my therapist used words like 'distress tolerance' ... but all i heard was 'blah blah blah'. nothing she said really helped. i kinda had to work it out on my own.

what helped me was knowing what i felt in my body when the emotion came to the service. i have identified what fear feels like in my body... and when i sense that feeling in my body ('cause sometimes I'll feel that before the emotion)... i make a conscious effort to not fight it. maybe i allow myself to feel it for 5 seconds. ... the next time... maybe 10... being in the emotions is not fun, but i've discovered that it does get easier and doesn't hurt as long if I just allow the emotions instead of resisting the emotions when they come up.

my therapist says that it is the resistance that causes more pain that the emotion itself... it magnifies it.

hope my blathering here helped some (or at least made sense)

The DBT group I am involved in, points out that all emotions are necessary......the bad ones are red flags to tell us that some kind of action is necessary to resolve the problem that is causing the negative emotion (fear, anger, shame, etc)........good emotions help counter the negative ones & can be used to help regulate them.

It's important to understand your emotions you experience.......which starts off with an awareness of them & then describing them & then working on understanding what their purpose is (what problem are they telling you needs to be resolved)......not that easy to do because emotions are complex & our understanding of them without help is difficult.

You can reduce your vulnerability through that understanding & learn to let go of painful emotions without holding onto them after the fact for longer than the situation calls for.......can also change painful emotions through opposite actions....like watching a funny movie when you are sad or angry just to get your feelings in a different direction.

There is always some event that causes our emotion....it's good to identify that because then you can focus more on what emotion is truly tied to it & not something that is a secondary emotion like feeling guilty for feeling angry.

Emotions actually come as waves because they come with experiencing a situation.....it's when we get stuck holding onto the emotion that it becomes a mood.

There's a lot more to our emotions than what I have touched on here.....you might want to google (or whatever you use) DBT emotional regulation & do some more reading on emotions to get a better feel for it.

Will try to get back with more, but need to get some sleep tonight because we have a friend who is having outpatient knee surgery tomorrow morning & it's quite a drive to the city from my farm.....no sleep last night from all the emotions & wise mind trying to solve some problems in my life I'm too exhausted to put my thoughts together very well right now.......

Your T is right in some ways....but it's important to acknowledge the emotion & understand it first before letting go of it & dwelling on the the feelings isn't good....acknowledging them is good........& the behavior should be that of resolving what caused the negative emotion....not acting in a negative way on a negative emotion.

Like I said....there is just so much more to emotions....might be a good thing for you to read what you can find online about it & hopefully others will have some input also.