Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › Tolerate distress
Stop fighting what already is. Accepting a hard reality, without approving of it, ends the extra layer of pain.
Saying it is so is not the same as saying it is fine. Dropping the war with what already happened frees you to respond.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Misfortunes can only happen with God's permission, and He will guide the heart of anyone who believes in Him (Quran 64:11). Accepting the decree is where the heart is guided to rest.
مَآ أَصَابَ مِن مُّصِيبَةٍ إِلَّا بِإِذۡنِ ٱللَّهِۗ وَمَن يُؤۡمِنۢ بِٱللَّهِ يَهۡدِ قَلۡبَهُۥۚ وَٱللَّهُ بِكُلِّ شَيۡءٍ عَلِيمࣱ
Misfortunes can only happen with God’s permission––He will guide the heart of anyone who believes in Him: God knows all things––
Qur’an 64:11read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Much of our pain is the second arrow, the struggle against a reality that already is; accepting the fact, without having to like it, ends that added suffering and frees you to act.
Linehan, M. M., Armstrong, H. E., Suarez, A., Allmon, D. and Heard, H. L. (1991). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of chronically parasuicidal borderline patients. Archives of General Psychiatry doi
Structured skills training in emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness reduces crisis behaviour and improves functioning.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Accepting reality as it is, rather than railing against it, removes the added suffering of resistance.
Where this sits: DBT, Distress Tolerance skills.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
If a movement keeps cutting a feeling short, work with the movement rather than the feeling. Stay with the dabbing of the eyes itself, slowly, and see what turns up.
Tell yourself the true thing: this feeling is real, and it is temporary. No state lasts. Ride it out.
Sometimes the thing that stops your tears is an order somebody gave you decades ago, and you are the one carrying it out now. One woman found her father's words sitting behind a habit of wiping her face dry the moment she cried.