Improving My Ability to Tolerate What Seems Intolerable

Sometimes, I find it difficult to tolerate things I can’t control, much less accept them “as they are” at this very moment. At least without a struggle, that is.

Sometimes people I care about seek to punish rather than reconcile.

Sometimes the consequences of someone else’s harmful choices spill over into my life.

Sometimes the doctor calls with a life-threatening diagnosis.

For those times, there’s a “Distress Tolerance” skill which uses the acronym I.M.P.R.O.V.E. to describe seven practices for emotionally surviving painful circumstances. They include Imagery, Meaning, Prayer, Relaxation, One thing, Vacation, and Encouragement.

In each category, I can engage in virtually unlimited activities to take a break, be my own cheerleader, commit my entire attention to something, and so on. Today, as I often do, I chose to pray. And, as it turned out, my prayer time included all the facets of IMPROVE.

For example, I first imagined a wide, open field full of the beautiful physical world I believe God created—meadow flowers, billowing grasses, and mountains rising in the background, encircling the field with ridges that curved like out-stretched arms to embrace me.

In that place of interaction with God, I became more aware of the bigger picture, more trusting that my life has meaning. I lifted my face to the sky, raised my arms, and kicked off my shoes and, in doing so, assumed a posture of relaxation, serenity, trust.

My Judeo-Christian faith teaches me that God is qadosh, Hebrew for “holy” or “apartness.” To me, God is apart, distinct, “one.” Therefore, I was mindful as I prayed. Interacting with God was my “one focus.”

I recalled words from the Bible’s 23^rd psalm: God “makes me lie down in green pastures, leads me beside still waters, and restores my soul.” In prayer, I let go. I rested. I became still. My body and mind experienced a restorative vacation from circumstances and judgments and my own conclusions.

Finally, I envisioned other points of prayer throughout my life.  And I saw all those times connecting to each other to bring me to where I am today: a wiser, more competent, less judgmental, more loving person who has faced many crises and has overcome them, thank God.

And with that, I was encouraged.