Tag Archives: Serenity Prayer

Handling Stressors: Approaches to Workload, Problems, Conflict and Loss

You may have great techniques for relieving stress, but how are your strategies for handling the stressors causing the stress? Using meditation, yoga, exercise, venting, or just plain relaxation to relieve stress is all fine and good. Even so, you’ll likely continue to encounter stressors throughout your daily activities and social interactions. And just where does that relief get you, if you continue accumulating stress? You may feel that your life is a revolving door, facing the same challenges day after day. Or worse yet, you may feel like a hamster on a treadmill, unable to keep up with your accelerating pace. If so, it only makes sense to develop and practice effective strategies for managing your recurring stressors.

First, a Matter of Perspective

Before focusing on the different types of stressors, it is helpful to recognize a factor common to all stressors.  That is, the actual situation doesn’t determine the intensity of our stress, as much as our perception and interpretation of it does. In other words, we can make a mountain out of a molehill. It’s simply a matter of perspective. While this insight is a cornerstone of the cognitive behaviorism school of psychology, it is no new revelation. Epictetus shared this wisdom with his contemporaries back in the days of the Roman Empire.

For most of you readers, this article serves as a reminder for what you already know. You may simply have found yourself swallowed up in the mire of a particular crisis. Here, a simple story, such as my Uncle Lester’s The Quicksand Beds of Caramba Flats, can help regain perspective. Or various sayings might help. Do we see the glass as being half-full or half-empty? Can we see the silver lining of the dark cloud? Such analogies and metaphors can help us regain our firm footing when we find ourselves on shaky ground.  Now, we can consider the various strategies and techniques for handling the different types of stressors.

Different Types of Stressors

If you are like most, your stress comes from a variety of sources. It’s unrealistic to expect the same strategies to work well in all situations. Thus, it can be helpful to identify guidelines for handling some common types of stressors. That is just what this article proposes to do. For this task, I have compiled a list of four types of stressors, each of which suggest different approaches. These include Workload, Problems, Conflicts, and Losses.

Workload

Workload consists of our various chores, tasks, and demands. These stressors serve our needs and wants and our various obligations and responsibilities to others. They often involve satisfying direct or implied contracts (e.g., work for a paycheck, sharing household responsibilities, obeying laws).  Here the work is pretty straightforward – we know the routine, and the main stress is the sheer amount. 

Problems

Problems are aspects of our workload which are not so straightforward. These stressors involve certain complications that must be resolved to meet our needs or to satisfy our obligations.  Sometimes the solution to problems is simply a matter of acquiring the needed knowledge and skills. At other times, it involves developing a game plan of strategies and tactics for applying this knowledge and skill.

Conflict

The stressor of Conflict is a particular type of problem, one with opposing and mutually exclusive objectives.  In other words, you can’t have it all. We can further break down conflict into two types, internal and interpersonal.

Internal Conflicts

Internal conflicts are those between our own needs and wants. These often involve pairs of opposing values, such as security vs. freedom, order vs. spontaneity, and individuality vs. belonging. We might consider them as paradoxical dualities, as they do not lend themselves to clear-cut, rational solutions. In other words, logic will not determine which value should prevail. Rather, the resolution of these stressors typically requires a balancing or trade-off between the opposing values.

Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflicts involve a clash between our needs and wants and those of others. Even in the best of relationships, we will differ with our partners in terms of our goals and expectations.

Loss

The stressor of Loss involves our no longer have access to the people, things or events that are important to us. Such losses may be permanent and irreversible, as in the cases of death, destruction and severe injury. Or they may be only temporary, though still posing significant difficulties for us.  We may lose actual people or tangible possessions, or our loss may be more abstract. Our self-esteem and reputation are examples of such abstract losses.

The Perspective of This Approach

The forthcoming guidelines are not particularly profound – “they’re not rocket science.” Rather, they offer practical reminders for when we get “so mad (or sad, anxious, etc.) that we can’t see straight.” Although presented from my own particular perspective, they are not original. I call upon the Serenity Prayer to sort out the types of stressors in terms of change and acceptance:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Rheinold Niebuhr

Within this framework, workload consists of those stressors that we can resolve (with sufficient courage and commitment). Losses are those that we cannot change, but must accept (hopefully with some serenity). Problems are those that we are not yet sure whether or how we can work them out (thus, requiring wisdom). Conflicts are those stressors that typically involve some trade-off or balance between change and acceptance.  Each type poses particular demands and requires particular strategies, skills and attitudes to resolve the stressors.

 

The Stressor of Workload

Issue:

The sheer amount of work, responsibilities, tasks, and demands

Challenge:

To complete the various tasks and responsibilities in a satisfactory and timely manner

Strategies & Techniques: 

  • Organize – make a list, breaking the task down into manageable parts
  • Prioritize – decide which tasks are essential and urgent, and which are less important
  • Plan which tasks to tackle first, which to save for latter, and which to drop altogether
  • Establish a reasonable schedule you can stick to
  • Start work, one task at a time
  • Pace yourself
  • Delegate responsibilities, contract out to others
  • Check the items off your list as you complete them, to monitor your progress
  • Give yourself intermittent rewards after completing the different steps or stages – not before!

Pitfalls:

  • Feeling overwhelmed, perhaps even unfairly victimized
  • Self-criticism and blaming
  • Procrastination and avoidance – breaks become unconditional surrender, rather than strategic retreats
  • Demands and tasks accumulate, making the workload feel all the more oppressive
  • Coping skills atrophy, or weaken, through non-use (“If you don’t use it, you lose it.”)

The Stressor of Problems

Issue:

The Workload is not simple and straightforward. Rather, it requires developing a new approach or modifying an existing one in order to get the task done.

Challenge:

To find a solution to the problem(s) thwarting completion of the task

Strategies & Techniques:

  • Take time to develop your own knowledge and understanding of the problem – to find an answer you must first understand the question.                                                            
  • Remember that working hard is a good strategy for workload, but working smart is generally better for problems
  • Step back and take a break to get a fresh perspective, especially if you “can’t see the forest for the trees.”  (Make sure this is only a strategic retreat, not an unconditional surrender.)
  • Seek out others’ expertise and guidance, perhaps even hiring a consultant
  • Brainstorm: If “two heads are better than one,” just think what several can do.

Pitfalls:

  • Tunnel vision – not questioning your own perspective – one definition of insanity is “taking the same approach and expecting different results”; finding a solution often requires looking at the problem in a different way (i.e., “thinking outside the box”)
  • Working harder, rather than working smarter, thus “spinning your wheels”
  • Negativity – adopting a negative outlook discourages a positive solution – “self-fulfilling prophecy” – rather, look at the problem as an opportunity to discover & practice new understanding and skills
  • Complaining about how the problem shouldn’t be, rather than accepting it as reality and dealing with it
  • Procrastination and neglect, which often allows it to get worse – in contrast to “a stitch in time saves nine.”
  • Avoidance of problems interferes with developing positive problem-solving skills.

The Stressor of Conflict

As we have addressed above, conflict can be either internal or interpersonal. Actually, this stressor typically involves both dimensions. This is chiefly related to the tension between being an individual and belonging to a group. It is here that our concern for our own individual well-being and our caring for others collide. Only if we were totally selfish or totally selfless would we escape this internal tension.

Interpersonal Conflict

Issue:  

A disagreement with someone prevents you from getting what you want, poses a hardship, keeps you from completing your work effectively, or disrupts your relationship

Challenge:  

To resolve the conflict and restore harmony.  This is part of a broader, ongoing challenge: that of striking a balance between looking out for your own self-interests and demonstrating your commitment to the relationship and caring for the other.  The only time that you really proclaim you own sense of individual self-worth is when you take a stand in opposition to someone else. And the only time that you really demonstrate your caring for the other is when you sacrifice your own self-interests for their benefit.  Through the ongoing series of conflicts, large and small, we are perpetually fine-tuning the balance between individuality and relatedness.

Strategies & Techniques:

  • Two fundamental prerequisites for resolving conflict are safety and respect: without safety, any resolution is achieved under duress, and resolution without respect is often a hollow victory.
  • Be flexible in your styles of dealing with conflict.  You wouldn’t construct a piece of furniture with just one type of tool.  When various styles are used in balance and moderation, they typically are adaptive.  Excessive use of any one style may be counterproductive.
  • Common styles of dealing with conflict are Avoidance, Confrontation, Accommodation, Cooperation, and Collaboration.  (These styles are discussed in more detail elsewhere.)
  • Conflict resolution involves three basic components: self-expression, active listening, and negotiation.
Listening
  • Usually both sides need to have their feelings heard before they are ready to consider possible solutions.
  • Keep an open mind: just as your point-of-view make perfect sense to you, so, too, do your adversaries’ perspectives make sense to them.  It is unrealistic to expect that a conflict will be worked out only from your perspective. Afterall, no one’s going to let you have the home field advantage all the time.  Besides, discovering another perspective expands your horizons.
  • If you want your partners and adversaries to consider your perspectives, you’d better demonstrate your willingness to listen to theirs. It’s not enough to comprehend their point-of-view. You must demonstrate your understanding of it to them.  It’s even better if you can show that by “reading between the lines” – that is, if you don’t do it in a critical, defensive, or controlling manner.
  • Listen to your partner before expressing your point of view. That way, you’ll have more of their undivided attention.
Expression
  • Your partner or opponent is not a mind-reader: the more clearly you can state your position and its rationale, the better your chance for a fair settlement.  Define the problem from your viewpoint, describe how it is affecting you, state your expectations, and perhaps indicate the incentives for your partner agreeing to your proposal. 
  • Incentives probably work best if they are concessions you are willing to make or are natural consequences of the agreement. Otherwise, they may convey a sense of manipulation, bribery, extortion, blackmail, etc.
  • Expanding the discussion to include other complaints to justify your position tends to make the negotiations complicated and contentious.  While it can be helpful to put your position in a broader context to enhance mutual understanding, it is often better to address one issue, or just a few related issues, at a time.
Negotiation
  • Negotiation needs to take both perspectives into account.  While compromise often involves  a “50-50″ solution, in which both sides get some of what they want, collaboration can strive for more of a “win-win” situation, in which both sides can get more than half. This involves the additional use of problem-solving techniques, discussed in the previous section.
  • Incentives probably work best if they are concessions you are willing to make or are natural consequences of the agreement. Otherwise, they may convey a sense of manipulation, bribery, extortion, blackmail, etc.
  • Know the rules of the game: if your adversary is playing his or her hand with the cards close to the vest, and you are laying your cards on the table, you are not going to win your fair share of poker hands.

Pitfalls:

  • Blame and focusing on whose fault a problem is accomplishes little more than creating animosity.  It’s often not necessary to know how a problem got that way in order to fix it.
  • Complaining may be a safer form of communication than expressing one’s feelings, but it tends to foster defensiveness and counterattacks.
  • Trying to find a solution before your partner expresses their feelings may convey an attitude that you don’t care about them.
  • Insisting on getting your way all the time puts off the other person, reducing the chances of a resolution, or making the settlement a hollow victory.
  • Accommodating or giving in to others regularly usually leads to them taking you for granted and to your feeling resentful.
  • Avoidance of conflict may involve losing by default – giving in rather than addressing the differences.
  • Avoidance of conflict prevents you from developing the skills needed to negotiate a favorable settlement for yourself. This tends to give others an advantage in future conflicts.

Internal Conflict

Issue:  

Life frequently involves internal conflicts, in which something must be given up.  Often these conflicts are unavoidable, as they involve an inherent paradox of life, generally requiring some trade-off.  Security vs. freedom, order vs. spontaneity, and individuality vs. belonging are examples of such paradoxes.

Challenge:  

To reconcile opposing needs, feelings, urges, values, and interests in ourselves, in order to achieve an integrated self, that balances and reconciles opposing values and perspectives.

Strategies & Techniques:

  • Values clarification: identifying the various implicit values on each side of a conflict situation.
  • Recognizing conflicts as opportunities to clarify and articulate our basic values, thus helping us to know ourselves better.
  • Identifying the pro’s and con’s on each side of a conflict situation, weighing the likely and possible consequences of a particular resolution to a conflict.
  • Recognizing that a healthy resolution of a conflict often involves a trade-off between competing sides, rather than having an either-or or all-or-none resolution.
  • Realizing that something must be given up in the trade-off, and perhaps going through a grieving process.

Pitfalls:

  • It is often tempting to “project” one side of an internal conflict onto someone else, so that it is experienced as an interpersonal conflict, rather than an internal one.  For example, baiting others into condemning one’s drug abuse might distract attention from one’s own shame over using.
  • “Projecting” one side of a conflict onto others allows ones to pursue one side of the conflict, perhaps as an act of rebellion against their censure.

The Stressor of Loss

Issue:

Something or someone that has been an important part of your life is no longer available,

Challenge:

To accept a loss, to honor the positive in what you’ve lost and to forgive the negative, to let go and move on with your life.  The loss may be something tangible (e.g., death of a parent or sibling, divorce, job loss, disability from chronic illness) or something more abstract (e.g., self-esteem, reputation, respect, honor, trust, sense of identity).  Whichever it is, we are called upon to give up something that can’t be entirely fixed or replaced.  Or we may simply come to a realization of the natural limitations and paradoxes of life (e.g., not being able to “have our cake and eat it, too”).

Strategies & Techniques: 

  • Expressing sadness and grief over the loss, rather than simply complaining
  • Recognizing the difference between grief and self-pity
  • Utilizing social support, allowing others to bear witness to our mourning
  • Dealing with the loss emotionally, not just intellectually
  • Working through the various phases of the grief process (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), rather than distracting yourself from this work
  • Letting go, both of the longing to regain the lost person or thing, and of any anger and resentment over the loss
  • Honoring what you’ve gotten out of what you have lost.  This work at incorporating the positive qualities into your own life serves as a remembrance for what or whom you have lost.
  • Establishing a balance between healing the wound of the loss and moving forward in your life.  Over time, the balance should be gradually shifting toward the latter.

Pitfalls:

  • Getting stuck in longing for the past, or in bearing a grudge or resentment over what was taken away from you, rather than letting go of the lost person, thing, or quality
  • Confusion between complaining and grieving.  Complaining involves holding onto ones grievances, rather than letting go.
  • Confusing sadness with weakness.  Ironically, we best regain our strength and resiliency by giving into our sadness and working through the grief process.
  • Toughing it out, not wanting to let anyone see you sweat, especially sweating tears
  • Numbing oneself to avoid the pain of the loss, thus staying stuck in unresolved grief
  • Wariness over establishing a similar involvement in the future, to avoid a similar pain and loss

Summary

The above discussion utilizes the Serenity Prayer in sorting out four types of stressors and recommending strategies for each. Many of these tips are common sense and likely already familiar. Thus, these lists serve as useful reminders of helpful outlooks and skills in the midst of stress.

Additional Resources

In calmer times, more extensive exploration of this topic can strengthen these perspectives. Thus, the strategies and techniques can be more readily available when called for. Such further discussions are offered in other posts on this website. Baring Your Soul, Bearing Your Stress goes into more detail with the Serenity Prayer to explore the use of expression and emotional support in coping with stress.

Internal Conflict

Two articles address the paradoxical nature of many internal conflicts. Living Rationally with Paradox: Staying Sane in a Crazy World, or Trying to Force a Round Peg into a Square Hole? addresses the limitation of logic in resolving such dilemmas. Muddling Down a Middle Path: Wading through the Messiness of Life suggests a balance or trade-off between the conflicting values.

Interpersonal Conflict

Other articles address interpersonal conflict. Dealing with Conflict in Relationships: The Art of Assertiveness goes into more detail on resolving conflict with close relationships. When Is a Conflict Not a Real Conflict? addresses when differences are due to misunderstandings, rather than actual conflicts. And Interpersonal Conflict Strategies explores the strengths and limitations of different styles of dealing with conflict, thus suggesting flexibility in one’s approach. Vicious Cycle Patterns in Relationships 2.0 delves into our tendency to get drawn into recurrent, unhealthy patterns with our partners.

Just One More Thing . . .

We often get trapped into viewing our stressors as obstacles that interfere with our lives. This typically leads to avoidance and its associated negative feelings, such as dread, resentment, and shame. Another option is to view stressors as providing opportunities to grow. Here, we can expand our perspective, develop our skills, and affirm our place in the world. Embrace the adventure!

Baring Your Soul, Bearing Your Stress

Social support is often crucial for bearing our stress, yet baring our souls is necessary for that to happen. Unless we open up, others cannot hear our pain and provide the needed comforting, encouragement, and understanding. This post explores how the Serenity Prayer offers guidance for choosing among these three listening approaches:

The saying suggests strategies for handling different types of stressors.primary guideline of this article for handling stressors
The Serenity Player offers guidelines for addressing different types of stressors.

A Personal Approach to Pain and Stress

Few people relish the idea of embracing emotional pain. If we can avoid dealing with it, we often do. With repeated avoidance, our residual feelings – anger, sadness, resentment, shame, etc. – accumulate over time. As the various feelings get lumped together, they lose their definition.  We forget the events that evoked them, as well as their meaning for us. Thus, we experience tension or discomfort,  yet without a readily identifiable source or an obvious remedy.

Defining our Terms

Often, we have difficulty describing, or even naming, this vague condition. Here, we can borrow from health science the general term, “stress.” We can further specify “emotional stress” as the accumulated feelings which were not sufficiently processed and resolved. (I have at times referred to this as my trash compactor model of stress.) Additionally, we can define “stressors” as the particular events that triggered the feelings that make up the emotional stress.

General Stress Reduction

We have various outlets to relieve stress, in the areas of exercise, recreation, and relaxation. These approaches, though, are quite general. They do not address the specific stressors and feelings that contributed to the overall stress. And just where does that relief get you, if you continue accumulating stress? When similar situations occur (and they will!), these events will only evoke more distressing feelings. This may lead to a “revolving door,” where we encounter the same challenges, day after day.

A More Targeted Approach

Thus,  we need to supplement our stress reduction efforts with a focus on the stressors behind the stress. This would involve recognizing the various feelings contributing to the accumulated stress. Then, we can identify the stressors triggering those feelings. At this point, the Serenity Prayer can help us sort out what we can change and what we must accept. Thus, an effective long-term approach to stress would include sorting out the various emotional components of the accumulated stress, identifying the stressors that trigger each of them, and working toward resolving them one at a time.

 Developing Stress Tolerance

An approach to stress that addresses the various stressors at their source recommends not only strategies to reduce tension, but also methods for enhancing our stress tolerance. While tension-reduction techniques are certainly helpful for coping with stress, the active exploration of the stressors requires a willingness and a capacity to tolerate the related emotional pain. This is particularly true when we encounter complicated situations which require time to resolve: we must be able to bear the tension to see this process through.

Stress in Modern Times

Our modern society complicates this process further: our greater range of options carries a price of increased complexity and ambiguity. (This feature is explored in greater detail in my post, Muddling down a Middle Path: Wading through the Messiness of Life.) Interpersonal conflict complicates the matter further, as our differing values lead us to view various situations and issues differently. This complicates our task of negotiating, collaborating, and compromising to achieve mutually agreeable solutions. Thus, in a society such as ours that values individuality as well as community, we experience a greater pressure on our ability to tolerate stress.

On the Origins of Stress Tolerance

How do we increase our ability to endure emotional pain? To answer this question, it is helpful to consider how we developed this capacity in the first place. While some aspects are no doubt innate, we initially depended upon the tending and comforting of our caretakers to ease our distress. Without the ability to fend for ourselves, we required our parents to read our distress signals and to tend to our needs. Later, they helped us to label our various need states (e.g., hunger, thirst, fatigue, etc.), so that we could ask for what we want and need. While they tended to our needs and protected us from the objects of our fears, their calming and comforting presence soothed not only physical pain and discomfort, but also emotional distress.

As we grew older, our parents, teachers, coaches and mentors aided our independence by teaching us how to take care of our own needs, rather than our depending so much on others to meet them. They guided us in our efforts and encouraged us to take risks according to our abilities, building our confidence and countering our fears, distress, and anxiety. As we matured, we internalized these functions of comforting, understanding, and guidance, so that we could provide these functions for ourselves when our caretakers were unavailable.

The Legacy of “Dysfunctional Families”

Unfortunately, not all the concern from our caretakers helped us to tolerate stress. This is particularly true if we came from so-called “dysfunctional families.” In fact, the attention may have cultivated stress intolerance. For example, our caretakers may have been uncomfortable dealing with the pain, regardless of their actual verbal response. In this case, their obvious distress may have amplified our pain. Or our helpers may have avoided acknowledging the suffering by reassuring us that “everything will be all right.” If so, we may have felt all the more alone, feeling that no one really understood us. Or they may have admonished us to be strong, not weak. This may have encouraged us to suppress our pain, sending it underground, to be dealt with alone.

Coping with the Unavailable Caretaker

This resolution runs the risk that the pain later gets acted out in anger towards others, rather than being discussed with others or processed internally before being expressed appropriately. The rage reaction is all the more likely if our caretakers reacted with anger, either to their own frustrations or to ours. Unfortunately, we tend to learn these bad habits as well as the good ones. Such experiences leave us mistrustful and reluctant to express ourselves to others later in life, making the needed emotional support all the more unlikely. Not only does this limit our external support, it also thwarts our internalizing the functions of comforting, understanding, and encouragement, which are needed to develop our own capacity to bear pain and tolerate stress.

Letting Ourselves Receive Support

Even if our caretakers didn’t foster our capacity to endure pain, it’s never too late to work on it. As in our youth, this process works best with the caring support of others. Granted, the act of “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps” may appeal to our pride. Still, this approach likely fosters a stoic manner, with its often undeveloped spontaneity, vitality, and compassion. It may indeed be rather humbling to depend upon others for emotional support when we figure we ought to be able to handle the situations for ourselves. On the other hand, such humility may grant us better appreciation of our common humanity through sharing our pain and suffering with one another.

Besides, such self-reliance may not be all that independent. It might just represent compliance with earlier messages from critical parents (e.g., “Be a man.”). The irony is that such pride in independence may have its roots in unquestioning conformity to parental authority.

 Getting the Support We Need

Just how can others help us with bearing our pain? What makes their attention effective at comforting our distress? Here, there is no single answer, yet the Serenity Prayer can help us to understand the various components of a supportive approach. The prayer asks for “the serenity to accept the things [we] cannot change, the courage to change those things [we] can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” For each of these three personal qualities there is a complementary role of the listener who witnesses our pain: for serenity, soothing and comforting; for courage, guidance and encouragement; and for wisdom, understanding.

The Soothing Role in Attaining Serenity

Serenity, the first of these functions, involves a soothing and comforting that allows us to tolerate our pain. In contrast, distress or worry about the pain that we face amplifies our experience of the pain. Often, it is not the pain itself that is unbearable. Rather, it is our distress over dealing with or avoiding the pain that feels intolerable. A sense of dread or apprehension about the outcome of the painful episode is one possible aspect of this distress. Another is the sense that the events that evoked the feelings are unjust,  violating some implicit rules we live by. Yet another is a sense of shame for our involvement in the events surrounding the pain. Here, we assume much of the blame and guilt for the happenings. This low self-worth may lead us to isolate ourselves from others whom we assume will judge us harshly.

Developing Acceptance

Here the supportive presence of others can do much to ease our distress and low self-worth. Their acceptance of us despite our shortcomings can bolster our self-worth that has been challenged by our stressors. They can give us a sense of their continuing support and caring regardless of how the surrounding events unfold. Our supporters can help us accept the current circumstances as a challenge to grow, despite the unfairness of the situation. Or they can guide us toward coping with what is, rather than complaining helplessly about how it should be. Our supporters convey their messages not only through the meaning of their words, but also by their style of delivery. A soothing voice, a gentle embrace, or an accepting gaze goes beyond words in conveying their caring.

Tolerating Loss and Adversity

While these supportive functions do not resolve the stressful situation, they reduce the associated distress that often makes the pain unbearable. When the events surrounding the pain are irreversible, as in the case of death, or unresolvable, as with a divorce from an intractable marriage, the tolerance for the pain allows the grieving to proceed and the healing to begin. In other instances, in which there is some potential for problem-solving or conflict resolution, the tolerance for the pain allows us to face our dilemma and plan how we are to deal with it. In either case, the comforting function is often an essential step in allowing ourselves to face the pain so that we can understand it.

The Understanding Role in Fostering  Wisdom

By understanding pain, we discover its meaning. Meaningful pain is generally more bearable than meaningless pain. We give it a name, we define it, and in the process we limited its scope. Thus, understanding is a second important function in developing our capacity to bear pain.

Pain as a Warning Signal

Through this process we come to view pain not as a feeling state to avoid. Rather, stress  serves as a signal that all is not right in our world. It calls out that something needs adjustment. That change might be internal (e.g., grieving a loss or adjusting our expectations). Or it may be external (e.g., confronting a task or addressing a conflict with another). With such an outlook, we face our emotional hurts, determine the events which caused them, explore our perception of these events and our expectations surrounding them, identify our characteristic style of response to them, and to decide whether that approach is the most helpful. This process is one of redefinition and discovery of ourselves as well as of our personal worlds, whether the changes be related to some loss or gain or a reorganization of our lives.

Getting Support for Self-discovery

This self-discovery can at times be an exciting process, yet often is a humbling one. Either way, it is quite difficult to conduct by oneself, as we have difficulty stepping outside of ourselves to get an overall perspective on a situation that includes us in it. Others can help this process along by sharing their perception of us, revealing to us what is hidden by our own blind spots, what is out of focus, and what is distorted, whether positively or negatively. They can help us to discover how our response styles impact others and affect the problems we face. We can then decide whether that effect is likely helpful or harmful.

When Understanding Reinforces Acceptance

The understanding function does much to amplify the supportive function. By seeing the overall perspective we may not be quite so harsh in blaming ourselves. With a clear view of what is, our distress may not be as aggravated by our sense of what should be. We may better appreciate our values and principles as useful guides for living, rather than as universal laws upon which we can stake our security and well-being. We may view the problem more positively, as a potential growth experience, not an obstacle that blocks our path.

Cultivating Emotional Wisdom

Understanding helps us develop insight into ourselves and our world, yet without compassion it remains an intellectual exercise. We can experience our world and ourselves in subtle complexities. Multiple perspectives gives our world depth. We can see not just in black and white, but in various shades of gray.

Coloring our World

But what about color? This is where feelings have a second function: besides the role of signaling a disruption in our lives, they also enrich our experience. In an earlier article, I use the analogy of a prism to describe the process of sorting out the various emotional components of stress: that this exploration separates out the “white light” of stress into the various emotional hues. In fact, our idioms for our emotions have often assigned colors to various feelings – the red heat of passion, the yellow of cowardice, the blues of sadness, being “green with envy.” This process helps us to recover a more colorful picture of ourselves than presented with the general description of being tensed up or stressed out. This colorization of our experience with feelings enriches our lives and complements the definition and articulation provided by our intellectual understanding and insight.

From Physical Feelings to Emotional Feelings

Yet it is primarily through body sensations that our experiences attain their distinctive emotional tones. In connecting our various tactile, visceral, and kinesthetic responses to the events, interactions, expectations, and relationships that arouse them, we convert physical feelings into emotional feelings. Having your “hair stand on end” in fear, being “sick to your stomach” in disgust, and “getting all choked up” in sadness are more than mere figures of speech: they refer to emotions deeply felt in our bodies. A variation of the parental “tell me where it hurts” can help us to recognize the emotional components in our reactions to stressors. Thus, understanding from others helps us to associate our feelings states with the events and relationships in our lives in a way that colors and embodies our experience, making our lives richer and more meaningful in the process.

 The Encouragement Roles in Fostering Courage

The functions of compassion and understanding outlined above help us to adjust to our world. We do so by accepting the limits of our influence in this vast world we encounter. Yet we not only respond to our environment, we exert influence over it. Understanding not only deepens our appreciation of our world, it helps us act on our surroundings. We can get what we need from it, and reduce or eliminate threats from it. Insight does not produce such changes per se: it must be put into action to effect change.

Managing Risk

Yet such actions come with a risk: if they did not, then the warning signals of our emotional reactions probably would not have gone off. Usually there is some conflict involved – we balk at pursuing our desires because of some real or potential cost. Understanding can help to put these risks in perspective, but they do not eliminate them. Insight may suggest to us what we need to do to improve our lives, but we still need courage to make these changes, and the encouragement of others can be helpful here. Others are helpful when they stick by us, continuing to urge us on when we balk, retreat, or simply get stuck. The motivational function primarily encourages us to take the necessary, often risky and unpleasant steps required to resolve a conflict or problem causing us stress.

 Balancing the Three Supportive Functions

The Serenity Prayer suggests the importance of finding a balance among the three supportive functions of soothing, encouragement, and understanding. An excess in any one element can be harmful to overall functioning. An overly soothing approach without understanding the issues or encouraging action can foster helplessness and dependency. This is particularly problematic in facing (or avoiding) situations for which action is required. An emphasis on understanding without adequate soothing may foster an intellectualized approach similar to Mr. Spock’s demeanor on Star Trek. An accompanying lack of encouragement may lead to an intellectual immobilization involving worry and rumination, similar to that dramatized by Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

A encouraging role may lead to action which lacks an appreciation for the subtleties of feelings, whether one’s own or those of others. It further is less appropriate in those situations of loss for which there is no adequate remedy except acceptance. These various examples of imbalances of support should show the need for a balanced approach that fosters thought, feeling, and action in response to emotionally tinged situations.

Of course, the particular demands of a situation will recommend emphasis of one approach over another. Some call for valor, others for compassion and sensitivity, and still others for restraint and deliberation. Another factor concerns the personal style of the person needing support. Here, it is often helpful to “play to the person’s weak suit.” This approach encourages balance by supporting the function that is typically underutilized.

Internalizing the Three Supportive Functions

Of course, we can’t always count on others to be by our sides as we deal with  our stress. Nor should we expect that. Throughout our lives, we developed our own abilities to resolve our stresses. Much of this we accomplished by internalizing the supportive functions provided by others. First, we learned to comfort ourselves by conjuring up the supportive demeanor of our caretakers in their absence. Second, we gained perspective on situations by asking ourselves how our mentors would have viewed them.  And third, we mustered our courage and took risks by imagining the urging of our coaches. We can now conjure up these presences consciously and deliberately. And even if we don’t, they still remain a potent voice in the background as we face our challenges.

When Doing Less Is Doing More

Others can help us to internalize these functions by not doing too much for us. Sometimes doing less is actually doing more. Our supporters may ask us how we can comfort ourselves in the meantime rather than coming over at 2 a.m. They may simply provide a sounding board to bounce off our own ideas, rather than defining the situations for us. They may ask us to consider our options, rather than giving us direct advice. Often we simply need someone to bear witness as we bare our souls in order to bear our pain.

Finding Balance in Interdependence

By internalizing the supportive functions of comforting, understanding, and encouraging, we cultivate our serenity, wisdom, and courage. We can better cope with our various emotional challenges with greater self-reliance and confidence. Still, it is not necessary, or even preferable, that we become totally self-sufficient. Rather than pursuing the ideal of independence, perhaps interdependence is a better goal, involving mutual support with others. We can still rely on others who may be farther along. And through their limited support, we can further develop our own capacity to bear our pain and stress. And in turn, we may serve as mentors, comforters, coaches, teachers, and parental figures for others.

The Intimacy of Reciprocal Support

Yet it is when the support is reciprocal that the special treasure of emotional intimacy unfolds. We then expose our private fears, doubts, and feelings to the caring of others, and care for theirs in return. This reciprocity offers depth, meaning, and strength to our lives in a way that total independence cannot achieve. On the broader scale, this mutuality of support fosters a sense of family, fellowship, and community. The balance between self-care and mutual interdependence with others promotes a healthy balance between individuality and belonging. This strengthens both our personal identities and our ties to others.