Debbie Corso > Quotes

“Creating a life worth living may be the most difficult work that you’ll ever do. There will be some days that you won’t feel up to the task but if you keep moving forward this will become easier. In the end, though, success can be yours and we’ll have been cheerleading you all the way.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“When we are in a vulnerable state of emotional dysregulation, it often doesn’t take much to push us over the edge of feeling completely incapacitated by overwhelm. On days when our emotions are heightened and intense, if we take care to just do what is necessary, this is part of good self-care. We reaffirm that we need rest and to slow down.   We challenge thoughts that we have to be a superman or superwoman day in and day out with no break.  When we take the time to slow down and allow ourselves some downtime and rest, we can prevent further vulnerability”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“Go easy on yourself. There are reasons or cause even for denying. Sometimes the truth of our reality is incredibly painful and we need to approach it slowly.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“You just have to believe it and be willing to use it. It takes courage and strength,”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“inconsolable? That’s where I was. I was, for the umpteenth time, unknowingly reliving trauma from my past, incidents that likely helped greatly in setting the stage for my developing borderline personality disorder: trauma involving feeling more alone than any human being, let alone a child, should ever feel. Utterly abandoned. Terrified. Each time that memories or flashbacks from the past trauma would arise in the here and now, as an adult, I would become emotionally”
― Debbie Corso, Stronger Than BPD: The Girl's Guide to Taking Control of Intense Emotions, Drama, and Chaos Using DBT

“Once we learn that thoughts are just thoughts, they have a lot less power over us.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“For many of us with emotion regulation issues, they can also be super challenging and emotionally draining. We may have never learned how to have healthy relationships and are trying to figure it out now as adults.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“affirming reminders that you are strong, you’ve survived other crises and came out fine, and you will get through this valley, too. Remind yourself that like everything else you’ve been through, this situation is temporary, and it will pass.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“I bet you never realized that having a cup of tea could be broken down into 37 steps! Look at how much we miss when we glaze over the details and do things in an automatic or autopilot way.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“Consciously and mindfully pushing thoughts away is a different process than flat out denying that something happened. You’re not denying anything in this case. You are acknowledging what happened and your feelings around it and then giving yourself a much needed and deserved respite.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“We often think that we are at the mercy of our urges, feelings, and thoughts. With this exercise, we can notice and experience the urge to quit and not quit at all.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“May my heart remain open. May I realize the beauty of my own true nature. May I be healed. May I be a source of healing for this world.   May you be at peace. May your heart remain open. May you realize the beauty of your own true nature. May you be healed. May you be a source of healing for this world.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“deep fears I held about rejection and abandonment from past wounds. These self-sabotaging acts also made it difficult to stick with school, a job, or meaningful relationships with others, for any length of time. I would seem to do well for short periods, only to find myself back in crisis survival “rescue me” mode again and again, essentially fitting the description”
― Debbie Corso, Stronger Than BPD: The Girl's Guide to Taking Control of Intense Emotions, Drama, and Chaos Using DBT

“If we regularly check in with our bodies, we become aware of how we are and what we might adjust to make ourselves more comfortable. When we are feeling more aware of how we feel and implement ways to feel better, we are less likely to sabotage.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“Every rock and tree and creature has a life, has a spirit, has a name” (Menken & Schwartz).”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“nodding your head up and down right about now, having been there yourself many times. If you have borderline personality disorder, BPD traits, or are emotionally sensitive, you may also have, as I do, complex post-traumatic stress syndrome (CPTSD),”
― Debbie Corso, Stronger Than BPD: The Girl's Guide to Taking Control of Intense Emotions, Drama, and Chaos Using DBT

“Boundaries are often a huge issue for those of us who suffer from emotion regulation issues. We may have never learned clear boundaries. We may have had our boundaries violated time and time again. From this perspective, it’s easy to get comfortable in the victim role, because we so legitimately found ourselves there so many times in our lives.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“We are less likely to be overwhelmed when we are able to give our full attention to one task at a time. Feeling overwhelmed leads to emotional vulnerability, which can lead to sabotaging. By slowing ourselves down and being mindful, we reduce our vulnerability to overwhelm.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“Opposite Action is most often recommended when our emotional impulse seems out of proportion to whatever has triggered the emotion. In these cases, using this skill helps keep us from making a situation worse and helps us regulate our emotions.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“I think I was afraid that if people saw that I have a mental illness, that I’m not composed a hundred percent of the time, and that I have times of instability, I’d lose everything -- their friendship, my job - everything. I would catastrophize and then create the very situations I feared by acting out in destructive ways.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life

“By planning and documenting tasks that you complete successfully, you’ll counteract the negative messages that say you’re not getting anything done. When we feel more accomplished, we are more likely to continue behaving effectively rather than sabotaging our efforts.”
― Debbie Corso, Stop Sabotaging: A 31-Day DBT Challenge to Change Your Life