Hi everyone,
Deep betrayal is the worst kind of grief. It’s realizing the person you loved never actually existed.
When someone you love lets you down in a big way, you’re left questioning if you ever knew them at all. You may find yourself poring through text messages or photo albums, searching for clues as to when exactly things went wrong. You may question your own judgment, wondering if you could ever trust anyone again. You may even question reality itself—feeling as if the entire world no longer makes sense.
A reader recently shared: “7 years over 20,000 pictures. I need to stop looking for when it was over.”
I feel that so much: searching for meaning and answers, looking for clues that can bring certainty and make the questions stop.
The grief of betrayal is especially conducive to overthinking and anxiety. And yet, no one actually ever discovered anything new by analyzing text messages at 2 am. There is certainly a time for reflection, and conversations with a trusted friend and journaling can help with that. But it is important to recognize when our mind is just spiraling, and to learn how to stop it.
You can’t solve overthinking with more thinking. When you’re anxious, your first step is to regulate the body, and DBT offers many strategies for that. Today I want to talk about one of the fastest and simplest: temperature change.
Of course, this tool won’t fix deep betrayal—that kind of grief needs time, support, and possibly therapy. But what it can do is interrupt the 2 am thought spiral, bringing you down from a 10 to a 7, so you can get some sleep and face this tomorrow with a clearer head.
Why does this work? When your body is activated (fight-or-flight), it naturally heats up. Sudden cold exposure interrupts the stress cycle, signaling to your nervous system that you are safe. This calms your racing heart, shallow breathing, and yes, that wretched pattern of overthinking.
The next time you catch yourself heading toward a thought spiral, try this:
1. Name the feeling: “I feel anxious.”
2. Get up and move. Walk to another room.
3. Expose yourself to cold: splash some cold water on your face, hold an ice cube, or sip a very cold glass of water.
This simple trick won’t solve everything, but if practiced regularly, it can bring your anxiety down a few notches. You don’t have to be going through a devastating betrayal to try it. You may receive an upsetting email from a coworker or have a difficult conversation with a family member. Small disappointments occur every day, and DBT can help with those too. And in the meantime? You’re practicing for when something more challenging comes up.
Try it this week and let me know what you think.
Until next time,
Dana
P.S. My workbook Loving Wisely launches July 8!