Distress Tolerance
The cost/ benefit of distracting yourself from pain
Distracting yourself from distress, turmoil, or emotions can sometimes be an adaptive and functional way to cope. However, distracting oneself can also become problematic when it becomes a way to avoid problems.
Here are some scenarios in which it makes sense to distract yourself from pain:
- When you are stuck in the car and you really, really have to go to the bathroom. It is generally not useful to think about waterfalls and running water! Distracting yourself is wise.
- When you are at the dentist or are receiving some other painful medical procedure, it can be helpful to focus on something besides the pain.
- When you are in a relationship and there is turmoil, ambivalence, or other threats to the relationship itself- and texting, contacting, or demanding an immediate answer from the person makes things worse. Focusing on something else for a while can give the relationship a break, allow for uncertainty, and allow things to fold in their own time frame.
Distracting is generally not adaptive when it becomes a way to avoid people, conflict, or situations that can get worse if not attended to. Distracting can be a strategy for the complete avoidance of solving problems- even if the problems are difficult or painful to address. Some people can sense that distracting is a way of pushing away, fighting reality, or avoiding people completely.
Approaching (as opposed to distracting) can be a way of hearing painful things, allowing for unwanted emotion, and acknowledging that others are upset. Sometimes this can move people toward each other, because it is an open acknowledgement of the difficulty of being in relationship.
Are your walls keeping people in or keeping people out?
With crisis comes vulnerability. When the unexpected happens, we are often confronted with the limits of our mortality. We realize that we can be deeply affected and influenced. The walls that we build around us get shaken, questioned, or torn down.
Fear is on our horizon.
Sometimes, when we are really scared we try to build more walls. We don’t want other people to see us. We snap at people we care about and become strict with ourselves about who sees our pain. We deny our pain to others. We can’t let other people in. We make promises to ourselves that we will never be that open, intimate, or invested in a relationship again. We can’t let other people care about us, and we become calloused to influence. We aren’t able to receive compassion or see how much alike we are.
Last week I read a post about some people who were trying to make sense of 9/11. This book really touched me when I read it. Ultimately, there was a question of what walls we wanted to build. And in general how much of the world we want to let in. Surviving a crisis forces us to consider those questions.
Sometimes disappointment can be so unbearably painful that it makes sense to be a little cautious. On the other hand, allowing our fear to dominate our ability to be human, to make mistakes, to feel pain, to take risks, and to be vulnerable can prevent us from experiencing intimacy and connection.
Are the walls you build keeping you safe and protected or are they preventing you from reaching out, taking risks, and having a fulfilling and meaningful life?
Posted in Distress Tolerance | 
Tags: Change, dialectics, Loss, Mindfulness, Openness, Relationship, Stress, trauma, wisdom | 
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Meaning making, trauma, and 9/11
Dear readers,
Given that this is the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, I would like to share with you some excerpts from an adolescent fiction novel that takes place in the aftermath of 9/11. The characters are discussing the ways in which they are attempting to come to terms with what has happened, and offer some compelling thoughts about how they are going to get through this. The book is Love is the Higher Law by David Levithan.
Click on the link below to listen:
http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WWg4NTpQ
Give your full attention to what is now.
Your life is about what you pay attention to. Your life may be about pain, joy, sadness, searching, getting rid of, or avoiding. It may be about the discomfort, the uneasiness, the anxiety, the emptiness. It may be about the looking for, the lack of, or the not enough.
Your life is about the very moment you are in.
Bearing with just this moment means being able to be okay with who you are in just this moment.
If this moment is about trying to get rid of all the experiences that come with it, your life will be about NOT tolerating the moment.
Being present with yourself is a willingness to acknowledge whatever is there- including pain.
Return to the breath. When you inhale, allow air into the tiny spaces, the tight muscles, the constricted areas, and the place of being stuck.
Posted in Distress Tolerance | Tags: Acceptance, anxiety, Mindfulness, Openness, Stress, willingness | No Comments »
Boston traffic and jammed T stops: How to practice willingness
Often, when we don’t want something to be the way it is, we fight our way through it. We complain loudly, we tense up, we try to do it quickly in order to get it over with, or we avoid doing it all together.
Willingness is the idea of doing something with receptivity. Doing something willingly doesn’t really mean that we have to like it or want it. Doing something willingly is doing something because it needs to get done. I like to think of it like this: The universe requests us to do things that we just sometimes have to do. Sometimes those things include speaking up for ourselves, saying no and being willing to tolerate conflict, telling someone how deeply we care about them, or taking responsibility for something that we don’t want to take responsibility for.
There are many things that challenge our willingness to be willing on a daily basis! But this is how it works: When we stop fighting or avoiding our capacity to deal with life (on its own terms), life itself gets more tolerable. Seems paradoxical! May not change it. May not be ideal. May even mean experiencing pain.
Inviting yourself to be willing involves relaxing your face, being gentle with yourself, quieting your breathing, and getting into a willing posture. Quit tensing your jaw and relax your shoulders. No glaring. No harsh words. It may even mean changing your tone of voice to invite compassion and kindness.
One great way to practice willingness is when you get stuck in bad traffic or when you get stuck on the T (the subway here in Boston). Practicing willingness with the less important day-to-day life issues is one way to get you started on the path towards willingness. Imagine this as an opportunity to radically accept that the universe is throwing you a bone- and your task to survive it with the least amount of suffering possible.
Posted in Distress Tolerance | Tags: Acceptance, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Mindfulness, Misery, Stress, willingness, wisdom | 1 Comment »
Let me read you a poem today
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