Distress Tolerance Quotes

Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.

The nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons.They arise from sense perception,and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

BEFRIENDING THE BODY Trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies. Being frightened means that you live in a body that is always on guard. Angry people live in angry bodies. The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past. In my practice I begin the process by helping my patients to first notice and then describe the feelings in their bodies—not emotions such as anger or anxiety or fear but the physical sensations beneath the emotions: pressure, heat, muscular tension, tingling, caving in, feeling hollow, and so on. I also work on identifying the sensations associated with relaxation or pleasure. I help them become aware of their breath, their gestures and movements. All too often, however, drugs such as Abilify, Zyprexa, and Seroquel, are prescribed instead of teaching people the skills to deal with such distressing physical reactions. Of course, medications only blunt sensations and do nothing to resolve them or transform them from toxic agents into allies. The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch. Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves.

When a person is in emotional pain, it’s hard to be rational and to think of a good solution. Nevertheless, many of the coping strategies used by people with overwhelming emotions only serve to make their problems worse.

It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.

the ability to cope effectively with daily problems and responses does not depend on willpower. Solving problems and tolerating distress requires skill power,

Criticizing yourself all the time or being overly judgmental of a situation is like wearing dark sunglasses indoors.

Building resilience is about developing the capacity to tolerate distress, to stay in and with a tough, challenging moment, to find our footing and our goodness even when we don’t have confirmation of achievement or pending success.

O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

Remember, sometimes pain can’t be avoided, but many times suffering can. Take,

If a person takes comfort in his or her faith upon divinity in times of distress, then who the hell am I to say, that the person is delusional.

However, do not confuse distraction with avoidance. When you avoid a distressing situation, you choose not to deal with it. But when you distract yourself from a distressing situation, you still intend to deal with it in the future, when your emotions have calmed down to a tolerable level. The

The Dialectical Dilemma for the Patient The borderline individual is faced with an apparently irreconcilable dilemma. On the one hand, she has tremendous difficulties with self-regulation of affect and subsequent behavioral competence. She frequently but somewhat unpredictably needs a great deal of assistance, often feels helpless and hopeless, and is afraid of being left alone to fend for herself in a world where she has failed over and over again. Without the ability to predict and control her own well-being, she depends on her social environment to regulate her affect and behavior. On the other hand, she experiences intense shame at behaving dependently in a society that cannot tolerate dependency, and has learned to inhibit expressions of negative affect and helplessness whenever the affect is within controllable limits. Indeed, when in a positive mood, she may be exceptionally competent across a variety of situations. However, in the positive mood state she has difficulty predicting her own behavioral capabilities in a different mood, and thus communicates to others an ability to cope beyond her capabilities. Thus, the borderline individual, even though at times desperate for help, has great difficulty asking for help appropriately or communicating her needs. The inability to integrate or synthesize the notions of helplessness and competence, of noncontrol and control, and of needing and not needing help can lead to further emotional distress and dysfunctional behaviors. Believing that she is competent to “succeed,” the person may experience intense guilt about her presumed lack of motivation when she falls short of objectives. At other times, she experiences extreme anger at others for their lack of understanding and unrealistic expectations. Both the intense guilt and the intense anger can lead to dysfunctional behaviors, including suicide and parasuicide, aimed at reducing the painful emotional states. For the apparently competent person, suicidal behavior is sometimes the only means of communicating to others that she really can’t cope and needs help; that is, suicidal behavior is a cry for help. The behavior may also function as a means to get others to alter their unrealistic expectations—to “prove” to the world that she really cannot do what is expected.

Taking a breath and remembering that often the only way we get our needs met is by simultaneously tolerating others’ distress helps prevent us from losing ourselves.

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, All pray in their distress: And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, Is God, our father dear: And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love, Is Man, his child and care. For Mercy has a human heart, Pity, a human face: And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress. Then every man of every clime, That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace. And all must love the human form, In heathen, Turk, or Jew. Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell, There God is dwelling too.

The physical and emotional distress that result from incurring the misogynist's displeasure can be so painful that women will do virtually anything to avoid it, including tolerate their partner's irrational behavior.

The word dialectic (in dialectical behavior therapy) means to balance and compare two things that appear very different or even contradictory. In dialectical behavior therapy, the balance is between change and acceptance (Linehan, 1993a). You need to change the behaviors in your life that are creating more suffering for yourself and others while simultaneously also accepting yourself the way you are. This might sound contradictory, but it’s a key part of this treatment. Dialectical behavior therapy depends on acceptance and change, not acceptance or change.

I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lacks an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress—as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower. Among some pious people I found a hatred of reason and was well disposed to them for that; for this at least betrayed their bad intellectual conscience. But to stand in the midst of this rerum concordia discors and of this whole marvelous uncertainty and rich ambiguity of existence without questioning, without trembling with the craving and the rapture of such questioning, without at least hating the person who questions, perhaps even finding him faintly amusing—that is what I feel to be contemptible, and this is the feeling for which I look first in everybody. Some folly keeps persuading me that every human being has this feeling, simply because he is human. This is my type of injustice.

CONSENSUS PROPOSED CRITERIA FOR DEVELOPMENTAL TRAUMA DISORDER A. Exposure. The child or adolescent has experienced or witnessed multiple or prolonged adverse events over a period of at least one year beginning in childhood or early adolescence, including: A. 1. Direct experience or witnessing of repeated and severe episodes of interpersonal violence; and A. 2. Significant disruptions of protective caregiving as the result of repeated changes in primary caregiver; repeated separation from the primary caregiver; or exposure to severe and persistent emotional abuse B. Affective and Physiological Dysregulation. The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies related to arousal regulation, including at least two of the following: B. 1. Inability to modulate, tolerate, or recover from extreme affect states (e.g., fear, anger, shame), including prolonged and extreme tantrums, or immobilization B. 2. Disturbances in regulation in bodily functions (e.g. persistent disturbances in sleeping, eating, and elimination; over-reactivity or under-reactivity to touch and sounds; disorganization during routine transitions) B. 3. Diminished awareness/dissociation of sensations, emotions and bodily states B. 4. Impaired capacity to describe emotions or bodily states C. Attentional and Behavioral Dysregulation: The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies related to sustained attention, learning, or coping with stress, including at least three of the following: C. 1. Preoccupation with threat, or impaired capacity to perceive threat, including misreading of safety and danger cues C. 2. Impaired capacity for self-protection, including extreme risk-taking or thrill-seeking C. 3. Maladaptive attempts at self-soothing (e.g., rocking and other rhythmical movements, compulsive masturbation) C. 4. Habitual (intentional or automatic) or reactive self-harm C. 5. Inability to initiate or sustain goal-directed behavior D. Self and Relational Dysregulation. The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies in their sense of personal identity and involvement in relationships, including at least three of the following: D. 1. Intense preoccupation with safety of the caregiver or other loved ones (including precocious caregiving) or difficulty tolerating reunion with them after separation D. 2. Persistent negative sense of self, including self-loathing, helplessness, worthlessness, ineffectiveness, or defectiveness D. 3. Extreme and persistent distrust, defiance or lack of reciprocal behavior in close relationships with adults or peers D. 4. Reactive physical or verbal aggression toward peers, caregivers, or other adults D. 5. Inappropriate (excessive or promiscuous) attempts to get intimate contact (including but not limited to sexual or physical intimacy) or excessive reliance on peers or adults for safety and reassurance D. 6. Impaired capacity to regulate empathic arousal as evidenced by lack of empathy for, or intolerance of, expressions of distress of others, or excessive responsiveness to the distress of others E. Posttraumatic Spectrum Symptoms. The child exhibits at least one symptom in at least two of the three PTSD symptom clusters B, C, & D. F. Duration of disturbance (symptoms in DTD Criteria B, C, D, and E) at least 6 months. G. Functional Impairment. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in at least two of the following areas of functioning: Scholastic Familial Peer Group Legal Health Vocational (for youth involved in, seeking or referred for employment, volunteer work or job training)

Getting Your Needs Met and Tolerating Distress Time for an experiment! I want you to say the following sentence aloud, preferably in front of a mirror, and then observe how your body responds: “I am allowed to have things for myself even if they inconvenience others.” Now pause. Does your body want to accept or reject what you just said? What’s your natural reaction to that statement? Do any memories or images come to mind? The only goal here is to learn about yourself. One reaction isn’t better than another; all data is good data.

Those who reinforce the disintegrating elements in our society will get no thanks from future generations. The family becomes the ultimate victim of homosexuality, a result which any society can tolerate only within certain limits. If the American Psychiatric Association endorses one of the symptoms of social distress as a normal phenomenon it demonstrates to the public its ignorance of social dynamics, of the relation of personal maladaptation to social disharmony, and thereby acquires a responsibility for aggravating the already existing chaos. [response to December 15, 1973 verdict]

O son of Kunti, happiness and distress come and go constantly like winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception alone, O Bharata, and one should tolerate them without being disturbed. A person capable of such tolerance is eligible for liberation from all misery. The great seers who know the truth have concluded from a careful analysis that the soul and spiritual reality are unchanging, and that the temporary material body is ultimately without any basis in truth. The soul pervades the body and is indestructible. No one can destroy the immeasurable and eternal soul, but the body is sure to come to an end. Therefore, fight without any compunction for your relatives' bodies, O Arjuna.

Ambiguous tasks are a good place to observe how personality traits bubble to the surface. Although few of us are elite soldiers, we’ve all experienced the kind of psychological distress these trainees encounter on their training run: managing unclear expectations, struggling with self-motivation, and balancing the use of social support with private reflection. These issues are endemic not only to the workplace, but also to relationships, health, and every aspect of life in which we seek to thrive and succeed. Not surprisingly, the leading predictor of success in elite military training programs is the same quality that distinguishes those best equipped to resolve marital conflict, to achieve favorable deal terms in business negotiations, and to bestow the gifts of good parenting on their children: the ability to tolerate psychological discomfort.

I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress--as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower.

The constant effort towards population, which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened, and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to happiness are repeated.

When discussing the topic of substance abuse with kids, I explain that doing drugs in order to be high and happy means that people try to support being by doing. However, being is “bigger” than doing. I validate that people who use substances know on some level that they need to take care of their being but they have the order reversed because doing can never support being simply because the “smaller” thing can never support the “bigger” thing. It is as absurd as trying to support silence by increasing the noise. The right order of things is that being supports doing and doing needs to serve being. In chess, without the King, the other pieces would all be “dead”, so their existence is supported by the King, but they need to serve the King with their capacity for action in order to have a good game. But how do we begin to honor being if we are emotionally distressed or chemically dependent? We need to accept whatever facet of being we are going through—if we are sad, we need to experience our sadness and not run from it; if we are angry, we need to go through it without acting heedlessly; if we are scared, we have to pay attention to our fear and the reasons for it. Everything we go through is a message of being, and we need to decipher the message rather than run from it. I need to stress here the importance of learning to endure distress and let our emotions run their course without making a bad situation worse. The addicted brain needs to endure strong cravings for several years until the chemically reinforced neural pathways gradually subside in the absence of continued reinforcement. Here the words of the great poet and spiritual teacher Rumi come to mind: “Of all the cures God has provided, patience is the best.

The intellectual conscience. I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lacks an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are under-weight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress-as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower. Among some pious people I found a hatred of reason and was well disposed to them for that; for this at least betrayed their bad intellectual conscience. But to stand in the midst of this rerum concordia discors and of this whole marvelous uncertainty and rich ambiguity of existence without questioning, without trembling with the craving and the rapture of such questioning, without at least hating the person who questions, perhaps even finding him faintly amusing - that is what l feel to be contemptible, and this is the feeling for which I look first in everybody. Some folly keeps persuading me that every human being has this feeling, simply because be is human. This is my type of injustice.

Jenna is acting strange. Weeping, moping, even remarks tending toward belittlement Melmoth might tolerate (although he cannot think why; she is not his wife and even in human females PMS is a plague of the past) but when he caught her lying about Raquel—udderly wonderful, indeed—he knew the problem was serious. After sex, Melmoth powers her down. He retrieves her capsule from underground storage, a little abashed to be riding up with the oblong vessel in a lobby elevator where anyone might see. Locked vertical for easy transport, the capsule on its castors and titanium carriage stands higher than Melmoth is tall. He cannot help feeling that its translucent pink upper half and tapered conical roundness make it look like an erect penis. Arriving at penthouse level, he wheels it into his apartment. Once inside his private quarters, he positions it beside the hoverbed and enters a six-character alphanumeric open-sesame to spring the lid. On an interior panel, Melmoth touches a sensor for AutoRenew. Gold wands deploy from opposite ends and set up a zero-gravity field that levitates Jenna from the topsheet. As if by magic—to Melmoth it is magic—the inert form of his personal android companion floats four feet laterally and gentles to rest in a polymer cradle contoured to her default figure. Jenna is only a SmartBot. She does not breathe, blood does not run in her arteries and veins. She has no arteries or veins, nor a heart, nor anything in the way of organic tissue. She can be replaced in a day—she can be replaced right now. If Melmoth touches “Upgrade,” the capsule lid will seal and lock, all VirtuLinks to Jenna will break, and a courier from GlobalDigital will collect the unit from a cargo bay of Melmoth’s high-rise after delivering a new model to Melmoth himself. It distresses him, how easy replacement would be, as if Jenna were no more abiding than an oldentime car he might decide one morning to trade-in. Seeing her in the capsule is bad enough; the poor thing looks as if she is lying in her coffin. Melmoth does not select “Power Down” on his cerebral menu any more often than he must. Only to update her software does Melmoth resort to pulling Jenna’s plug. Updating, too, disturbs him. In authorizing it, he cannot pretend she is human. [pp. 90-91]

You may have used an addictive behavior to deal with irrational thoughts and excessive emotions. We call this the “using strategy” for coping with discomfort. Somehow, we adopted the unrealistic belief that life should be free from discomfort and pain, and that we shouldn’t have to tolerate it. This unhelpful belief leads to further distress, which drives the urge to engage in addictive behavior to escape the discomfort.

Opposition to animal research ranges considerably in degree. “Minimalists” tolerate animal research under certain conditions. They accept some kinds of research but wish to prohibit others depending on the probable value of the research, the amount of distress to the animal, and the type of animal. (Few people have serious qualms about hurting an insect, for example.) They favor firm regulations on research. The “abolitionists” take a more extreme position and see no room for compromise. Abolitionists maintain that all animals have the same rights as humans. They regard killing an animal as murder, whether the intention is to eat it, use its fur, or gain scientific knowledge. Keeping an animal (presumably even a pet) in a cage is, in their view, slavery. Because animals cannot give informed consent to research, abolitionists insist it is wrong to use them in any way, regardless of the circumstances. According to one opponent of animal research, “We have no moral option but to bring this research to a halt. Completely. . . . We will not be satisfied until every cage is empty” (Regan, 1986, pp. 39–40). Advocates of this position sometimes claim that most animal research is painful and that it never leads to important results. However, for a true abolitionist, neither of those points really matters. Their moral imperative is that people have no right to use animals, even if the research is useful and even if it is painless. The disagreement between abolitionists and animal researchers is a dispute between two ethical positions: “Never knowingly harm an innocent” and “Sometimes a little harm leads to a greater good.” On the one hand, permitting research has the undeniable consequence of inflicting pain or distress. On the other hand, banning the use of animals for human purposes means a great setback in medical research as well as the end of animal-to-human transplants (e.g., using pig heart valves to help people with heart diseases) (Figure 1.12).

It becomes somewhat absurd when some claim that the sight of a Bible or a cross causes them so much psychological distress that it impinges upon their freedom. It is important that we learn to be reasonable and tolerant of everyone's beliefs without going to such extremes that we compromise everyone's rights.

You’ll then use your responses to the Valued Living Questionnaire in the following exercise, which will help you move toward engaging in what you value.

For three or four days the men fought the fire, saving the property and effects of the people, yet these white men and women could not tolerate our black Union soldiers, for many of them had formerly been their slaves; and although these brave men risked life and limb to assist them in their distress, men and even women would sneer and molest them whenever they met them.

A while back I put together a concise synopsis of the way the cycle in bond issuance underlays the rise and fall of the distressed debt cycle. Here it is: Risk-averse investors limit quantities issued and demand high quality. High-quality issuance leads to low default rates. Low default rates cause investors to become complacent and risk-tolerant. Risk tolerance opens investors to increased issuance and lower quality. Lower-quality issuance eventually is tested by economic difficulty and gives rise to increased defaults. Increased defaults have a chilling effect, making investors risk-averse once more. And so it resumes.

Research shows some of the health benefits of forgiveness include the following: •​Forgiveness reduces your stress. Over the years, many studies have shown that holding a grudge keeps your body in a state of stress. When you practice forgiveness, your blood pressure and heart rate decrease. •​Choosing to forgive increases your tolerance to pain. In a 2005 study of patients with chronic low back pain, anger increased psychological distress and decreased a person’s tolerance to pain. A willingness to forgive was associated with increased pain tolerance. •​Unconditional forgiveness can help you to live longer. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine discovered that when people were only willing to forgive others under certain conditions—like the other person apologized or promised to never repeat the same behavior—their risk of dying early actually increased. You don’t have any control over whether someone will apologize. Waiting to forgive people until they say they’re sorry gives them control over not just your life, but perhaps even your death.

Of course, substance abuse may make them even more unbalanced and unable to tolerate frustration or distress.

Forgiveness reduces your stress. Over the years, many studies have shown that holding a grudge keeps your body in a state of stress. When you practice forgiveness, your blood pressure and heart rate decrease. •​Choosing to forgive increases your tolerance to pain. In a 2005 study of patients with chronic low back pain, anger increased psychological distress and decreased a person’s tolerance to pain. A willingness to forgive was associated with increased pain tolerance.

A 2014 study found positive results following eight weeks of mindfulness training with a group of US marines exposed to stressful training exercises.16 The program was designed to develop concentration and a greater acceptance and tolerance of physical pain, distressing thoughts, intense emotions, and harsh environmental conditions.

I spent several months working with him, and did it in a more structured manner than previously—having, in the interim, developed the tools to do so. This client could only communicate a little at the beginning of our work together, but that was enough to start the ball rolling. Some girl at the college had developed a crush on him. He informed her that her romantic interest was not reciprocated. She became exceedingly vindictive, and set out to make his life hell. She spread rumors about his sexual habits. She encouraged some of her male friends to physically threaten him at school. She had people on hand to humiliate him constantly and unmercifully in transit to and from campus. Noting his distress, his parents alerted the school, but nothing was done to stop the ongoing torment. Unable or unwilling to tolerate the mounting peer pressure, the friends he had only recently made began to avoid and then entirely abandoned him. He began to break down, and as his behavior became stranger, his outcast status was cemented into place. And he broke.

Leon Eisenberg was growing uncomfortable with this enthusiasm. However rooted in science, Conners’s symptom questionnaire measured not necessarily a child’s behavior, but outsiders’ impression of it—their tolerance for it. The evaluations remained dangerously subjective, allowing a parent or teacher to circle 2’s and 3’s depending on their own values, even whims. Eisenberg cautioned: “Whereas the adult comes for treatment largely because of his own distress and at his own initiative, the child comes to our attention because of his family’s or his community’s initiative. Who, then, are we to classify diagnostically: the child, the family, the community, or all three?” He feared now that the Conners Scale, unleashed upon the real and imperfect world, would begin green-lighting widespread overuse of Ritalin.

During times of pandemic, people need to be able to tolerate or accept a certain degree of uncertainty. People who are unable or unwilling to accept uncertainty are likely to experience considerable distress.

When you use emotion regulation skills, you focus on dealing with difficult emotions without acting on behaviors that might have adverse consequences. On the other hand, distress tolerance skills are used for the tolerance and momentary acceptance of difficult situations without making the situations worse. Using all of these ideas on a regular basis is the DBT way to find emotional balance. Identifying the emotion: SUN Many people who struggle with emotional intensity and reactivity recognize that they don’t know precisely which emotion they are feeling, and so it makes sense that they might not know what to do when they are feeling unbalanced. One way to identify the emotion is to use the acronym SUN: Sensations: Focus on what you feel and the physical sensations in your body. Notice whether there is tension in any part of your body. Urges: Do you have any urges to do anything in particular? Most emotions come with an action urge. For instance, people who are angry have the urge to attack, while people who are sad have the urge to cry or isolate. Name (the emotion): When you put together the body sensations and action urges, it’s easier to name the emotion. Riding out the emotion like a WAVE Emotions are like waves: They will start to form, peak, and

These include the Self-Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003); White Bear Suppression Inventory (Wegner & Zanakos, 1994); Cognitive-Behavioral Avoidance Scale (Ottenbreit & Dobson, 2004); Thought Control Questionnaire (Wells & Davies, 1994), Distress Tolerance Scale (Simons & Gaher, 2005), the Emotional Nonacceptance subscale of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004), or similar subscales on various mindfulness measures such as the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004) or the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al., 2008), among several others. The definitions of acceptance vary in all of these approaches.

To a remarkable degree, the experiment had worked: In exchange for giving up some elements of their sovereignty, the European Union’s member states had enjoyed a measure of peace and widespread prosperity perhaps unmatched by any collection of people in human history. But national identities—the distinctions of language, culture, history, and levels of economic development—were stubborn things. And as the economic crisis worsened, all those differences the good times had papered over started coming to the fore. How prepared were citizens in Europe’s wealthier, more efficient nations to take on a neighboring country’s obligations or to see their tax dollars redistributed to those outside their borders? Would citizens of countries in economic distress accept sacrifices imposed on them by distant officials with whom they felt no affinity and over whom they had little or no power? As the debate about Greece heated up, public discussions inside some of the original E.U. countries, like Germany, France, and the Netherlands, would sometimes veer beyond disapproval of the Greek government’s policies and venture into a broader indictment of the Greek people—how they were more casual about work or how they tolerated corruption and considered basic responsibilities like paying one’s taxes to be merely optional. Or, as I’d overhear one E.U. official of undetermined origin tell another while I was washing my hands in a G8 summit lavatory: “They don’t think like us.” Leaders like Merkel and Sarkozy were too invested in European unity to traffic in such stereotypes, but their politics dictated that they proceed cautiously in agreeing to any rescue plan.

Microaggression” became part of a whole vocabulary of old and new words—like “cultural wars” and “stereotype” and “implicit bias” and “economic anxiety” and “tribalism”—that made it easier to talk about or around the R-word. I do not use “microaggression” anymore. I detest the post-racial platform that supported its sudden popularity. I detest its component parts—“micro” and “aggression.” A persistent daily low hum of racist abuse is not minor. I use the term “abuse” because aggression is not as exacting a term. Abuse accurately describes the action and its effects on people: distress, anger, worry, depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue, and suicide. What other people call racial microaggressions I call racist abuse. And I call the zero-tolerance policies preventing and punishing these abusers what they are: antiracist. Only racists shy away from the R-word—racism is steeped in denial.

to an impaired emotional regulation system, a limited facilitation for empathy, and problems in distinguishing present reality from irrelevant memories. In the long-term there is an increased risk of developing future psychopathologies and personality disorders. As opposed to secure attachments, organized forms of insecure attachments reflect inefficient stragetgies for coping with attachment emotional stress. In cases of avoidant attachment the mother may be averse to physical contact and block her child’s attempt to get close to her. She may be intensely ambivalent about being a mother. Her avoidance of the infant is more than behavioral – psychological harm can occur through the mother who is emotionally unavailable when her infant is distressed, even if she remains in physical contact with her child. In parallel, due to the lack of interactive regulation, the child learns how to disengage from the mother under stress, as well as from his own emotional responses to her rejection. To avoid this, the stressed infant will signal his need to disengage by looking away. On the other hand unpredictable and intrusive mothering often leads to ambivalent-anxious attachment where infants can only cope with a certain limited intensity of emotional arousal before they move beyond their window of tolerance into a state of stressful emotional dysregulation. These infants are overly dependent on the attachment figure (presumably desperately seeking interactive regulation) but also angry with the caregiver’s unpredictable regulation. In the most unfortunate situation, the infant/toddler is exposed to the most intense social stressors, such as physical and/or emotional abuse. This also includes neglect, which is proving to be the most serious threat to the development of the emotional brain. The most severe forms of attachment trauma, both abuse and neglect, create “disorganized-disoriented attachment.” It occurs when an infant has no strategy that will help him to cope with his caregiver, causing the infant to be profoundly confused, physically aroused, yet emotionally paralyzed. This context thus generates

Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5)—a person must be distressed by their drug use. In addition, the individual’s drug use must interfere with important life functions, such as parenting, work, and intimate relationships. This use must take up a great deal of time and mental energy and must persist in the face of repeated attempts to stop or cut back. Other symptoms that the person may experience include needing more of the drug to get the same effect (tolerance) and suffering withdrawal symptoms if use suddenly ceases.

So many teens have lost the ability to tolerate distress and uncertainty, and a big reason for that is the way we parent them. -Kevin Ashworth

So if our general goal is to support and not solve, or tolerate and not escape, then to build resilience in our kids, we should be guided by one question: am I helping my kid tolerate and work through this distress, or am I encouraging my child to avoid and beeline out of the distress? We want the first, not the second.

I do not use “microaggression” anymore. I detest the post-racial platform that supported its sudden popularity. I detest its component parts—“micro” and “aggression.” A persistent daily low hum of racist abuse is not minor. I use the term “abuse” because aggression is not as exacting a term. Abuse accurately describes the action and its effects on people: distress, anger, worry, depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue, and suicide. What other people call racial microaggressions I call racist abuse. And I call the zero-tolerance policies holding these abusers accountable what they are: antiracist. To be racist is to shy away from the R-word, steeped in denial.

She taught me the four key skills in DBT. First is mindfulness. It’s the ability to radically accept things as they are and be present in the moment. The second is distress tolerance, which is the ability to tolerate negative emotions instead of trying to escape from them. The third is emotional regulation, which teaches you the ability to manage and change intense and problematic emotions. The fourth is interpersonal effectiveness, which teaches you to communicate with others in a way that is assertive, maintains self-respect, and strengthens relationships.

There was to be no more chewing on my hair. No more flapping my hands or rocking. I would eat my dinner, no matter how awful I found it, and I would sit through parties politely with my legs crossed at the ankles. I was to be just like everyone else, no matter how much distress it caused me. It is the only way anyone will ever tolerate you, the tutor said.

To a remarkable degree, the experiment had worked: In exchange for giving up some elements of their sovereignty, the European Union’s member states had enjoyed a measure of peace and widespread prosperity perhaps unmatched by any collection of people in human history. But national identities—the distinctions of language, culture, history, and levels of economic development—were stubborn things. And as the economic crisis worsened, all those differences the good times had papered over started coming to the fore. How prepared were citizens in Europe’s wealthier, more efficient nations to take on a neighboring country’s obligations or to see their tax dollars redistributed to those outside their borders? Would citizens of countries in economic distress accept sacrifices imposed on them by distant officials with whom they felt no affinity and over whom they had little or no power? As the debate about Greece heated up, public discussions inside some of the original E.U. countries, like Germany, France, and the Netherlands, would sometimes veer beyond disapproval of the Greek government’s policies and venture into a broader indictment of the Greek people—how they were more casual about work or how they tolerated corruption and considered basic responsibilities like paying one’s taxes to be merely optional. Or, as I’d overhear one E.U. official of undetermined origin tell another while I was washing my hands in a G8 summit lavatory: “They don’t think like us.

The mere fact that some women are upset by the presence of pornography tells us very little. It tells us nothing about whether porn is right or wrong, valuable or useless. After all, feminism distresses a great many people. Yet feminists would argue that the movement should not only be tolerated, it should be nurtured. They consider women's rights to have a positive, rather than a negative effect on society-even if it causes distress. Perhaps the same is true of the graphic depiction of sex.

Many of us were raised to take in another person’s distress as our responsibility, so when we see our partners or friends or kids get upset when we assert ourselves or say no, we backtrack. Taking a breath and remembering that often the only way we get our needs met is by simultaneously tolerating others’ distress helps prevent us from losing ourselves.

am I helping my kid tolerate and work through this distress, or am I encouraging my child to avoid and beeline out of the distress?

love asking my kids thought-provoking questions around the topic of consent. I do this with other topics too, since kids learn best when they are encouraged to think and consider, which comes from asking questions. But I find that questions of consent are especially thought-provoking, so this strategy is especially effective in that context. The next time you have an “opening” with your child—a nice quiet moment when you’re getting along—explore the topics of decision-making, asserting one’s wants and needs, and tolerating other people’s distress. I’d start with, “Oooooh, I have an interesting question . . . ,” and then share some (but not all!) of the following: “What’s more important, doing something that feels right to you or making other people happy? What if you can’t do both? When does making someone else happy, instead of doing something that feels right, feel okay to you? When would it be extra-important to choose doing what feels right, even if someone else is super unhappy? What if you do something that you want and someone else gets mad at you . . . does this mean you’re a bad person? Why or why not?

But for me, more powerful than knowing exactly what to say to my kids in a difficult moment is coming back to a general goal or principle. So if our general goal is to support and not solve, or tolerate and not escape, then to build resilience in our kids, we should be guided by one question: am I helping my kid tolerate and work through this distress, or am I encouraging my child to avoid and beeline out of the distress? We want the first, not the second.

Faust also discusses the belief in salvation as a factor in nerving soldiers to face death with equanimity and as a source of comfort to their families. She cites the funeral sermon for a Massachusetts officer killed at Petersburg, in which the clergyman defined death as “the middle point between two lives.” But she seems inclined at times to view this conviction as the equivalent of grasping at straws—or, to change the metaphor, of whistling past the graveyard. Instead of a deeply held belief, it was for many soldiers and their families, she writes, the product of “distress and desire” to make tolerable the intolerable prospect of death. She also suggests the provocative idea that the vision of death as the middle point between two lives was a nineteenth-century version of a death-denying culture.

He straightened up, brushed himself down with his hat, and looked at her again. She still paid him no attention. Was there something wrong with her? Perhaps she was ill. Women, generally, did not ignore James Hartley. With one hand to his mouth, he cleared his throat loudly. Still nothing. Perfect, because the last thing he wanted was to entertain a strange woman and cheer her out of a bad mood or tears or a headache. He’d tolerated enough sobbing females exclaiming over the great love they had for some other man, while smearing their tears, their confessions, and their runny noses all over his shoulder. Lately, for some reason, James had gone from being the problem itself to being the one with whom they shared their problems. Then, once they’d had reassurance from him, they ran off with another fellow. When James recently complained to Grieves about becoming a combination confessional and advising father to these young women, the valet had remarked, “This is what happens, sir, to aging rakes. Women begin to view them as harmless and one of their own.” It was a thought so distressing he didn’t leave his house for two days.

The individual struggling with overwhelming emotions and DBT therapists will benefit significantly from this workbook.

Let’s explore some key signs you should be watchful for: Unrelenting fatigue: Persistent exhaustion, even after adequate rest and sleep, is a key part of Autistic burnout. When grappling with burnout, your body may feel utterly exhausted, leaving you scrambling for energy to complete even the simplest tasks. Heightened sensory sensitivities: Sensitivity to sensory stimuli—be it noise, light, texture, or smell—intensifies during burnout, amplifying your susceptibility to sensory overload, meltdowns, and shutdowns. Sensory stimuli that used to feel manageable may now feel overwhelming. Skills and functioning decline: A conspicuous drop in skills like focusing, organizing, problem-solving, and speaking is another feature of burnout and makes social interactions more daunting. Emotional dysregulation: Burnout-induced dysregulation in your nervous and sensory systems hampers your ability to manage your emotions, resulting in intense emotions or emotional numbness. Increased anxiety, irritability, or feelings of being overwhelmed are common during burnout. Diminished tolerance for change: During burnout, your capacity to absorb and adapt to change wanes, and you may seek comfort in sameness and predictability. You might experience heightened distress in the face of the unexpected. Social isolation: Burnout can spark a retreat into solitude and diminish your ability to engage socially. You might withdraw from social interactions and lose motivation for once-enjoyed hobbies or activities. Masking: Burnout can throw a wrench in your masking abilities, and it can be confusing if you don’t understand what is happening! Interestingly, lots of adults don’t get their autism diagnosis until they are in burnout and have lost their ability to mask.