Tolerance Vs Acceptance

Along the journey of breaking the avoidance cycle it is easy to fall into the trap of building tolerance. Tolerance is pushing through, clenching and gritting your way through something because you have to. Tolerance is useful in the short term, and you may find you have much higher tolerance than you previously thought, but tolerance does not grant freedom from anxiety.

Acceptance is choice, a release, a long term mental shift that takes power away from anxiety. As you embark on your journey with MyOCD, try to watch for when you are tolerating. This could come in the form of rushing through exercises or doing them while distracted. When this happens, pause, and re-engage with the content intentionally. Tell yourself 'I am accepting the discomfort. It will come and wash over me. I will accept it. I will not fight it. I will break the avoidance cycle.' This intentional choice to release will strip anxiety of its power, and you will find you no longer have to tolerate it, because it will have come and gone. Achieving acceptance takes practice, let's start by identifying when you are tolerating and what to do instead.

Tolerating

Are you tolerating? Notice in these examples of tolerating, nothing is being done to remove the discomfort for the next time.

• Focusing on when something will be over
• Rushing through something to get it over with
• Distracting yourself during something so you don't have to think about it
• Telling yourself something isn't real
• Telling yourself to just get through this

Accepting

What will you do to accept instead of tolerate? Notice in these examples of acceptance, the avoidance cycle is broken, and we take power away from anxiety.

• Don't rush. Stay in a situation until anxiety comes and passes
• Don't distract. Instead, focus on what is making you uncomfortable. Ask yourself what about this makes me uncomfortable?
• Don't push through. Tell anxiety you will do the opposite of what it wants. If it wants to leave, you will stay longer.
• Accept. Tell yourself - I will accept, I am accepting