True Recovery

For me, the concept of stress is very similar.  Life could hand me something I like, or something I find painful... or anywhere in between. Let’s say someone insults me. What I do with that insult is completely up to me. I could get angry. I could laugh it off. I could lob an insult back at them. I could simply tell them, that I didn’t like hearing it from them and let it pass.  No different from the $100 bill.  As soon as I got that insult, it was mine to do with as I wish.  Maybe the IRS is auditing me. A close friend dies. My car is stolen, or something much, much worse. They’re all $100 bills to me. I have complete control of the moment and can do with it what I choose. I never saw that until I started separating the facts of the situation from my thoughts about it.

Let's talk about the tools.  For now, Let's go over the four DBT strategies for Tolerating Distress.  Those are:

• Distraction — Finding a productive and positive way to get our minds off the pain and get to an emotional state where we can get through it with as little damage as possible.
• Self-Soothing — These skills help us tend to our wounds and gain some pleasure when we need it. 
• Improving the Moment — No situation is 100% pure bad.  I used to have a friend who could find the positive in everyone and everything.  I remember challenging him by saying, "okay, what about Adolph Hitler, what's good about him?"  He thought for a moment, and said, "He gave us the VW."  With these skills we learn to take a bad situation, and bring out the positive.
• Pros and Cons — This is a more analytical approach.  Rather than allowing our thoughts and feelings take us wherever they go, we stop and think about all the different angles.  It helps us put it all into perspective which, for me at least, is very helpful.
   

In the next several sections, we'll discuss these four Strategies in depth, beginning with specific Distraction techniques.