Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › Tolerate distress
When one bit of you wants to let the feeling come and another bit is frightened of it, you are not being difficult. You are two things at once, and both of them have their reasons.
The frightened side is usually the one that kept you going for years, so shoving past it tends to make it dig in harder. It works better to turn towards it first and ask what it is worried will happen if the feeling gets out. Often the answer is old and specific, and once it has been heard the argument inside quietens enough for you to go on.
Qur’an and Sunnah
be steadfast: your steadfastness comes only from God (Quran 16:127). Endurance is not something you have to force out of yourself, which takes the pressure off having to overrule the frightened part of you.
وَٱصۡبِرۡ وَمَا صَبۡرُكَ إِلَّا بِٱللَّهِۚ وَلَا تَحۡزَنۡ عَلَيۡهِمۡ وَلَا تَكُ فِي ضَيۡقࣲ مِّمَّا يَمۡكُرُونَ
So [Prophet] be steadfast: your steadfastness comes only from God. Do not grieve over them; do not be distressed by their scheming
Qur’an 16:127read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Experimental work on social anxiety found that protective behaviours are not one thing: strategies that involved hiding oneself made interactions worse, while impression management strategies behaved differently and were not uniformly harmful. Protection varies in what it does and is worth looking at closely rather than simply removed. That research is about behaviour in social situations, not about inner conflict, so it supports the stance rather than proving it.
Plasencia ML, Alden LE, Taylor CT. (2011). Differential effects of safety behaviour subtypes in social anxiety disorder.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
The part holding you back is trying to protect you, so it responds to being asked rather than being overruled.
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.
Accepting reality as it is means dropping the fight with what has already happened. It does not mean staying somewhere that is still harming you.
Soothe yourself through the senses: a warm drink, a soft cloth, a good scent, a slow walk. Be kind to the body.