Dear Christy Lim:

If we, as children, were taught how to deal with disappointments, with unpleasant feelings, that would be so helpful for the adults we became. Life would be so much easier. But when as children we were not taught that, when we did not witness it, when our parents didn’t handle their emotions well, there was no way to learn it.

And there is no other way, as adults, to learn it as adults. Only it is more difficult as we are set in our ways, in our ways of thinking.

Learning how to tolerate unpleasant feelings is a personal process involving thoughts and feelings, trying new behaviors and evaluating those. You wrote that you cannot afford psychotherapy, if I remember correctly;  perhaps a good book on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will help you, a book that includes a workbook with exercises you can do…?

anita