Learning to Accept: Building Tolerance for Hard Emotions
Learning to Accept: Building Tolerance for Hard Emotions
There is a well-known quote attributed to Carl Jung: “What you resist persists.”
What Jung wanted people to know was that the more you try to push away, deny, or fight a problem, feeling, or thought, the more it intensifies.
When it comes to emotions, this is certainly true. When we experience difficult or uncomfortable emotions like fear, dread, regret, and even grief, it’s tempting to resist feeling these emotions by pushing them away, ignoring them, or drowning them in something else, like work or alcohol.
This resistance to discomfort and pain is a natural response. Afterall, who likes to experience discomfort and pain?
While resisting these difficulties might seem like a good idea in the moment, the route of resistance comes with a price.
Learning to Cope: How Dialectical Therapy Can Help
Life is filled with challenges—big and small—that can stir up complicated emotions and strain relationships. If you’ve struggled with anxiety, depression, or mood or personality disorders, these challenges can feel even more overwhelming. In these moments, our instinct may be to either fight the battles raging in our minds or, worse, to surrender to the weight of distressing emotions.
But what if there’s a different way to approach these tough emotions? It’s natural to want to fight off discomfort, avoid difficult situations, and seek comfort. But what if we could learn to accept these challenges and embrace the present moment for what it truly is?
Enter Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).
How Parents Can Help Regulate Their Child’s Emotions
We often assume our children deliberately choose to behave or misbehave. We don’t recognize that many of our children’s behavior is their body’s reaction to stress. A good amount of a child’s behavior emerges from unintentional, subconscious, and automatic responses to stress.
8 Ways You Can Better Manage Your Emotions…Starting Today
Regulating our emotions has many benefits. Our relationships improve. We are calmer and more at peace as we better manage ourselves. We know to admit we were wrong and ask forgiveness when we go out of control.
Stop Making This Big Mistake When You Feel Strong Emotions…and Do This Instead.
Taking responsibility of our emotions empowers us and gives us control over our lives. Recognizing this responsibility frees us to discover more about ourselves and heal from old wounds by seeing where our triggers come from. We see choices we can make in relationships and frees us to express ourselves.
The Impact of Family Dynamic on the Mental Health of Children
Parents are responsible for providing the safe environment their children need. In safety, they can see the world from a different perspective and not as unsafe and scary.