Teaching yourself how to be able to relax, accept, distract, and self-sooth. It is a huge undertaking, but you can do it. We do not graduate primary school in one sitting. We do not learn division in one day—we begin by learning what numbers actually are. Learning how to rest, accept situations, distract ourselves, and/or sooth ourselves is no different. Little, tiny steps and practice is required. Just keep practicing until it becomes second nature.
Category: Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Let’s work on some distress tolerance skills. You might find that you have coped with stressors in unhealth ways. This is not a flaw in yourself, this is just a symptom of not having been given tools to help. Let’s first begin by asking you a few questions:
What kind of self destructive coping strategies do you find yourself engaging in? Do you sit in your thoughts, rehashing painful mistakes and problems from the past or potential pain and problems of the future?
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) was developed in 1993 by Marsha Linehan and aims at helping people cope with extreme and overwhelming emotions. It is particularly good for people with anxiety disorders and certain personality disorders. Most personality disorders are a direct result of childhood trauma. If you find yourself with a diagnosis of a personality disorder and don’t fully recall any childhood trauma, remember that we incorrectly label children as “resilient.” Something as seemingly benign as your parents separating or getting divorced is in effect a childhood trauma.