The purpose of DNA-V is to help develop values and live with vitality.  The discoverer, noticer, and advisor provide the means to engage in valued action, supporting the values that lie at the center of the model.  Values can be thought of as a compass that guides people through the storms and confusing times of life and toward the things they care about.  

The Valuer influences Behavioral Regulation

Developing The Valuer is the process of helping to create contexts that empower young people to clarify what brings them vitality or value and then to choose value consistent actions.

Unskilled Behavioral Regulation looks like:  

• Impulsive behaviors such as cutting classes, blurting out in class & spending money, 

• Risky sexual behavior, 

• Risky online behavior, 

• Binging and/or purging, 

• Drug and alcohol abuse, 

• Aggressive behaviors, 

• Suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injurious behaviors.

Skilled Behavioral Regulation looks like:  

• The ability to successfully regulate one's thoughts, and behaviors in different situations

• Effectively managing stress, controlling impulses, and motivating oneself.

• The capacity to take action, sustain motivation, and persevere through challenges toward an identified goal.

The Advisor influences Cognitive Regulation 

The advisor represents our inner voice. It is an incredible skill that helps us humans navigate the world efficiently. In contrast to the discoverer, the advisor space is about avoiding trial and error. It involves judging, evaluating, generating rules, listening to our self-talk, and problem solving. The advisor can become a problem if we use it blindly, we can lose contact with the physical world and use worry, rumination, our own self-talk or rules even if they do not help us grow. 

Unskilled at Cognitive Regulation looks like:  

• Extreme, polarized, or black-or-white thinking and acting 

• Poor perspective taking and poor conflict resolution, 

• Invalidation of self and other, 

• Difficulty effectively influencing one's own and others’ behaviors (i.e., obtaining desired changes).

Skilled Cognitive Regulation looks like:  

• The ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms. 

• Temperament toward reliably meeting commitments and fulfilling obligations of challenging roles. 

• Abilities to plan, strategize, and implement complex tasks along with the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and a consideration of the well-being of oneself and others.

The Noticer influences Emotion Regulation

The Noticer represents a group of behaviors all humans are born with.  Noticing creates the space between internal experiences (feelings and thoughts) and outward behavior, offering an opportunity to choose a behavior rather than “having to” react when difficult feelings and thoughts show up. When we don’t automatically react to our inner experience, we’re often able to better choose actions in the service of what we care about (our values). 

Unskilled at Emotion Regulation looks like:  

• Emotional vulnerability; 

• Emotional reactivity; 

• Rapid, often exaggerated changes in mood, where strong emotions or feelings (uncontrollable laughing or crying, or heightened irritability or temper) occur.

• Anger outbursts; 

• Steady negative emotional states such as depression, anger, shame, anxiety, and guilt; 

• Deficits in positive emotions and difficulty in controlling emotions.

Skilled Emotion Regulation looks like:  

• The ability to be aware of and constructively handle both positive and challenging emotions; 

• Experiences a range of positive and negative emotions in a safe context; 

• Demonstrates the skills to manage and express their emotions in effective ways; 

• Is able to notice the activity of his or her advisor in a given situation, and not react to it.

The Discoverer influences Self-Regulation/Relationships

The Discoverer finds new ways to be in the world. When people are in discoverer space, they’re behaving in ways that allow them to grow, learn, and expand their behavioral repertoire. Verbal behavior is often tied to the physical actions of testing and exploring.

Unskilled at Self-Regulation & Relationships looks like:

• Lacking awareness of emotions, thoughts, and urges

• Poor attentional control; 

• Unable to reduce one’s suffering while also having difficulty feeling  pleasure; 

• Identity confusion, sense of emptiness, and dissociation.  

• Unstable relationships and  interpersonal conflicts, 

• Chronic family disturbance, 

• Social isolation, 

• Efforts to avoid abandonment (unhealthy attachments)

• Difficulties getting wants and needs met in relationships

• Difficulty maintaining one’s self-respect in relationships. 

Skilled at Self-Regulation & Relationships looks like:

• The ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior. 

• The ability to accurately assess one’s strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism. 

• The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding interpersonal relationships with diverse individuals and groups. Relating to others with acceptance, understanding, and sensitivity to their diverse perspectives and experiences. This includes the ability to collaborate and coordinate action with others. 

• Along with the ability to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed.

We hope that a young person completing the TWO TENTS IOP  is displaying many and continuing to move toward all 20 of these Signs of BOLD Living.

1. I am Breathing Deeply & Slowing Down

   • My breath is like a ship’s anchor. It helps me stay where I want to stay, even when emotional forces are trying to pull me out to sea. I don’t always realize that my breath    is a great source of strength and stability.

2. I am Unhooking From My Advisor

   • My thoughts and feelings no longer dominate me or jerk me around. They lose their impact and influence over me. This makes it much easier for me to choose how I behave.

3. I am Shifting Into Wise Mind

   • I am able to feel our emotions and focus on the facts. In Wise Mind, I make decisions based both on how I feel and the facts. Wise Mind helps me do what is healthy and effective.

4. I am Confronting My Defenses

   • At some point, everyone feels & copes with physical & emotional pain. Defense Mechanisms (DMS) are anything I do to avoid feeling emotions (especially, pain). I can confront my DMS by moving toward a Value, using a skill, or choosing to act opposite.

5. I am Validating Myself & Others

   • I try to see other's and my own feelings, thoughts, and actions as making sense, accurate, and acceptable in a particular situation by praising effort, strategy, choices and accepting corrective feedback.

6. I am Accepting Support

   • I am practicing Willingness to accept reality and use skills, values, tools, practices and/or a mentor that help me act like the kind of person I want to be.

7. I am Managing My Emotions  

   • I try to understand and balance my emotions to be able to act Effectively toward what matters to me by Checking the Facts, Problem Solving or Acting Opposite when my emotions are challenging.

8. I am Taking a Break & Coming Back to Deal with the Issue

   • I know when and how to Take a Break (TAB) by focusing on something else for a while to reboot my mind so I can deal with the crisis, issue or emotion.

9. I am Discovering Sparks of Wonder

   • Sparks come from the gut & tap into our true passions. They motivate and inspire. Wonder is something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable which increases curiosity and hopefulness.

10. I am Feeling My Feelings

    • By walking the middle ground between stuffing and sticking. I notice feelings without holding on to them. I feel emotions and then let them go when they are ready to go.

11. I am Breaking Old Patterns

    • Radical Acceptance does not mean that I have failed or that Ihave to put up with a hurtful situation.  Radical Acceptance instead is about using my time and energy in a way that helps me move forward.

12. I am Setting Boundaries

    • Boundaries are limits. Setting boundaries is the way we communicate what is Ok and not Ok in relationships.  I can assert my boundaries in several different areas:  time, social media, personal information, & physical intimacy.

13. I am Thinking Flexibly

    • With a growth mindset I try to embrace challenges; persist in the face of setbacks; see effort as the path to mastery; learn from criticism; and am inspired and find lessons in the success of others.

14. I am Listening To My Values

    • Listening to my values means discovering what’s important to me in life—what matters to me and how I want to behave toward myself, in relationships, and in the wider world.

15. I am Bolstering My Noticer

    • I have emotional needs. There are emotional and behavioral consequences, if those needs aren’t met or if being met through unhealthy means (i.e., risky sex to feel connection). I can find healthy ways to get all these emotional needs met more often.

16. I am Forgiving Myself & Others

    • I am making a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward myself. a person or group who has harmed me, regardless of whether forgiveness is deserved.

17. I am Practicing Relational Agility

    • I am confronting the myths and factors that are interfering with my relationships and deciding on goals and priorities leading to healthy relations.

18. I am Deciding On Actions & Acting

    • Once I know what I want, I need to choose actions that will take me toward my goals and values. This may take courage, because sometimes I have to face my fears in order to do the things I care about.

19. I am Promoting Vitality & Self-Care

    • By connecting with others; embracing  the moment; caring for myself; challenging myself & learning new things; being physically active; & giving to others & having a positive influence.

20. I am Choosing My Own Adventure

    • Choice Points come up all the time. Even though many things can pull me Away, I am moving ‘Toward’ my values by acting effectively and behaving like the sort of person I want to be.