Dear Bananananananer:

You are very welcome.  “Is there anyway to overcome this? Do you believe therapy could help me learn how to build that endurance for stress up, or is that something I will never be able to achieve?“-

– Yes, increasing your endurance to stress is something that you will be able to achieve, if you work on it. I achieved it myself. There is a concept in psychotherapy called emotional regulation: it is about learning how to lessen the intensity of distressing emotions (fear, anger, physical discomfort) and in so doing, endure (a lesser) stress  better. It is done in a variety of ways, such as the practice of mindfulness, as well as using CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) techniques and exercises. To simplify, it’s about taking a pause, or a break, between the Intense emotion/ discomfort (in the workplace, let’s say), and the reaction to it (walking out/ quitting). During this pause, you lessen the intensity of the distress.

I worked on it a lot in my CBT+ Mindfulness psychotherapy experience as a client, 2011-13, and I will be glad to share more with you, including certain exercises and techniques, if you are interested. You can give me an example of a time you felt distress at work: what were the circumstances, what were your thoughts at the time, your emotions, your physical experience, and we’ll take it from there.

anita