[form] "REBT Theory Lesson 08" Your Name please: [text,r_name,30] Email: [text,r_email,30] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Low Frustration Tolerance Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT) often follows your disturbing beliefs and the self-talk that accompanies them. Learning about LFT may help you to deal with the frustrations that exist for all of us. LFT describes your tolerance for difficulties and hassles. How much is “too much” or “more than you can stand?” Some people are able to tolerate a great deal of frustration, while others easily push themselves over the edge by what they believe and tell themselves about even mild hassles. Normal feelings of frustration, when your Goals are blocked, are good – for they motivate you to remove the blocks and achieve what you want. But if your frustration tolerance is low, you actually increase your feelings of disappointment, waste time and energy whining, and consequently you interfere more with reaching your Goals than do the hindrances you encounter. LFT creates a strong tendency to give up in the face of frustration. It gets in the way of your long-term Goals because you may erroneously evaluate the blocks to achieving them as being “too much,” and consequently stop trying to overcome these blocks. When you have LFT you feel overly frustrated and begin saying things like, “I can’t stand it! It’s more than I can bear! This is too much! I’m at my breaking point!” How do these Beliefs help you? They don’t! LFT is an emotional problem, because it makes you feel listless and lethargic. It is a behavioural problem, because it stops you from pursuing your Goals. Most people are fallible humans who are prone to LFT. It often makes the world go round – backwards! How do you overcome LFT? Ironically, by working to overcome it! What you can do about LFT First, Dispute the irrational Beliefs (iBs), that created it. After Disputing your irrational LFT creating Beliefs, begin replacing them with more self-helping statements. You can say, “I strongly don’t like this difficulty. It’s hard. It’s uncomfortable, but I can deal with it.” Don’t say, “I can’t stand it.” The truth is you can stand it, unless of course it kills you. If it killed you, then you couldn’t be happy at all! But to say, “It won’t kill me but I can’t be at all happy because of it” almost always is a lie. You can conquer your low frustration tolerance in two ways. First you can reduce your feeling of frustration by relaxation techniques, exercise, or some other distraction and stress reduction method, such as Yoga, meditation, or Edmund Jacobson’s progressive relaxation method. These methods may be helpful, but are considered inelegant or temporary in REBT because it is better to overcome your LFT instead of merely distracting yourself from it. ================================================================ Irrational LFT Belief: “Studying for this exam is too hard!” Dispute: “Why is it too hard?” Answer: “It isn’t. It’s just hard. But it will be harder if I don’t study. I’ll fail and have to take this course over again. That will really be hard!” Irrational LFT Belief: “I shouldn’t have to keep looking for a job when it’s too difficult to find a good one.” Dispute: “Where is it written that I shouldn’t have to keep looking?” Answer: “Only in my silly head! I should have to keep looking because it, the job, is certainly not going to look for me. And the more difficult it is to find one, the more I should look. Of course, I don’t have to look for a job. But I’d damned well better!” Irrational LFT Belief: “It’s awful that I have to get to work so early every day!” Dispute: “In what way is it awful?” Answer: “In no way. It’s annoying and inconvenient. But it’s hardly 100% or 101% inconvenient. And it will be more inconvenient if I keep coming late and get fired.” ================================================================== But since you probably will let frustration get to you occasionally, you may benefit from dealing with your uncomfortable physical tension. Uncomfortable neck and shoulder pain, headaches, and stomach trouble often are the result of stress or physical tension. When you feel these things your body is talking to you. Listen to your body. The physical tension related to frustration can lead to serious health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and muscle strain. It is important for you to be aware of your tension level and know what activities help you to reduce your tension. Exercise, sports, walking, aerobics, hiking, progressive relaxation, meditation, or a hobby like music or art can help reduce the muscle tension associated with frustration. While these are temporary distractions because they treat the symptoms and not the cause or course of your LFT, they are healthy diversions. Healthy diversions are more advantageous than unhealthy diversions, such as excessive drinking or eating or use of drugs, smoking, too much sleeping, and similar distractions. Another way The second and most important way you can increase your frustration tolerance is to change your self-talk and beliefs. For example, tell yourself, “If I want to reach this goal, doing this hard and annoying thing is part of the price I am willing to pay.” You will benefit from focusing on the good results you will get from really difficult, jumbo size jobs. Or you can break them into several smaller jobs. Or you can build some immediate gratification into doing them. Nothing is worth getting overly uptight and upset about – because these feelings don’t help you reduce your frustration or live with it. The world is not making you uptight. You are doing it largely to yourself. You have a choice, and you can choose not to feel excessively frustrated. The techniques of REBT will help you. No universal law states that you must be inappropriately uptight, overly frustrated, or worried. So let yourself feel appropriately frustrated or displeased about hassles and difficulties. But think and work hard against your inappropriate LFT-producing feelings and inertia. ==================================================================== Assignment 08 Write about what frustrates you most often? [textarea,my frustrations,3,70] What strategies of the above do you use whether they're listed as healthy or unhealthy? [textarea,my strategies for LFT,3,70] What ideas do you think you could pick up on here and use to reduce your frustration? 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