Hi
It is time to update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in.
Horst
It is time to update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in.
Horst
| Author | Comment | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Unregistered(d) |
Update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in. |
Lead | |
|
Posts: 0 (06/14/06 08:44 AM) |
Hi
It is time to update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in. Horst |
||
Unregistered(d) |
Update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in. | ||
|
Posts: 0 (06/14/06 12:54 PM) |
Repost-
LOW FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE
The king of all the blocks to self-growth has got to be Low Frustration Tolerance. Only emotional avoidance and dissociation rival it. Low Frustration Tolerance beliefs are basically unsupportable by evidence. Human beings can stand anything if they just stay there. Low Frustration Tolerance is a irrational trance that many believe, but seldom test. Low Frustration Tolerance is our intolerance for discomfort, difficulties, frustration, and painful emotions. Here we believe the idea that our situation is too difficult, too much, or unbearable. Cues may include: Agitation, tension, poor attention, and leaving situations we really could stand. Low Frustration Tolerance, called impatience or discomfort anxiety, is created by distorted views of a situation and our ability to put up with it. Here are some typical Low Frustration Tolerance beliefs: *I need or deserve comfort all the time. *I can't stand it. *I can't bear it. *I can't live without it. *I can't tolerate it. *It's too much. *It's too heavy. *I'm losing control. *It's overwhelming. *Will this ever end? *My life should be easy and comfortable. *This is driving me out of my mind. *Too B-O-R-I-N-G. *This is excruciating. *Too Hard. *This is too heavy. *I'm going to jump out of my skin. *Sometimes catastrophizing is added to the Low Frustration Tolerance to amp it up in our mind. This is our belief that the circumstances are also horrible, awful, terrible, or catastrophic. Staying with the strong feelings generated by these superficial beliefs will allow the person who believes them to see that it's their belief about the situation that's creating most of their profound discomfort and not the actual situation. LFT, if believed, tends to really intensify aversive feelings. It's a negative magnifying lens on a situation. It's like the belief in "boredom" we tack onto situation and it make the situation uncomfortable and additionally unstimulating. Where do we find LFT? Panic. Addictions. Compulsions. Worry. Rage and anger. Really strong LFT hints that trauma may be involved. Acceptance, patience, and tolerance are arrived at through direct feeling, taking action in the face of LFT, and desensitizing LFT directly. LFT's major challenges: LFT stimulated instant gratification can often create stress in the future. Addictions, excessive tv watching instead of doing important duties, becoming involved in unsafe sex, exercise avoidance, overspending, overeating. LFT lurks behind most procrastination. Procrastination creates problems in the near and distant future. More stress than avoided. LFT helps make for complaining, blaming, and negativity and may thwart assertiveness and taking responsibility. Having well developed patience and frustration tolerance is key. Not overreacting to problems and avoiding them helps in all of life's areas. You are more willing to undertake learning and try new activities. Patience and frustration tolerance means you're accepting what is and what is uncomfortable without making it into more than what it is. LFT can be wilted and mashed by learning to stand there and do what we better do. A "Call to Action", the "I Stood it Exercise", or "Emo Direct Exposure" would be useful here. If we get severely fearful or phobic it's best to feel those emotions and do what better be done. This greatly deflates LFT. Nothing beats direct doing because it shows us very clearly that we can stand an activity, frustration, or extremely painful emotion. We can stand a great deal. In truth we can stand something until we die. When we believe we can't stand something we make that moment extremely uncomfortable. Through experimenting we will discover we possess the ability to stay in there, to keep with it. Without patience and tolerance we will face massive roadblocks to our aspirations and to life. With LFT we bail out at the first signs of discomfort and struggle. Gang no more jumping out of a 20 person bank line because we can't stand it. Nonsense. LFT exaggerates feelings as well as leads to lethargy; a lack of discipline; helplessness; hopelessness; a focus on short-term discomfort rather than on long-term goals and rewards; and the building up of complaining and self-pity. Further LFT blocks our awareness of our ability to complete tasks and leads to awfulizing about our inability to control our emotions. LFT can also lead to us hating uncertainty and focusing on other's negative behavior. LFT must be ruthlessly hunted down and experienced. Leave no LFT standing--ever. You probably will have an easier go of it if you accept it and feel it, yet take direct action in the face of LFT. I count LFT as one of the first targets to go after if you find it gumming up your life. It slows growth so it better be addressed. Here's several processes that are based on "direct exposure" to LFT. They are effective and build up your frustration tolerance and patience: THE LOW FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE DESTROYER ***Warning: Do not do this exercise if you have a history of mental illness, severe trauma, or panic without a therapist. If you decide to do this process you can only do it if you agree to absolve the webmasters, Emoclear.com, the servers, and Steve Mensing of any responsibility for the application or misapplication of this process. With any emotional process there is always the possibility of experiencing discomfort so proceed with this warning.*** (c) Steve Mensing Find a worthwhile situation you deem "too much" or "you can't stand". Fully feel those Low Frustration Tolerance emotions with no intention of getting rid of them or keeping them. When you have fully experienced the LFT simply carry that activity through to its conclusion. You will note how you survived and stood it. If you happened to notice any parts of the activity that you enjoyed, note them by writing them down. Here are the steps to the "LFT Destroyer" (1) Name the activity you believe "too much" or "couldn't stand":_________________________. (2) Set a time to do this activity and follow through on it no matter how overwhelmed you initially feel. (3) Recognize the long-term rewards for "standing it". My long-term rewards for standing this exercise will be:_____________________. (4) Now begin the exercise by fully feeling your LFT feelings with no intention of getting rid of them or keeping them. Really allow yourself to feel those feelings. Thank them for what good things they might've done for you. (5) Now regardless of how you're feeling, just get up and do the activity from start to finish. (7) Notice how the intensity went down when you completed the task. Notice too that you stood it and survived. The more you practice this, the weaker LFT gets. It may blow out on the first run through. Quick tips on handling LFT: *LFT feelings can be targets for integration or Emotional Writing. *Question your LFT beliefs can weaken them. Ask yourself these questions: *Could you stand it? Have you stood it before? *Have you coped with a similar situation? *Could you stand it for 2 million dollars or some other highly valued awards? If you can--you just proved you could stand it. *If your brain is not malformed--can you really go crazy or just get upset? *Have you ever lived without it? *Where's the evidence that it's really too much? Is your evidence based on just your belief? *Why might LFT beliefs be labeled as anti-empirical statements (no evidence for the statements)? *Can you stand it two minutes at a time? *George Bernard Shaw noted two tragedies of life: "Not getting your heart's desire and getting your heart's desire." *View your task as simple steps and not as an overwhelming whole. *Use the Creator on an upcoming Low Frustration Tolerance situation and ask the Miracle Question in ways that has you successfully standing and staying through the difficult or uncomfortable. Say you looked back on your completed task from 3 years in the future, what good feelings would you have about completing it? How did you first notice that you accepted it. When did it feel doable? What did you think about the successful task? *Feelings change--they never remain the same. Stay with doing a task and your feelings change. *Give your attention to your task. I can't stand it-itis loses its punch as you pay fuller attention to your task. *"Let us run with patience the race that is set before us." (Heb 12:1) *"Be of good courage and do it" (Ezra 10:4) (Nike 7:11) *"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Heb. 12:11) THE I STOOD IT EXERCISE ***Warning: Do not do this exercise if you have a history of mental illness, severe trauma, or panic without a therapist. If you decide to do this process you can only do it if you agree to absolve the webmasters, Emoclear.com, the servers, and Steve Mensing of any responsibility for the application or misapplication of this process. With any emotional process there is always the possibility of experiencing discomfort so proceed with this warning.*** Low Frustration Tolerance can be handled a number of ways: * Feel the LFT fully and get up and do what you better do no matter how you feel at first. This alters the feeling state fairly quickly. Low Frustration tolerance depends on the belief that we can't stand something or it's too much. The belief gets disproved when we clearly demonstrate to ourselves that we can stand something, that it's not too much. LFT is a trance that can't survive in the exposure/desensitization of direct action. The more you get up and do what you supposedly can't stand, the more LFT loses its power. Action blows it out. Inaction keeps it alive. *LFT can also be a target for integration, direct exposure, and emotional writing. LFT is often present with compulsions, addictions, panic, and pain syndromes. * Besides direct action, knowing that you can stand anything can help. You might ask yourself can I stand your LFT plagued activity for: (1) A huge cash reward? (2) A valuable chunk of your life is returned to you? (3) Or any other valuable reward you can see. (your life is spared) If you can stand it for any of these rewards then you can assume you can stand it or it's not too much. I STOOD IT EXERCISE Find an important situation you deem "too much" or "can't be stood" and simply carry that activity through to its conclusion. With this exercise you will prove to yourself that you "stood it". Feel your I can't stand it feelings fully and then swing all your attention over to your chosen activity. Here are the steps: (1) Name the activity you believed "too much" or "couldn't stand": _____________________. (2)Set a specific length of time for standing it (some may want to stand the activity from start to finish). The length of time is: ____________________. (3) Recognize your long-term rewards for "standing it". My long-term rewards for staying in there will be: _______________________. (Better quality of life--more self control--etc). (4) Recognize that you can stand it for a large sum of money, your life being spared, or whatever you highly value. If you recognize this, you know then that you can stand it. (5) Do the activity named in step (1) from start to finish. (6) Recognize that you stood it--that it wasn't too much. Know that you regained control over an area of your life. Notice the good feelings you obtained by doing this activity from start to finish. Repeat the activity until you no longer experience Low Frustration Tolerance. More tips on Low Frustration Tolerance. *Working with the Low Frustration Tolerance Personality Cluster can be helpful if we integrate those beliefs. and clear and integrate those beliefs. This can be a form of innoculation. See the Personality Cluster Learn-in for information on cluster clearing. *Use future orientation in time questions aimed at changing LFT in situations where you previously have gotten out of there. Ask yourself questions like: (1)How will I feel a year from now when I stood and maybe found enjoyment in waiting in long lines at the bank? What will I notice first? How will my experience be different? Who will notice first--the teller or Mrs. Patulsko from the 7-11? (2) After my detox when the cravings hit, what will it feel like when I've accepted this situation, stand it, and survive it? What will I feel first? Will I express this sense of liberation to my friends? Or just keep it to myself? *Practicing the "I Stood It Exercise" or the "LFT DESTROYER" breaks down LFT and when we do this it tends to leave a callous, a future sense that we can stand future situations. *Intuitive Symbolizer can dissolve these LFT repetitive and intense knots. You Intuitively tune into your LFT experience and allow it to make an intuitive symbol. This is integrated, getting at the root structure of that particular brand of LFT. *Eating and sleeping right can help in reducing the opportunities for "I can't stand it-itus" to form. Tired and hungry folks tend to manifacture higher levels of LFT. *Using "Shame Attacking Exercises" can desensitize LFT. You do something you feel shameful about and stand it until it diminishes. Often around shame and embarassment are lots of LFT. *If you feel overwhelmed you can reach for the Shrunken Head Exercise to quickly reduce flight/fight overwhelm. *Working with the Emo Reviewer or the Emotionl Writing Process on memories where LFT happened is a very strong approach that desensitizes. *Keep in mind it's easier to do these socalled difficult or boring tasks when we see meaning, value, and the future good consequences in doing them. Greater pleasant results can often be obtained from doing the unpleasant. Yet realize the unpleasant can be made less unpleasant by not running the LFT trances and their self-defeating evaluations. *Unless something's truly dangerous or self-defeating, see it through until completion. This builds up your tolerance muscle. Notice that everything eventually dies down anyway if we put up with it. The "A Call to Action" can bring us directly into confrontation with LFT. *If you want to strengthen your frustration and pain tolerance choose activities you can't stand doing. The most obnoxious things you can imagine. Make a list of them and do them. Going shopping days before Christmas. Listening to someone obnoxious and boring. Watch a time clock during your least favorite chore. *Imagine what it would be like to-- 1. Put up with frustrating experiences to advance toward long-term goals. 2. Take self-enhancing risks without being blow away. 3. Face strong emotions without procrastinating or abusing substances. 4. Let others know what you want or need without being LFTed. 5. Stay focused on projects without being overwhelmed. 6. Take responsibility for things getting done without being caught up in complaining. *Notice the difference between discomfort feeling unpleasant and tolerable against being horrible and unbearable. What makes the differing experience? What compounds the discomfort? Do we employ rules like: "I shouldn't have to take unpleasantness." "Life should be easy and comfortable at all times." Do you prefer not to face discomfort or do you demand not to face it? Give this some consideration. Can you recall moments or lengthy periods when you stood discomfort? What helped you do this? Can you imagine discomfort. Can you turn on more discomfort and then less discomfort. What did you do? Have fun, Steve
Last Edited By: SteveMensing
09/11/08 12:24 PM.
Edited 1 times.
|
||
Unregistered(d) |
Update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in. | ||
|
Posts: 0 (06/14/06 01:11 PM) |
LOW FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE MINI-LEARN-IN.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello Volks, The community's Low Frustration Tolerance Mini-learn-in begins this morning. The first topics of discussion will be a definition of what Low Frustration Tolerance is. The Emowebby Reposted by Dan Canepa Hi Jayne: Jayne asks: "Is it possible to innoculate ourselves against Low Frustration Tolerance? Someway to create an inner strength so we are not impatient or frustration intolerant? I notice there's different Low Frustration Tolerance beliefs. What indicates Low frustration Tolerance?" Jayne it's possible to build up patience and frustration tolerance a number of ways. Here's several: *Recognize Low Frustration Tolerance when it appears. It's strong feeling that you have to get out of there or leave because: (1) I can't stand it. (2) It's too much. (3) It's overwhelming. (4) Too hard or boring. (5) I'm going crazy from this. (6) I'm about to lose control. (7) This is too heavy. (6) A sense the situation being to horrible, awful, terrible, castastrophic (This is awfulizing, yet it contributes mightily to LFT). (7) I need comfort and can't stand being without it. ( (9) I deserve ease and comfort. (This rule inflames LFT) (10) Can't bear it. (11) Can't tolerate it. (12) Will this ever stop! (13) I'm going to jump out of my skin! (14) This is excruciating. These beliefs intensify the situation and raise the probability that many will leave their situations. It isn't so much the situation, as the inner read on it that makes it so intense. If we didn't see the situation through LFT beliefs, the situation would merely be uncomfortable and we could bare it. LFT is a trance state and as such is clearable or integratible. *Working with the Low Frustration Tolerance Personality Cluster can be helpful if we clear or integrate those beliefs and clear and integrate those beliefs in the situations where they are liable to arrise. This can be a form of innoculation. See the Personality Cluster Learn-in for information on cluster clearing. *If someone knows of a situation where they are likely to experience LFT, they can practice those situations and fully experience the LFT. In staying with the LFT it begins to break the trance because we discover firsthand that we can stand it and survive it. *Use future orientation in time questions aimed at changing LFT in situations where you previously have gotten out of there. Ask yourself questions like: (1)How will I feel a year from now when I stood and maybe found enjoyment in waiting in long lines at the bank? What will I notice first? How will my experience be different? Who will notice first--the teller or Mrs. Patulsko from the 7-11? (2) After my detox when the cravings hit, what will it feel like when I've accepted this situation, stand it, and survive it? What will I feel first? Will I express this sense of liberation to my friends? Or just keep it to myself? *Learning to feel and to integrate either consciously or spontaneously will bring about the breaking of the LFT trance. *Practicing the "I Stood It Exercise" breaks down LFT and when we do this it tends to leave a callous, a future sense that we can stand future situations. *Intuitive Symbolizer can dissolve these LFT repetitive and intense knots. You Intuitively tune into your LFT experience and allow it to make an intuitive symbol. This is integrated, getting at the root structure of that particular brand of LFT. *Eating and sleeping right can help in reducing the opportunities for "I can't stand it-itus" to form. Tired and hungry folks tend to manifacture higher levels of LFT. *Using "Shame Attacking Exercises" can desensitize LFT. You do something you feel shameful about and stand it until it diminishes. *Create presuppositional questions (Not unlike the future orientation in time questions that immediately involve our unconscious processes) for LFT. Examples: (1)After I stay in this bs from start to finish, how will I feel? (2)The moment I notice I got through _________ what will I experience first? Steady practice with pressups can begin to intall another way of viewing the situation where formerly LFT occurred. You'll still have to clear or integrate any LFT feelings or evaluations that were in that situation. *Working with the Emo Reviewer or the Emotionl Writing Process on memories where LFT happened is a very strong approach that desensitizes and can leave essence markers around the old LFT experience. *Create an LFT event while evoking all your senses and then dialogue with your LFT to gain it's intuitive messages. *Use the Little Pocket Intensifier directly on LFT. This deliberate expansion will often blow out the LFT experience. Exaggeration jokes will often undo the LFT trance. *If you've got an I can't stand it situation to tackle and you have a pad and pen on you, jot down your LFT and air it in the open. Your obejctivity will often loosen it's grip. *Label LFT when it strikes: "That feeling", "That message." This will put us on the outside and reduce it's intensity. From this outside view it will often begin to evaporate as we experience it through observation. *Keep in mind it's easier to do these socalled difficult or boring tasks when we see meaning, value, and the future good consequences in doing them. Greater pleasant results can often be obtained from doing the unpleasant. Yet realize the unpleasant can be made less unpleasant by not running the LFT trances and their self-defeating evaluations. *Truth be told we can stand anything. We can also allow those trance that empower LFT to integrate back to formlessness. *Unless something's truly dangerous or self-defeating, see it through until completion. This builds up your tolerance muscle. Notice that everything eventually dies down anyway if we put up with it. The "A Call to Action" can bring us directly into confrontation with LFT. Take care, Steve Repost by Dan Canepa Hello, It seems difficult to add anything after those reposts! Understand these trances are bearable and standable. You lift some of their intensity through the practice of staying and knowing what the activity may bring. Picture the outcome in your mind. Know that something useful is achieved. That can make it more bearable. Maybe they should call LFT "left" as in "left out of here too soon". Think of what we tell ourself when we're freaking out about being somewhere. It's too hard. It's too boring. Those beliefs make the activity feel that way. What would the activity feel like if we didn't say it's too hard or too boring. It would be an ordinary activity again. This is the way LFT trances are. Brenda McKinney Hello Emoclearians: If you want to build LFT pick things you can't stand doing. Truly can't stand doing. The most obnoxious things imaginable. Maybe have a conversation with a street fundy. Go out and shop the week before Christmas at the largest department store in town. Do what you truly hate and are bored to tears by. Then go through it. Don't try to make it easier by seeing the good outcome or the meaning of it all. Do it cold. When you see that you can stand it. Make it even harder. Convince yourself that staying is impossible, but hang in there. Make it feel totally and completely awful or horrible. Hang in there. Make any crazy making label like boring. Too hard. Hang right in there. Become aware of time. Make the sweep hand go backwards. Make time stop and go backwards and still hang in there. Make yourself under pressure to do whatever it is totally and completely perfect. Give yourself the ugliest name imaginable if you even think of bailing. If you can hyperventalate and panic about the sheer impossibility of staying there, do it. Stay in there anyway. Cut yourself no slack whatsoever. See the stupididty that resides behind low frustration tolerance. See it's a big trance joke that you use to avoid things. Live through it. Be a survivor. Die a thousand deaths, but hang on by your fingernails because no help is forthcoming. You'll never survive this. Somehow you will if you stay there. Truly the friggin' bank line is only 30 yards back and you have the Wall Street Journal to read. Do the hardest things imaginable and the rest will seem easier. You'll begin to spot the complete silliness of the LFT trance. You will begin to not trust it anymore because the fact remains. You will survive it. You created it. You rule LFT if you face it and go through it. Clark Hello Clark, Thanks for putting LFT in a humorous perspective. When it comes down to it, it is a powerful trance until you see the joke of it all. Boring has lost it's meaning for me. I can't stand it-itis seems insipid anymore. I remember when these things had power over me. No more. If I hear them they no longer have any force. It wasn't always like that. I remember caving in. Carol Howell Hello Emoclearians, Emoclearians: A method to apply to awfulizing about LFT situations is the awfulizing guage which commonly used by cognitive style therapists to show the status of something you see as awful, terrible, horrible, or catastrophic. Seeing what you see as awful can be put in perspective when compared with the awfulness guage. You rate the awfulness of your LFT situation. 1-Like sipping ice tea. 2-Brushing your teeth in a hurry. 3-Having to wait in a long line to eat. 4-Getting a well done steak when you ordered rare. 5-Looking for a job during a bad economy. 6-Getting rejected right then and there on a job interview. 7-Getting fired. 8-Being diagnosed with brain tumors. 9-Being burned alive. 10-Being burned slowly alive. John Gastly Edited by: Emowebby at: 7/30/03 2:48 pm Greetings all: Some more problems of LFT are-- LFT stimulated instant gratification can often create stress in the future. Addictions, excessive tv watching instead of doing important duties, becoming involved in unsafe sex, exercise avoidance, overspending, overeating. LFT is behind most procrastination. Procrastination creates problems in the near and distant future. More stress than avoided. LFT helps make for complaining, blaming, and negativity and may thwart assertiveness and taking responsibility. Having well developed patience and frustration tolerance is key. Not overreacting to problems and avoiding them helps in all of life's areas. You are more willing to undertake learning and try new activities. Patience and frustration tolerance means you're accepting what is and what is uncomfortable without making it into more than what it is. Imagine what it would be like to-- 1. Put up with frustrating experiences to advance toward long-term goals. 2. Take self-enhancing risks without being blow away. 3. Face strong emotions without procrastinating or abusing substances. 4. Let others know what you want or need without being LFTed. 5. Stay focused on projects without being overwhelmed. 6. Take responsibility for things getting done without being caught up in complaining. Albert Venhoven Hello EmoLFTians: Meditate on the difference between discomfort feeling unpleasant and tolerable against being horrible and unbearable. What makes the differing experience? What compounds the discomfort? Do you have any rules like: I shouldn't have to take unpleasantness. Life should be easy and comfortable at all times. Do you prefer not to face discomfort or do you demand not to face it? Give this some consideration. Can you recall moments or lengthy periods when you stood discomfort? What helped you do this? What would help you stand or take discomfort? Somethings are unpleasant, painful, and discomforting. What behaviors would assist you in putting up with them? Can you imagine discomfort. Can you turn on more discomfort and then less discomfort. How did you do this? Nina Kanis Hello Emoclearians: Here's the two birds with one stone method. Many of the Personality Clusters when they come up on the screen bring more than a fair share of LFT. As you work through clusters youn will be hitting LFT good. Areas to hit for LFT: When are you likely to give up doing something? When do things get too uncomfortable? When do you "go off" easily? When do things take too long? When do you quit if it take any effort? When are you distracted or put off by things not being the way you want? When does it feel like an absolute law that you get what you want and right away? What makes you take the easier way when only the harder way ever pans out? What happens when you don't get your way right away? When does the small stuff seem too big? Frank Grabowski Greetings I can's stand it-itisers: I can't stand something means one can't endure it or surive it. Consider what that means on a feeling level. It's intolerable. When we balk at some situations it's not our fear of the situation, it's frequently that we anticipate the intense and unpleasant feelings and can't stand those feelings. This is often compounded by the demand that we shouldn't have to face what we can't stand. If we awfulize or mentally make this situation an always or forever situation one can imagine the raised level of distress. This is having a problem about a problem. Liz Repost. Hello, A potent tool in working with Low Frustration Tolerance are the labeling exercises on the process page at Emoclear.com. Labeling or delabling Low Frustration Tolerance can cut into it's power. Labels like: "Anti-empirical beliefs." "Distraction." "Unfounded belief stress" "Standable" opr any ideas you might come up with can be placed on these feelings and beliefs of distress. LFT makes distress and more difficulties by: -If you believe the LFT beliefs you may become anxious and very impatient when things do not happen as they "should". -If you go for short term pleasure and immediate gratification, you will likely make more stress and leave unsolved problems to mount up. This can lead to procrastination and conflict in areas of your life. -Addictions are strengthened by following the lead of LFT. -Hostility and aggression are more likely to surface when LFT is prominant. Desentize through direct exposure with the "I Stood it" exercise. Integrate or expose yourself the LFT feelings and beliefs. This will shrink down this powerful "paper tiger". Alyce Waters Repost by Bonny Keats Labeling Exercises WARNING: Folks with a history of mental illness, trauma, or panic are urged not to use these processes without a therapist. If you decide to do these processes you will agree to absolve the webmaster, his server, Emoclear.com and Steve Mensing of any responsibility for the application or misapplication of these processes. Although there are many safety features built into these processes and they have been tested and evaluated, there is always in any process the fraction of possibility that someone could experience some discomfort. So proceed with this warning. LABELING EXERCISES Defining,labeling, and judging our experiences helps create our emotional and physical sensation responses. When we release our definitions, labels, and judgments of experience we discover what knowing life directly is. Knowing firsthand that our notions of good and bad, of attractive and repulsive are just defining labels, we then begin to understand how our labels color and shape what we see. When we directly experience the power of definitions, labels, and judgments we begin to notice how our challenges in living come from our views of experience rather than from experience itself. Existance is truly a neutral event, yet our defining labels are not. Through labeling and defining our experience, we lose our clear view of our world and ourselves. Through labeling and unlabeling we begin to cut through the distorting and obscuring filters of defining labels. In the moments when defining labels fall away we can gain direct experience and its attendent freedoms. Here are 3 labeling exercises. They are "Relabeling", "Peeling Off Labels", and "Polarity Labeling". These three labeling exercises can be combined with any of the Emoclear clearers. RELABELING A misused label can create emotional distress and a lack of motivation. Labels can include single words and entire phrases. An example of a distressing and unmotivating label: "I'm a procrastinator." An example of a more helpful and motivating label: "I'm a careful pacer." Did you notice your emotional response to these two labels? Labels are arbitrary by definition and are often preceeded by the verb "to be". Examples: Los Angeles is crummy. or Relationships are traps. Most labels tend to be overgeneralizations excluding many of the subject's positive, neutral, and negative qualities. When we practice a label often enough, the mere mention of that label can create an automatic emotional response. And labels can keep us from viewing the subject's other aspects and possibilities. We see negative examples of labeling in prejudicial name-calling and in psychiatric diagnosis. No label catches the full essence of a human being and often they thwart growth and change because the labeled believe their label. PROBLEMATIC LABEL- HELPFUL LABEL I'm a pig. - I'm a food lover. Pete is an egomaniac. - Pete is self-interested. Prison is total hell. - Prison is a learning experience. I'm a failure. - I'm multi-faceted. Panic attack. - Energy festival. Panic symptoms. - Energy cues. Anxiety. - Energized future perspective. Phobia. - Forgoing excitement. STEPS TO RELABELING (1) Indentify the problematic label. Example: Hugo is a bum. THE PROBLEMATIC LABEL: ________________________________. (2) Name the positive traits of the event, person, or thing you labeled. Examples of Hugo's positive traits: Independence, creative, knack for getting street funding. POSITIVE TRAITS: __________________________________________. (3) Choose a new helpful label, based on positive traits, that describe the event, person, or thing. Example: Hugo is a creative fund raiser. HELPFUL LABEL: ____________________________________________. (4) Utilize your helpful labeling wherever you want. Problems are often easier to solve when they are relabeled. Clearing can often take place when a target is paired down to size via labeling or delabeling. TIPS ON CREATING HELPFUL LABELS *Problems have positive aspects or opportunities for learning. *Events, people, & things can be viewed as having postive, neutral, and negative traits. *Relabeling helps us better accept people, situations, and things. *Look at a label from a distance--see the larger picture. List the positives, neutrals, and negatives. Even negatives possess positive aspects. War creates helpful new technology and famines bring new growing procedures. *Avoid negative adjectives. *How can your experience expand your consciousness or teach you something valuable? *How can you gain from your experience? *Could your experience assist others? PEELING OFF LABELS "Peeling Off Labels" is a simple exercise to pull the cognitive stuffings out of emotions, beliefs, and physical sensations. This is achieved by removing unconscious defining labels from beliefs, feelings, and physical sensations. Here are the steps: (1) Relax and do left nasal dominance breathing. Gently pinch your right nostril shut and breathe deeply, fully, and slowly from your left nostril. (2) Choose a feeling, belief, or physical sensation. Get a sense of it or feel it. (3) Allow any labels you have about your beliefs, feelings, or physical sensations to come up. Observe them and let them blink out. Keep allowing any labels to pop up into your consciousness and let them blink out until you are just experiencing your target without a cognitve overlay or label. (4) Now call whatever is left: "Energy" or "Consciousness." Let the energy or consciousness be there and allow them to dissolve. POLARITY LABELING (1) Relax and do left nasal dominance breathing. Gently pinch your right nostril shut and breathe fully and deeply through your left nostril during the direction of this exercise. (2)Focus on your target (belief, feeling, or physical sensation). Allow any label to pop into awareness. Pay attention to that label for a few moments and then immediately shift to the opposite of that label. (3)Shift back and forth between these polar opposites. Go no more than 8 seconds with each side of the polarity before you move to the other side. Keep shifting back and forth until the two labels blows out. Examples: Good/bad. Beautiful/ugly. Powerful/weak. Loving/hateful. Copyright Steve Mensing Hi folks: Many of you have had to deal with Low Frustration Tolerance in its many forms. What's helped you in overcoming it or getting through it. For readers new to these forums, Low Frustration Tolerance are those feelings that amplify other feelings. Typical Low Frustration Tolerance beliefs are: I can't stand it. It's too much. This is overwheming me. This's driving me crazy. I can't take it. What's helped you to "stand it"? Take care, Steve Hello Steve, The words 'I can't stand it" sounds ludicrous to me. If I experience low frustration tolerance at all it doesn't seem even slightly believeable. Standing the bullshit shows exactly what it is--a head game your mind plays on you to avoid something. Doing things through to completion and standing things steamrolls I can't stand it itis. It innoculatesyou against low frustration tolerannce in the future. When you stand something you know you know low frustration tolerance is a complete illusion. Once someone stands a few real hard ones then low frustration tolerance loses its spark. Peter Warren Hi, The tips in this previous thread will help and can be applied to feelings of Low Frustration Tolerance: Hi How does someone reduce overwhelm on the spot? Wilson Frank Hello Wilson, Feel your feeling--don't duck it or push it away. Label it "that feeling"--that puts you outside it and will crash the intensity. Do an activity with full attention. Overwhelm dies as you let yourself fully feel it. Overwhelm grows when you fight or try to rid yourself of it. Nick Abruzzi Hello: Keep breathing. Don't hold your breath. Holding your breath or hyperventaliton increases overwhelm. John Gastly hello all, The Shrunken Head will plummet overwhelm quite quickly. This is when you rub your fingers and palms together briskly and suck in your lips. This effectively blocks fight/flight. If you're self-conscious about doing it in public, do it behind your back. People often rub their hands together quickly so it's nothing really out of the ordinary. Consciously alter your focus. Take in your visual field to the the outermost edges. I learned that in the forums. It chills things down and alters awareness so you're getting the whole picture. If you're experienced with the Emo-Integrator that unboils things quickly. Jarrod Hello, The Action Maneuver and A Call to Action will get someone absorbed in doing. The more doing, the less overwhelm. Julian Kammerz Hello Wilson, Sensualizing overwhelming feelings reduces charge on them quickly. The Shapeshifter exemplifies this. Hello Tony, Someone might use 4-4-4-4 breathing along with the Shrunken Head. 4-4-4-4 breathing is taught to birthing moms and panic people to stop overbreathing or hyperventalation breathing. To do 4-4-4-4 breathing- Inhale and hold for the count of 4 Exhale for a count of 4. Inhale and hold for a count of 4. Exhale for a count of 4. Repeat until your breathing is slowed and under control. Bonny Keats Hi 1zn: 1zn asks: "There is someone I know who has an addiction. As a parallel one way to handle overwhelming emotions when you are experiencing them is with the neurovascular hold. Is there a similar way to deal with an overwhelming addictive urge when you are experiencing them? Izn I'm going to list a menu of possibilities for handling addictive urges. Izn the urges are a mix of evaluative overlays (Pain's put together this way too) and if there's certain substances involved, physiological cravings. It's important to know that urges do not have to be acted upon no matter how intense they are. Someone can always chose to do some other activity even if they're bombarded by the most intense cravings. **If this person is struggling with a substance addiction and it requires a medical detox, have them do so. The medical detox will relieve the physiological end of the addictive urges and make their challenge easier.** Here's a menu of possible ways for handling addictive urges. *The Emo Integrator. This integration process can help a great deal with urges and integrating them. Here someone learns to fully experience their feelings and allow them to be there without trying to get rid of them or grasp them. Someone learns to get an outside position on their urge by labeling. The person receives the intuitive messages from the urge. The urges loses its power. OTHER METHODS * A CALL TO ACTION/ACTION MANEUVER. This approach shows folks how to take action on something other than what their addictive urges offer. Someone can choose to do something other than an addiction no matter how strong or overwhelming their emotional state. * I Stood It Exercise. This process helps us grind down our Low Frustration Tolerance feelings. Remember that all addictive urges have starts, middles, and ends. They do slow down when we don't try to resist them. Breathing into the urges and waiting them out without trying to get rid of them helps. Urges can only run so long before they die on the vine. Once someone has stood their urges and fully experienced them they begin to be less freaked by them *The Shrunken Head. Sucking in our lips hard while briskly rubbing our palms and fingers together can block urge signals. Do not stop the breath. Put your attention on the urge while you do this. Labeln the urges: "Those urges". Take care, Steve Most times strong addictive cravings and urges don't trigger flight/fight. Flight/fight only happens if the person was associating their addictive cravings and urges with facing death or having their sense of self wiped out. This is where a person appears to be "fighting for a fix" or "dying for a drink". Take care, Steve Hi, When it comes to dealing with overwhelming feelings, it may be useful to know that focus and exposure brings acceptance. Here's the first step of the Emo-Integrator: WHAT WOULD YOUR FEELING FEEL LIKE IF YOU APPRECIATED IT AND ALLOWED IT TO BE THERE? FULLY FEEL THAT FEELING. The key words here are to fully feel a feeling or to totally focus on what you are feeling. Give your full attention to the feeling. When you totally focus on your feeling, then you have also totally accepted it because it is impossible to resist something that you are giving your full attention to. Thus, if you are holding on to a feeling, focus on that feeling of holding on. If you are resisting a feeling, focus on that feeling of resistance. Thanks. Hi Steve, The quickest way I've found to overcome LFT is to notice and accept my feelings. Trouble is, it's taken me a lifetime to get here! lol Seriously ...like Peter, the more overt forms of LFT sound totally ludicrous to me. I used to wince for people when I heard them expressing LFT in the obvious, over the top ways you listed like "I can't stand this!". But I was not aware of how much LFT was operating in me at a subtle level whenever a feeling came up that I didn't want to be having. It's so subtle and so destructive when it happens...completely alienates me from me and from others as well. I'm not "there", not present and accounted for, ready to get the message and move on with life. Too busy fighting overwhelm or whatever. Bottom line, I don't know if there are any quick ways to retrain oneself out of the LFT habit and its underlying beliefs. If there are, I'm all ears but it seems to be a process for me. Equally true however, specific instances of LFT are gone quick as a wink once I get out of my head, notice what's going on, accept and deal. I'm finidng it makes a HUGE difference to be fully present in your own life come what may. Cheers, Carol Hi Didn't realize what low frustration tolerance was until I started visiting the forums although I experienced it enough. I didn't have a name for it other than it was a mental type block. To me frustration intolerance is one of those believed illusions. When I meditated I heard it. Like my legs and back aches--this is hurts too much. As a life long procrastinator I got it too. If there is a quick method it's based on doing what you low frustration tolerance on the most. Do that directly. When it's felt and accepted into integration, it loses its ability to trick. Isn't it odd how all the blocks are mental illusions. They do feel real until you confront them. Confrontation may be the secret of all secrets when it comes to quickly overcoming all the blocks. Deliberate comfrontation helps with anxiety, shyness, low frustration tolerance, shame, embarrassment. VanishingPoint Hello, I remind myself I've survived every feeling. I can't imagine a feeling I couldn't stand. Deana Hello, I do not know what to add other than I find that staying put always diminishes even the most powerful feelings. Feelings can not stay at the pinnacle of the mountain. They go down. Panic or low frustration tolerance. Don't fight it, make it bad, or try not to think of it. Feel it. Keep breathing. Label it once. 'That feeling' It goes down. The longer you stand the things the less they become in your mind. The next time it will be weaker. The time after that weaker still. Bettina Kohler Hi, There are some other factors that may tend to exacerbate LFT or keep it in place. Being aware of them and dealing with them can also help. -Fatigue -Poor diet (Excessive consumption of one or more of the following: coffee, meat, sugar, white flour, nuts, preservatives, processed food, cola, fats, animal protein) -Environment (noisy factories, overcrowded areas, tight spaces, lack of fresh air, being near tense people, flourescent lights) Kilby Hello, If you're breathing stops during LFT, let it get going again, then immediately take your attention off it. Emmon Coughlin Hi, Here are some other tips from another perspective that may apply to handling Low Frustration Tolerance: Repost: Hi all- What are quick ways to unplug a runaway emotion? Like you're hot under the collar and starting to go at it? Hollering your head off maybe. Maybe your fear or anxiety is blowing you away. You're falling down a depressive hole. Is there a way to stop the freefall or being swooped up in it? I'm not to the point where I have control over this. Open to ideas. Thanks in advance, Chuck Odom Afternoon Chuck, If you haven't yet mastered the Emo-Integrator it can put the breaks on fast. Otherwise until you've achieved mastery do something like this- Always completely feel what's going on. Label it "That feeling". This will put you back of it. Then strip the gears. Alter your posture. Make it the opposite of however you'd respond. Make any behavior the opposite of what you feel like doing. Swtch your facial expression. This will give you some bodiy control over what's happening. Then tune into the feeling and emo-integrate it. Ganjeeli Hello: The more someone allows themselves to feel this hot emotion and focuses on the feeling end, the less likely they are to act it out or get involved in a yell fest. The gear stripping changes may help if you institute them quickly. It's helpful to decide how you'll act in advance. Like I'll do X when I feel Y. Practice making this decision in advance and then make the choice. Over the long trail go for relearning and repatterning. Nina Kanis Hey whatever happened to bite your tongue and count to ten? It isn't fancy and its rough on the taste buds, but it works. Take care, Steve Hi Chuck, There's more to Steve's joke than meets the eye. What he is touching on is a very important and helpful point. The hot temper flash is a state-dependent trance. Holding your tonge for even 20 or 30 seconds has the capability to break the state. If you can break the state, you will be able to regain control over your emotional rage. It is possible to cool off just as quickly as you heated up. Holding the tongue, doing a quick disassociation trick (such as suddenly imagining what it the situation would look like to a non-involved stander-by), changing up your breathing pattern for 30 seconds, taking a break for a quick walk around the block, or to go throw some cold water on your face, all these techniques have only one goal: to interfere with the state-dependent trance behavior. Once the trance has crack in it, there's an opportunity to move in a different emotional direction. Breaking the trance is a feature of many of the clearing techniques on the website. Good luck, Yogi Hello, If someone takes a very deep breath and holds it, makes a physical step backward, and presses their tongue hard against the roof of their mouth, this freezes the hot emotion long enough to break the trance. Pressure on the tongue will overload brain receptors like the Shrunken Head. Bettina Kohler
Last Edited By: SteveMensing
09/11/08 12:31 PM.
Edited 2 times.
|
||
Unregistered(d) |
Update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in. | ||
|
Posts: 0 (06/14/06 04:17 PM) |
Reposted by Anne.
Horst asks: "In your estimation what are the top methods for increasing frustration tolerance? Low Frustration Tolerance is at work in addictions, compulsions, procrastination, feelings avoidance, and phobias and fears." Horst the better methods for increasing frustration tolerance are the following: *Standing and staying in frustrating and painful situations. This is a form of direct exposure. We learn directly that we can stand these situations. These situations become desensitized and we come to believe we can stand or bear these circumstances. The "I Stood It Exercise is an an example of this kind of Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT) Exposure. *Using Emoclear exposure and integrator methods directly on Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT) feelings helps peel off Low Frustration Tolerance. *Disputing or changing Low Frustration Tolerance beliefs will enhance any exposure/integrator work we're doing with Low Frustration Tolerance. *Belief Processing the Low Frustration Tolerance Personality Cluster can be helpful in reducing LFT. Take care, Steve |
||
Unregistered(d) |
Update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in. | ||
|
Posts: 0 (06/16/06 01:23 PM) |
Hello,
Often Low Frustration Tlerance feelings are intensified more by catastrphizing about them. My intense feelings are horrible, terrible, awful, or catastrophic. This magnifies the Low Frustration tolerance. Take away the catastrophizing and the "I can't stand it" beliefs from feelings and they become tepid. Bonny Keats |
||
Unregistered(d) |
Update the Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in. | ||
|
Posts: 0 (06/17/06 01:54 PM) |
Hi,
Low Frustration Tolerance is closely related to impatience and pressure. Repost Chuck: Impatience comes in two basic colors. 1. Hurry or pressure. 2. Low Frustration Tolerance like I can't stand it-itis and It's too much. You can pratice integrating the impatience feelings directly or you can process or integrate impatience based beliefs. Go through the archives and hunt up posts on both pressure and low frustration tolerance. There's a Low Frustration Tolerance Learn-in with solid ideas. If you have impatient behaviors you go with the Pattern Tree and repattern them. John Gastly This personality cluster makes for impatience with yourself. Hiroshi Harada Self-Pressure Personality Cluster: This cluster of beliefs is an energy and focus sapping form of self-intolerance that creates a sense of being compelled and hurried with little or no time. Typical beliefs are: *I have no choice--I must hurry and get this done. *I've got to do this all at once. *My task feels like an impossible whole. *I can't stand rushing, but I have to. *My task must be done perfectly and an hour ago! *There's never enough time--I must rush. *This is totally impossible--I'll never get it done. *I've just got done and now there's even more. *The deadline is now--I feel totally inadequate. *Hurry, hurry, hurry--there's no time left. *All of that--phew! *I'm always slow--I'll never get it right. *The time is squeezing me. *I think about my job all the time and how much is undone! *I keep making mistakes and they're mounting up. *I have no time left. |
||