A practical CBT skills worksheet for working with strong emotions, drawing on DBT-style strategies. It follows three steps - identify the emotion, understand what is driving it, and choose a skill to help it settle - so that you can respond to difficult feelings on purpose rather than being swept along by them.
Emotion Regulation Skills
PreviewPutting a word to what you are feeling is itself a first step in regulating it. Naming an emotion gives you a little space to work with it.
What is the main emotion you are feeling? (e.g. anxiety, anger, sadness, shame, frustration)
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How intense is it right now?
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Are there any other emotions mixed in? (It is common to feel more than one at once.)
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Emotions usually make sense once we see what set them off and how we read the situation. The same event can spark very different feelings depending on the meaning we give it.
What triggered this emotion? (An event, a memory, a thought, a sensation - whatever you noticed first.)
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How did you interpret it? What did it seem to mean? (This is the appraisal that often fuels the feeling.)
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Emotions show up in the body and push us toward action. Noticing both - without acting straight away - helps you stay in choice.
What do you notice in your body? (e.g. tight chest, racing heart, tense shoulders, heavy limbs, churning stomach)
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What is the emotion pulling you to do - the action urge? (Just name it; you do not have to act on it.)
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Pick one or two skills to try now. There is no single right choice - different skills suit different emotions and moments. The aim is to help the feeling settle enough that you can choose how to respond.
Which skill or skills will you try?
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How will you put your chosen skill into practice right now? Be specific.
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Emotions are like waves: they build, peak, and pass if we let them. 'Urge surfing' means riding that wave - staying with the feeling and the urge without acting on it immediately - and noticing that it eases on its own.
As you stay with the emotion without acting on the urge, what do you notice happening to it over a few minutes?
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Has the strongest part of the wave begun to pass?
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Take a moment to notice what helped, so you can build on it next time.
How intense is the emotion now?
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What helped most? What would you do again, or differently, next time?
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This is a read-only preview. Sign up to assign it and let clients complete it on any device.
‘Emotion Regulation Skills’ is an interactive cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) worksheet. As a core CBT skill it is used right across the model, with presentations including depression, anxiety, OCD, trauma and low self-esteem, rather than being tied to a single diagnosis.
It is designed to be used within therapy rather than as a standalone self-help tool: a therapist introduces it, works through it collaboratively, and helps make sense of what it surfaces. You can preview the full worksheet above, then assign it digitally for clients to complete between sessions on any device — or download it as a print-ready PDF.
Most people work through it in around 15 minutes. It moves through six short steps:
Completed on the Formulate platform, your client's answers are saved automatically and shared straight back to you, so you can review them before the next session rather than waiting for a paper copy to come back.
In common with other CBT methods, ‘Emotion Regulation Skills’ works by building practical skills to manage difficult thoughts and feelings in the moment. The aim is not positive thinking but a clearer, shared understanding of what keeps a difficulty going — and practical, testable ways to change it.
Because it is a CBT tool it stays focused on the here-and-now links between thoughts, feelings, the body and behaviour, and it works best as one part of a wider course of therapy rather than as advice or a diagnosis.
This worksheet is grounded in established cognitive behavioural therapy theory and practice. Key sources include:
Formulate provides educational CBT resources for use with a qualified therapist. They are not a substitute for professional assessment, diagnosis, or crisis care.
If you need urgent help now:
Sign up free and send your client a link. They complete it on any device — you review their responses before the next session.
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