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Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › Tolerate distress
Being in charge of the dial is most of what separates useful contact with a hard feeling from being flooded by it again. If you are helping someone, hand the control over in words rather than assuming they feel they have it, because they very often do not. Pausing, opening the eyes, standing up, coming back in a minute, all of that is allowed and worth naming in advance.
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear (Quran 2:286). Working at a size you can carry is the measure the verse assumes, and taking it in portions sits inside that, not outside it.
البقرة
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of drug-assisted exposure showed that fear drops through new learning that the feared thing does not happen, rather than through simple tiredness, which is why the contact itself has to take place. A separate laboratory experiment found that people allowed to make a protective response while facing a feared cue carried on believing it was dangerous, while those who could not kept learning it was safe. So breaks are fine and returning is what does the work.
Norberg MM, Krystal JH, Tolin DF. (2008). A meta-analysis of D-cycloserine and the facilitation of fear extinction and exposure therapy.. Biological psychiatry doi
Lovibond PF, Mitchell CJ, Minard E, Brady A, Menzies RG. (2009). Safety behaviours preserve threat beliefs: Protection from extinction of human fear conditioning by an avoidance response.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Choosing when to approach and when to pause is the opposite of what happened the first time.
If every attempt ends in panic or blankness rather than a feeling you can pause and return to, work on this with a therapist instead of alone.
You are allowed to put something down. Put it down with a time to pick it up again: Thursday morning, with my therapist, not tonight.
Stop fighting what already is. Accepting a hard reality, without approving of it, ends the extra layer of pain.
Anger wants the body to do something, so let it. Breathe deeper and higher into the chest, stand up, press both palms hard into a wall, walk on the spot, push down through your feet.