"Accept there are parts. Be kind and gentle with them."

At the moment, "distressed" is a part. Soothe it? I read comforting books when I am distressed, maybe go to bed with a book and get all warm and cozy and comfy.

We don't have to "do" anything with our feelings; they come and go like the weather. When your T comes back, you will have different feelings than you do now, just like you had different feelings the beginning of December than you do now.

We don't have to like what we are working on, no one likes to clean toilets but we do it anyway because we enjoy their being clean. We work on our problems in therapy because we want them to be solved, resolved, or instructive and helpful to us outside of therapy. It does not matter what the problem is, they all sometimes make a kind of "twisted, distressed mess" like tangled yarn or a knotted necklace chain. If the tangle you are working on now is unpleasant, try moving over and working on a different tangle. Go at the tangle from the other "end" or a different perspective. I hated feeling "stuck" in therapy so I would drop whatever was frustrating me and pick up one of the other, too many issues I had :-) Usually I was pleasantly surprised to find that working on any issue made working on the others later, easier.