again, your interpretation of it, your
thoughts about it, how you felt are those subsequent links in
the chain and how you responded to that initial thing.
And after we are able to solve the event, we also again think
about what were our vulnerability factors.
And I think vulnerability factors was something that
allowed me to give myself a lot more grace and experience my
(15:28):
emotions less intensely. Because one of the best ways to
self validate or for others to validate us is to say it makes
sense that you feel that way. It makes sense that that would
be your response. It doesn't mean that it's a
justified response, but when we understand kind of the cards
that were stacked against us or the things that led to this
emotional response, we're able to give ourselves more grace and
(15:49):
recognize that it wasn't this isolated event that led to this
feeling. It was a combination of the
stress from the last week and the last month and how I slept
last night and if I was hungry, and all of these other factors
that also contribute to the experience.
Because emotions don't occur in isolation, our responses don't
(16:09):
either. And, and when we can understand
that, we can really break down the experience and target a
really specific part of it to then change the rest of the
chain. So when you're doing a chain
analysis, you've identified, OK,what was the problem behavior?
What was the prompting event? Purely objectively, no judgments
attached. Then you go through every single
(16:30):
thing that followed. So the actions, the sensations,
the thoughts you had, the eventsthat occurred, the feelings, the
emotions you felt about the feelings you were having,
getting really, really detailed and understanding how this
cascade of events occurred and how you ended up in this chaotic
thoughts viral outcome. And when we're able to break it
(16:51):
down to understand it in this way, it doesn't feel as
overwhelming and out of our control because we can really
clearly see, OK, A led to B&B, led to C, and that's how I ended
up in this spot. But I can also do things
differently next time and get a different outcome.
It feels less out of control. It feels less overwhelming and
there are actual steps you can take to improve the experience.
(17:13):
And in my early days of DBT, almost every single session, I
was doing a chain analysis. And sometimes it was like, why
didn't I call for skills coaching when I was in crisis?
Or why did I engage in this problem behavior despite the
fact that we talked about last time?
I would try to avoid doing that this week.
Or why did I have that giant argument with my parents?
That was the most stressful thing since the last time I was
(17:35):
in a session. And in the moment, I think
there's like the voice in the back of your mind that's like, I
know what I should do, but I'm not going to do that.
When we break it down into thesereally specific parts of the
experience, it's much easier to make a tiny change that then
shifts the outcome versus tryingto get yourself to approach the
(17:56):
situation in a completely different way because it feels a
lot safer to do what we've done before.
And it can be really overwhelming to try and approach
a situation completely differently and rehaul the whole
experience. So this feels a lot more doable.
It feels less overwhelming to change one tiny link of the
chain and therefore adjust the outcome rather than doing a
(18:19):
complete overhaul. Because doing so, I think you're
really setting yourself up for failure by expecting yourself to
do something completely different that you've never done
before, despite having a really reinforced pattern of response
and behavior. It's just, it's unrealistic as
an expectation to set for yourself.
And then you feel more shame andanger, and then you're in a
whole other emotional response. So it's really the butterfly
(18:43):
effect for emotional experiences.
One small shift can completely change the outcome, but you
can't make that shift unless youunderstand how the cards fell.
And like I said, I was doing chain analysis on the weekly and
therapy sessions. I was doing them outside of
sessions. There was an abundant lack of
understanding as to how I was getting myself in these really
(19:06):
ineffective ways of coping with things, why I was reacting so
ineffectively to these seeminglyinconspicuous prompting events.
And I wasn't going through thesesteps of understanding in my
head. It wasn't something that was
naturally happening that like, oh, I have this conversation and
that is actually really reminding me about this like
negative belief I had or this conflict that I had last week.
(19:30):
Or I just go right into that negative way of coping because
it's what I've always done before or I'm avoiding because
this is uncomfortable and I don't want to sit with this.
There was not that understandingof what was happening.
And so the emotional experience felt really overwhelming and out
of my control. And I would just end up in this
really bad spot without understanding how I got there,
(19:50):
but also how I could change it in the future.
So when we break it down to be really micro little steps, we're
able to shift that and change that, which is a really
empowering experience and gives you a lot more control over the
outcome. So essentially when I was in
treatment, I was using this to figure out why every single tiny
(20:10):
set back was turning into an entire spiral.
And once I saw the links betweeneach step, I finally had options
about how I could change the situation.
So if you are confused about howa chain analysis works, why this
can have an impact on the outcome, I want you to remember
that you can't delete emotions, but you can rewrite the sequence
(20:31):
that they occur in. So we're going to go through a
real life chain analysis example, one that I think almost
all of us can relate to, which is doom scrolling.
And I think that's an example ofsomething that happened
seemingly automatically that you're not understanding how you
got 45 minutes down the TikTok for you page and didn't do any
of those other goals that you set for yourself.
(20:52):
But when we unpack it as a chainanalysis, we're able to
understand exactly how we got there and what we can do
differently next time. So I will do this for me, but
you plug and play your situation, your context to
understand the outcome. So my most common doom scrolling
time is I will get back from work and I will sit on the couch
(21:14):
and I will start scrolling on TikTok and all of a sudden it's
been an hour. And then I decide, Oh well, like
I don't have that much time left.
I can't do work and it's kind oflate.
So like, it's not really a greattime to like eat dinner because
then I can't go to the gym. But I don't really want to go to
the gym because I'm going to have to make dinner.
And then I end up doing none of the things.
(21:34):
I don't do work, I don't go to the gym, I don't end up eating
dinner until really late and it's not planned.
And then I'm like OK, I did nothing with my evening except
for doom scroll because I convinced myself that was the
only reasonable path forward. So in that situation, the
vulnerability is that I'm a little bit brain dead.
I've been at work for 9 hours, I'm tired, I haven't eaten since
(21:56):
lunch. Maybe I didn't sleep super great
the night before so I'm not operating at my best.
Maybe it was a stressful day at work.
Maybe there was a project we were working on.
That is the vulnerability. The prompting event is me
getting home and sitting on the couch.
You can kind of adjust this, butI think it's helpful to think
(22:17):
about it from a habit lens of like we have a queue and a
response. And for me, the queue is if I'm
sitting on the couch, I will then take out my phone an open
Tiktok and scroll O. It would be harder for me to say
I'm going to sit on the couch and then change the behavior to
I'm going to read a book or I'm going to call someone because
the queue is sitting on the couch.
So if I don't sit on the couch, I'm much less likely to then
(22:39):
doom scroll for three hours. The prompting event is me
getting home and immediately going to sit on the couch.
Once I sit on the couch, I say, OK, I'm bored, I have nothing to
do. I'm going to open my phone.
And once I open my phone, it's almost like that automatic wired
reaction of I open Tiktok or I open Instagram.
Like that's the first thing I dobecause when I sit on the couch,
I open my phone and then I go onTikTok and then I scroll.
(23:01):
When I open TikTok, I see a video that invokes an emotion.
Maybe it's funny, maybe it's sad, there's an emotional
response, and then I am having asecondary emotion and scrolling
to change the emotion or see what's coming next.
And then you're having this likea whole emotion reinforcement
cycle related to scrolling. And that's how you end up doing
(23:24):
scrolling, right? Like you end up in this cycle of
emotions and experiences that wetalked about, and at no point do
you intervene and change the outcome.
So essentially I scroll, I then have these thoughts of like,
well, it's not a great time for me to eat dinner because then I
won't be able to go to the gym later.
But also it's like kind of too early to go to the gym now.
(23:46):
And also I just got back from work.
So like I don't want to do additional work now.
Like these are the thoughts and the interpretations about the
prompting event that I'm having.Are they accurate?
No, I could do any of those things, but those are the
thoughts that I'm having. And then once I am like, well,
it's not a great time, so I'll do that later.
And then all of a sudden it's been 3 hours.
I then I'm thinking to myself, Idid nothing with my afternoon.
(24:09):
I have nothing to show for this evening.
I could have done something thatwas more productive and fun and
I feel like low energy and not great about the experience.
And now I'm annoyed at myself. I'm having a secondary emotion
for scrolling on TikTok for three hours.
And those are the consequences of the event.
And this is something that we don't always take the time to
unpack and consider, but the consequences are the reason that
(24:33):
we're changing the problem behavior.
Behavior might not be great, butif there's not consequences,
there's not really the motivation for us to change it.
So it's really important to understand how did other people
react not only in the moment, but later on?
How did you feel immediately following the behavior but also
later on? So for me, I was like, OK, I'm
annoyed at myself for schooling for three hours.
(24:55):
Name anger, frustration, anxietyabout all the work that I know
of to do and things that I didn't end up getting done
later. I am more likely to repeat the
cycle and sit on the couch, openmy phone, go on TikTok and doom
scroll. And what effect did the behavior
have on the environment both in the moment and later on?
I mean, maybe I didn't like tidyup my apartment or get work
(25:15):
done. And that impacts both the
productivity or the outcome in the moment, but also the work
that I have to do the next day or the day after.
And it just like compounds and piles up and then is over.
And then you avoid it by doing scrolling and going on TikTok.
So we're able to understand how all of those things happen.
And for me, I think the most effective way to change that is
(25:37):
not opening TikTok and then trying to get off of TikTok.
It's not sitting on the couch and then trying to convince
myself to read a book rather than watch entertaining content.
What's most effective for me to change, I think, is sitting on
the couch, which is that instead, when I get back from
work, I put my stuff down. And maybe I like put on an
outfit to go to the gym, or maybe I immediately start making
(25:58):
dinner. Maybe I start tidying things up,
not doing that cue that results in that behavior.
That for me is the easiest link to break.
And as a result, I don't have the emotional cycle of doom
scrolling for three hours and then feeling an audit myself and
then having more work to do, andthen feeling overwhelmed.
And then doom scrolling for three hours to avoid feeling
(26:19):
overwhelmed because I was doing scrolling for three hours and
caused myself more work down theline.
So it's not about being perfect,it's about catching the pattern
one link earlier each time. Likely what will happen.
And what does happen when I try and shift this behavior is
sometimes I do sit on the couch but do a different activity.
Sometimes I do go to the gym, but then I scroll but for less
time. It's moving in the right
(26:41):
direction and understanding how these things occur and happen so
we can insert ourselves and get a different outcome.
So if you've never done this before and you're like, this
feels really overwhelming and I don't want the really long,
extensive intensive black and white DBT worksheet.
I would just like some nice questions to ask myself to
consider. You're going to write the event
(27:03):
that happened completely objectively, just the observable
facts. You're going to write your
thoughts, feelings, actions, andthe outcomes, the outcomes in
the moment, but also long term. And you're going to highlight or
circle where you could pause next time to do something
differently. Is it before you sit on the
couch? Is it before you look at the
response to your test grade? Is it before you send that text
(27:26):
and you were going to circle that moment and decide what
skill could I do to change the outcome?
So for me it's stop. I'm going to pause.
I'm going to think, OK, if I siton the couch, I'm very likely to
go down a TikTok rabbit hole anddoom scroll for three hours.
If I don't go on the couch, I will do something different.
And maybe I still will like not be super productive and get all
(27:48):
the things that I wanted to done, but I won't end up in this
doom scrolling shame spiral for three hours.
And even the understanding is, is a movement in the right
direction, right? Like we don't have awareness.
We can't take action to change it.
So even just going through the chain analysis, even if you
still end up doing the thing, understanding where you could do
things differently and why you're getting the outcome that
(28:10):
you are in your life is really helpful.
So next time you have a behavioror an experience that you want
to change and want you to think about it from this butterfly
effect chain analysis framework.One small thing can have a
really big impact on the outcome.
But if we don't break it down into those little small things,
we can't understand where we caninsert a scale and be more
(28:31):
effective. So remembering that every
behavior that you want to changemakes perfect sense when you
zoom out. That is the power of a chain
analysis. It is turning that shame into
insight and insight into change.And like we said at the
beginning, it's not impossible to change these things.
It's not an uphill battle. You're not broken.
Your brain is just running a pattern that you now know how to
(28:53):
rewrite. So the next time one of your
friends or family member says, Idon't know why I do this, you're
going to send them this episode,you're going to help them do a
chain analysis. Next time.
You were like, I don't know how I got here, but I don't like
where I'm at. You're going to do a chain
analysis. You're going to unpacked how you
got to the outcome that you are in and you are going to make one
small change that has a really big result.
(29:15):
So as always, make sure to sharewith a friend or family member.
Follow it at Sheep Persisted Podcast for more evidence based
tools to help get you mentally unstuck.
If you enjoyed this episode, if she persisted, make sure to
leave a review, subscribe and share with a friend or family
member. Follow along at at Sheep
Persisted Podcast on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and more for
bonus content. Thanks for listening and keep
(29:37):
persisting.
Welcome to Sheep Persisted, the Gen.
Z mental health podcast. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton.
Let's get into it. By the end of this episode, you
will know how to change the patterns that are problematic in
your life next time. You were like, I don't know how
I got here, but I don't like where I'm at.
You're going to make one small change that has a really big
result. Hello and welcome back to She
(00:20):
Persisted. We are in studio today if you're
watching, and we are doing a solo episode all about how to
change the behaviors that it feels like you just spiraled
yourself into and don't understand how you got there.
And I'm calling this the butterfly effect for mental
health. What one small change can we
make to have a really big impacton our emotions and the outcomes
(00:41):
in our lives? So let's dive in, if you've ever
looked back at a situation and wondered how did I end U here?
There is a sychology map for that and it can actually change
the way you react and approach situations next time.
I think most of us would agree that Gen.
Z is more self aware than ever. We know what's happening, but we
(01:01):
still repeat a lot of patterns that are harmful to our mental
health or physical health. And one of my favorite skills
from DBT is chain analysis and it shows us why we might repeat
these things that we know are harmful but choose to engage in
them anyways. And when we understand the
complicated nature of these behaviors, we know why we keep
falling into the same patterns. Because every single behavior is
(01:24):
not an isolated incident. It's built from tiny connected
links that are built up of thoughts, feelings, urges and
choices. So by the end of this episode,
you will know how to trace your chain and identify exactly where
to break it to change the patterns that are problematic in
your life. So we're going to talk about
what underlies these problematicdynamics, which is emotions.
(01:45):
You guys hear me say this all the time, but emotions are not
random. They don't come from nowhere.
They are messengers, and they exist to help us survive,
communicate with others, and also motivate action.
Sadness tells us that we've experienced a loss, and so we
isolate and withdraw to avoid losing further resources.
Shame tells us that we've gone against one of our values, so we
(02:09):
go within to reflect on in that and avoid repeating the same
transgression in the future. Joy tells us that we have
something in our life that we value and want to re experience.
And so we're motivated to go outand acquire more resources and
do more things that make us happy.
So your brain isn't being dramatic.
It's trying to protect you and keep you alive.
(02:31):
And to give you guys a little bit more background there, I
love this wisdom from the DBT worksheets about emotion
regulation. It's helpful to understand why
emotions can cause us to act so impulsively or engage in
behaviors that seem so intense. And that's because emotions
bypass the process of thinking, considering all the options in a
(02:54):
situation. They hardwire us to act
immediately again to help us survive and thrive.
And so they can be helpful when we don't have time to think
things through. But in today's day and age, we
almost always have time to thinkthings through.
And so acting without considering the consequences is
what can lead to that chaos and overwhelm.
(03:15):
Another thing that's challenginghere is that I think a lot of us
experience our emotions as unchangeable or as a given.
We interpret it as a fact about a situation.
But our emotions aren't facts. They're a response to facts.
And if we assume that our emotions are facts, we use them
to justify our thoughts or actions.
(03:38):
And this can cause a lot of problems and a lot of chaos when
we ignore the facts and rely only on our emotional responses.
So let's dive into why you're experiencing what you are, how
you got to that point, and how it's resulting in the choices
and behaviors you make in your life.
So this is where the DBT chain analysis skill comes in.
(03:59):
And if you've ever said to yourself, I don't know why I
just did that, this is going to break it down for you.
So what we do in a chain analysis is we break down every
step of the emotional experienceand then we go and look at these
links to see where we could potentially change the outcome.
So before we are ever in a situation, we have these things
called vulnerability factors, and these are things that make
(04:21):
us more susceptible to experiencing intense emotions.
So that is things like not sleeping well, having had a big
argument with a friend the day before, forgetting to take your
meds, being hangry, all of thesethings have a really big impact
on your emotional outcome. And it's not just these simple
things that are more related to the biological experience, but
(04:45):
it's also your baseline that you're functioning at.
If you are going through a really stressful time at school,
if you have family members that are struggling with their
health, all of these things add to that baseline level of
functioning and mean that we're more vulnerable to experiencing
our emotions in a way that's ineffective.
And so on top of these vulnerability factors, we have a
(05:08):
prompting event. And this is what initially
invokes the emotion. You get a text, you see someone
you weren't expecting to, you get a grade on a test.
And it's not what you want. It's the event that causes the
emotional response. And we don't just experience an
emotion in response to that. There is a number of things that
(05:28):
happen simultaneously. We have an interpretation of the
event. So we have thoughts and beliefs
about that thing. And we've talked a lot about how
you think about things that happen has a lot of power.
So if you feel a test and your interpretation is I'm a bad
student, I'm not smart, I am failing this class.
We know that there's a lot of negative implications when it
(05:50):
comes to how you cope with that situation if you try to problem
solve of it and also your self esteem and how you view yourself
as a whole. And the inverse is also true.
So if you failed the test and you say I could have studied
more, that wasn't reflective of what we learned in lecture or I
didn't do well on this test thistime, but I'll do better next
(06:11):
time. Seeing that situation as
specific to that context, independent of your value and
you as a person and also changeable in the future, you
have a much more effective outlook on the experience as a
whole. So at the same time that we are
interpreting the event and thinking about how we feel about
(06:31):
it, there's also all the biological changes that happen.
So this is a lot of what you hear about on TikTok with fight
or flight rewiring your nervous system.
This is the part of the emotional experience that a lot
of people speak to and work to change.
So there's a lot of nervous system changes that happen.
You might feel more physically tense, you might feel your heart
(06:53):
rate increase. You might be more aware of your
surroundings or less aware of your surroundings.
This is the emotional response that is physical as well as
mental. And then you have your
experience. So there are those bodily
sensations, those feelings that we're having about the
experience in response to the event, and then also the action
urges. Are you feeling motivated to go
(07:16):
to office hours and argue for a better grade?
Is your emotion telling you to go back to your dorm and isolate
and withdraw and have a pity party about that test for the
rest of the day? In addition to the biological
changes and the experiences, we also have the expressions of the
emotion. So this is our face and body
(07:36):
language. These are your words, what you
say, but also what you think andyour actions.
And these two things feed into each other.
How you express the emotion impacts how you experience it
and the biological changes. But your experience of the
emotion and the biological changes also inform how you
express the emotion. And at any point within this
(07:58):
process of experiencing and expressing the emotion, we have
an opportunity to name the emotion, to recognize what we're
experiencing, to be more aware of it, to then adjust the
experience and expression. But alternatively, what a lot of
us do is instead of naming the emotion, naming it to tame it
(08:19):
and being aware of the situation, to then change it.
Instead, a lot of us will go back to that initial prompting
event by experiencing A secondary emotion, by feeling
something about the way we're feeling.
So you fail the test, you get the bad grade.
You then feel really sad about your performance.
You wanted to do better. You wanted a better grade.
(08:39):
You expected more of yourself. You then start to feel angry
about why didn't I do better? Why am I not a natural test
taker? You are not having a second
emotion in response to the initial event.
And so we call this a secondary emotion and an after effect.
And then we have a second prompting event, which is our
(08:59):
additional emotional response toour first emotional response.
And so you can see how this becomes a really overwhelming
chaotic experience that you're just feeding into yourself with
these potentially negative thoughts and experiences, not
naming and understanding your experience and just causing a
larger and more overwhelming reaction.
(09:23):
And So what we'll learn is how to break that cycle, to stop
that thought spiral from happening and change the
outcome, but also the experienceof the emotion and how we
express it and to zoom out a bitbigger picture in the moment.
It's not fun to be like really caught up in the emotional
experience and overwhelmed with what you're feeling and just
like feeding into that experience.
(09:44):
But what a lot of us do when we experience a negative emotion is
that we try to escape or avoid that experience because it's not
fun and it's not enjoyable. It's uncomfortable.
And in our attempt to escape or avoid it, we engage in these
problem behaviors or ways of coping with the experience that
are not effective. And you experience relief that
(10:06):
is temporary and momentary. You don't get the experience to
learn how to approach this differently in the future.
You don't learn new skills. You don't build that sense of
mastery and then you in turn have another vulnerability
factor, which is that the next time you experience this emotion
or the stressor, you're more likely to do that same thing,
(10:26):
which is feel negative emotion, escape or avoid it, engage in
that problem behavior for temporary relief, and never
learn to be aware and adjust theexperience.
So not only is there a lot of implications around the
experience in the moment, but also what will happen in the
future and how you will respond to stress next time you
(10:47):
experience it. So the best part of DBT is that
we always have a choice when we react.
We might not be able to avoid the initial emotion, we might
not be able to avoid those automatic thoughts that come up,
but we can either choose a path of judgment or a path of
mindfulness. And so when we approach the
situation with judgement, that'sour interpretations, our
(11:09):
assumptions, we're comparing it.We're asking ourselves, well,
what would that other person do in this situation?
Why am I not acting that way? And that path leads us to self
regulation, shame, anger, fight or flight, shutting down, really
having a negative experience mood wise versus when we go with
the path of mindfulness and notice what are we experiencing?
What are the facts of the situation, accepting these are
(11:32):
the cards that I'm dealt at thispoint, what can I do going
forward? We then are regulating our
emotions and that's skills like radical acceptance, opposite
action, breathing and grounding.So chain analysis is looking at
all these individual components of the emotional experience and
our response and we can really simplify it.
It's those vulnerability factors.
(11:54):
So what did we come into the situation with already kind of
being at a loss? Were we tired?
Were we stressed? Were we sleep arrived, the
prompting event, what happened that resulted in the emotion and
then we have these links that wecan disrupt.
So how we thought about the experience, what the bodily
sensations were like, the physical experience of the
(12:16):
emotion, the emotion itself, theurges that were associated with
experiencing the emotion, and then what actions we took to
either cope with that experienceor try and change it.
And the consequences are in trueDBT fashion, a dialectic, which
is that short term relief versuslong term pain.
(12:37):
And understanding how we want toapproach the situation so that
it's easier for us to navigate next time.
And again, avoidance feels good for those 5 minutes, but it's
the reason that you're a stuck in this cycle.
So how should you be approachingthis in your day-to-day life?
The first thing is understandingwhat is the problem behavior
(12:57):
that I am analyzing. And I don't want you to just
limit yourself to a behavior, though that's likely what you're
analyzing if you are in DBT or in crisis.
But the problem behavior could also be avoidance.
It could be things like not being vulnerable and asking for
help when you go through a challenging emotional
experience. It could be the way that you
(13:17):
think about the experience, likewe talked about how you respond
to a failing grade on a test. It could be that secondary
emotion, like having those thoughts that led to anger or
shame or lashing out. But it can also be these really
tangible actions that we take inresponse to our emotions that
often times make things worse. So after something bad happened,
(13:40):
did you avoid? Did you not tell anyone?
Did you punish yourself for the experience?
What are the ineffective ways that you responded to that
emotion? And you guys have heard me say
this before, but if we don't have awareness, we can't take
action to change the experience.So really understanding what you
want to change allows you to shift that experience.
(14:01):
But if you don't know if you're targeting the thought or the
emotion or the behavior or the conversation you had, you're not
able to adequately approach, understand and change that
situation. The other part of a chain
analysis which people tend to get wrong is the prompting
event, which is that a lot of times when we think about why
(14:22):
we're experiencing an emotion, we attach a lot of judgments and
responses to the initial prompting event.
So if you can in an argument with a family member, you might
be like, the prompting event wasmy sister was rude or my brother
was annoying. Or if you failed the test, you
might label the prompting event as I'm a horrible test taker.
(14:45):
But that's not the prompting event.
That's your interpretation of and your response to the
prompting event. And we need to be really clear
on objectively what occurred. Purely describing the facts that
took place. The prompting event would be
like, I got a phone call, I received a grade back on a test.
Like what can you observe and not attach any judgments to
(15:06):
because again, your interpretation of it, your
thoughts about it, how you felt are those subsequent links in
the chain and how you responded to that initial thing.
And after we are able to solve the event, we also again think
about what were our vulnerability factors.
And I think vulnerability factors was something that
allowed me to give myself a lot more grace and experience my
(15:28):
emotions less intensely. Because one of the best ways to
self validate or for others to validate us is to say it makes
sense that you feel that way. It makes sense that that would
be your response. It doesn't mean that it's a
justified response, but when we understand kind of the cards
that were stacked against us or the things that led to this
emotional response, we're able to give ourselves more grace and
(15:49):
recognize that it wasn't this isolated event that led to this
feeling. It was a combination of the
stress from the last week and the last month and how I slept
last night and if I was hungry, and all of these other factors
that also contribute to the experience.
Because emotions don't occur in isolation, our responses don't
(16:09):
either. And, and when we can understand
that, we can really break down the experience and target a
really specific part of it to then change the rest of the
chain. So when you're doing a chain
analysis, you've identified, OK,what was the problem behavior?
What was the prompting event? Purely objectively, no judgments
attached. Then you go through every single
(16:30):
thing that followed. So the actions, the sensations,
the thoughts you had, the eventsthat occurred, the feelings, the
emotions you felt about the feelings you were having,
getting really, really detailed and understanding how this
cascade of events occurred and how you ended up in this chaotic
thoughts viral outcome. And when we're able to break it
(16:51):
down to understand it in this way, it doesn't feel as
overwhelming and out of our control because we can really
clearly see, OK, A led to B&B, led to C, and that's how I ended
up in this spot. But I can also do things
differently next time and get a different outcome.
It feels less out of control. It feels less overwhelming and
there are actual steps you can take to improve the experience.
(17:13):
And in my early days of DBT, almost every single session, I
was doing a chain analysis. And sometimes it was like, why
didn't I call for skills coaching when I was in crisis?
Or why did I engage in this problem behavior despite the
fact that we talked about last time?
I would try to avoid doing that this week.
Or why did I have that giant argument with my parents?
That was the most stressful thing since the last time I was
(17:35):
in a session. And in the moment, I think
there's like the voice in the back of your mind that's like, I
know what I should do, but I'm not going to do that.
When we break it down into thesereally specific parts of the
experience, it's much easier to make a tiny change that then
shifts the outcome versus tryingto get yourself to approach the
(17:56):
situation in a completely different way because it feels a
lot safer to do what we've done before.
And it can be really overwhelming to try and approach
a situation completely differently and rehaul the whole
experience. So this feels a lot more doable.
It feels less overwhelming to change one tiny link of the
chain and therefore adjust the outcome rather than doing a
(18:19):
complete overhaul. Because doing so, I think you're
really setting yourself up for failure by expecting yourself to
do something completely different that you've never done
before, despite having a really reinforced pattern of response
and behavior. It's just, it's unrealistic as
an expectation to set for yourself.
And then you feel more shame andanger, and then you're in a
whole other emotional response. So it's really the butterfly
(18:43):
effect for emotional experiences.
One small shift can completely change the outcome, but you
can't make that shift unless youunderstand how the cards fell.
And like I said, I was doing chain analysis on the weekly and
therapy sessions. I was doing them outside of
sessions. There was an abundant lack of
understanding as to how I was getting myself in these really
(19:06):
ineffective ways of coping with things, why I was reacting so
ineffectively to these seeminglyinconspicuous prompting events.
And I wasn't going through thesesteps of understanding in my
head. It wasn't something that was
naturally happening that like, oh, I have this conversation and
that is actually really reminding me about this like
negative belief I had or this conflict that I had last week.
(19:30):
Or I just go right into that negative way of coping because
it's what I've always done before or I'm avoiding because
this is uncomfortable and I don't want to sit with this.
There was not that understandingof what was happening.
And so the emotional experience felt really overwhelming and out
of my control. And I would just end up in this
really bad spot without understanding how I got there,
(19:50):
but also how I could change it in the future.
So when we break it down to be really micro little steps, we're
able to shift that and change that, which is a really
empowering experience and gives you a lot more control over the
outcome. So essentially when I was in
treatment, I was using this to figure out why every single tiny
(20:10):
set back was turning into an entire spiral.
And once I saw the links betweeneach step, I finally had options
about how I could change the situation.
So if you are confused about howa chain analysis works, why this
can have an impact on the outcome, I want you to remember
that you can't delete emotions, but you can rewrite the sequence
(20:31):
that they occur in. So we're going to go through a
real life chain analysis example, one that I think almost
all of us can relate to, which is doom scrolling.
And I think that's an example ofsomething that happened
seemingly automatically that you're not understanding how you
got 45 minutes down the TikTok for you page and didn't do any
of those other goals that you set for yourself.
(20:52):
But when we unpack it as a chainanalysis, we're able to
understand exactly how we got there and what we can do
differently next time. So I will do this for me, but
you plug and play your situation, your context to
understand the outcome. So my most common doom scrolling
time is I will get back from work and I will sit on the couch
(21:14):
and I will start scrolling on TikTok and all of a sudden it's
been an hour. And then I decide, Oh well, like
I don't have that much time left.
I can't do work and it's kind oflate.
So like, it's not really a greattime to like eat dinner because
then I can't go to the gym. But I don't really want to go to
the gym because I'm going to have to make dinner.
And then I end up doing none of the things.
(21:34):
I don't do work, I don't go to the gym, I don't end up eating
dinner until really late and it's not planned.
And then I'm like OK, I did nothing with my evening except
for doom scroll because I convinced myself that was the
only reasonable path forward. So in that situation, the
vulnerability is that I'm a little bit brain dead.
I've been at work for 9 hours, I'm tired, I haven't eaten since
(21:56):
lunch. Maybe I didn't sleep super great
the night before so I'm not operating at my best.
Maybe it was a stressful day at work.
Maybe there was a project we were working on.
That is the vulnerability. The prompting event is me
getting home and sitting on the couch.
You can kind of adjust this, butI think it's helpful to think
(22:17):
about it from a habit lens of like we have a queue and a
response. And for me, the queue is if I'm
sitting on the couch, I will then take out my phone an open
Tiktok and scroll O. It would be harder for me to say
I'm going to sit on the couch and then change the behavior to
I'm going to read a book or I'm going to call someone because
the queue is sitting on the couch.
So if I don't sit on the couch, I'm much less likely to then
(22:39):
doom scroll for three hours. The prompting event is me
getting home and immediately going to sit on the couch.
Once I sit on the couch, I say, OK, I'm bored, I have nothing to
do. I'm going to open my phone.
And once I open my phone, it's almost like that automatic wired
reaction of I open Tiktok or I open Instagram.
Like that's the first thing I dobecause when I sit on the couch,
I open my phone and then I go onTikTok and then I scroll.
(23:01):
When I open TikTok, I see a video that invokes an emotion.
Maybe it's funny, maybe it's sad, there's an emotional
response, and then I am having asecondary emotion and scrolling
to change the emotion or see what's coming next.
And then you're having this likea whole emotion reinforcement
cycle related to scrolling. And that's how you end up doing
(23:24):
scrolling, right? Like you end up in this cycle of
emotions and experiences that wetalked about, and at no point do
you intervene and change the outcome.
So essentially I scroll, I then have these thoughts of like,
well, it's not a great time for me to eat dinner because then I
won't be able to go to the gym later.
But also it's like kind of too early to go to the gym now.
(23:46):
And also I just got back from work.
So like I don't want to do additional work now.
Like these are the thoughts and the interpretations about the
prompting event that I'm having.Are they accurate?
No, I could do any of those things, but those are the
thoughts that I'm having. And then once I am like, well,
it's not a great time, so I'll do that later.
And then all of a sudden it's been 3 hours.
I then I'm thinking to myself, Idid nothing with my afternoon.
(24:09):
I have nothing to show for this evening.
I could have done something thatwas more productive and fun and
I feel like low energy and not great about the experience.
And now I'm annoyed at myself. I'm having a secondary emotion
for scrolling on TikTok for three hours.
And those are the consequences of the event.
And this is something that we don't always take the time to
unpack and consider, but the consequences are the reason that
(24:33):
we're changing the problem behavior.
Behavior might not be great, butif there's not consequences,
there's not really the motivation for us to change it.
So it's really important to understand how did other people
react not only in the moment, but later on?
How did you feel immediately following the behavior but also
later on? So for me, I was like, OK, I'm
annoyed at myself for schooling for three hours.
(24:55):
Name anger, frustration, anxietyabout all the work that I know
of to do and things that I didn't end up getting done
later. I am more likely to repeat the
cycle and sit on the couch, openmy phone, go on TikTok and doom
scroll. And what effect did the behavior
have on the environment both in the moment and later on?
I mean, maybe I didn't like tidyup my apartment or get work
(25:15):
done. And that impacts both the
productivity or the outcome in the moment, but also the work
that I have to do the next day or the day after.
And it just like compounds and piles up and then is over.
And then you avoid it by doing scrolling and going on TikTok.
So we're able to understand how all of those things happen.
And for me, I think the most effective way to change that is
(25:37):
not opening TikTok and then trying to get off of TikTok.
It's not sitting on the couch and then trying to convince
myself to read a book rather than watch entertaining content.
What's most effective for me to change, I think, is sitting on
the couch, which is that instead, when I get back from
work, I put my stuff down. And maybe I like put on an
outfit to go to the gym, or maybe I immediately start making
(25:58):
dinner. Maybe I start tidying things up,
not doing that cue that results in that behavior.
That for me is the easiest link to break.
And as a result, I don't have the emotional cycle of doom
scrolling for three hours and then feeling an audit myself and
then having more work to do, andthen feeling overwhelmed.
And then doom scrolling for three hours to avoid feeling
(26:19):
overwhelmed because I was doing scrolling for three hours and
caused myself more work down theline.
So it's not about being perfect,it's about catching the pattern
one link earlier each time. Likely what will happen.
And what does happen when I try and shift this behavior is
sometimes I do sit on the couch but do a different activity.
Sometimes I do go to the gym, but then I scroll but for less
time. It's moving in the right
(26:41):
direction and understanding how these things occur and happen so
we can insert ourselves and get a different outcome.
So if you've never done this before and you're like, this
feels really overwhelming and I don't want the really long,
extensive intensive black and white DBT worksheet.
I would just like some nice questions to ask myself to
consider. You're going to write the event
(27:03):
that happened completely objectively, just the observable
facts. You're going to write your
thoughts, feelings, actions, andthe outcomes, the outcomes in
the moment, but also long term. And you're going to highlight or
circle where you could pause next time to do something
differently. Is it before you sit on the
couch? Is it before you look at the
response to your test grade? Is it before you send that text
(27:26):
and you were going to circle that moment and decide what
skill could I do to change the outcome?
So for me it's stop. I'm going to pause.
I'm going to think, OK, if I siton the couch, I'm very likely to
go down a TikTok rabbit hole anddoom scroll for three hours.
If I don't go on the couch, I will do something different.
And maybe I still will like not be super productive and get all
(27:48):
the things that I wanted to done, but I won't end up in this
doom scrolling shame spiral for three hours.
And even the understanding is, is a movement in the right
direction, right? Like we don't have awareness.
We can't take action to change it.
So even just going through the chain analysis, even if you
still end up doing the thing, understanding where you could do
things differently and why you're getting the outcome that
(28:10):
you are in your life is really helpful.
So next time you have a behavioror an experience that you want
to change and want you to think about it from this butterfly
effect chain analysis framework.One small thing can have a
really big impact on the outcome.
But if we don't break it down into those little small things,
we can't understand where we caninsert a scale and be more
(28:31):
effective. So remembering that every
behavior that you want to changemakes perfect sense when you
zoom out. That is the power of a chain
analysis. It is turning that shame into
insight and insight into change.And like we said at the
beginning, it's not impossible to change these things.
It's not an uphill battle. You're not broken.
Your brain is just running a pattern that you now know how to
(28:53):
rewrite. So the next time one of your
friends or family member says, Idon't know why I do this, you're
going to send them this episode,you're going to help them do a
chain analysis. Next time.
You were like, I don't know how I got here, but I don't like
where I'm at. You're going to do a chain
analysis. You're going to unpacked how you
got to the outcome that you are in and you are going to make one
small change that has a really big result.
(29:15):
So as always, make sure to sharewith a friend or family member.
Follow it at Sheep Persisted Podcast for more evidence based
tools to help get you mentally unstuck.
If you enjoyed this episode, if she persisted, make sure to
leave a review, subscribe and share with a friend or family
member. Follow along at at Sheep
Persisted Podcast on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and more for
bonus content. Thanks for listening and keep
(29:37):
persisting.
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