How Cherry Blossom Season Can Help Us Cope With Suffering
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How Cherry Blossom Season Can Help Us Cope With Suffering
Here are some emotion regulation and distress tolerance tips to help you overcome negative thoughts and feelings.
As April comes to an end and all the cherry blossoms have fallen here in Korea, I wrote a post on my Psychology Today blog about how cherry blossom season can help us cope with negative thoughts and feelings.
As beautiful as the blossoms are, they only bloom for a very short period of time before gracefully falling back down to the earth. I love viewing this process as a metaphor for life. All feelings, good and bad, are impermanent. This allows us to cherish the good moments for what they are and helps us endure the tough ones because we know they won’t last forever. This is a helpful emotion regulation tool and distress tolerance skill.
The more we allow ourselves to just sit with difficult feelings, the more tolerance we build around it. Just think of it this way—you’re increasing your capacity for handling these emotions so that next time, you don’t find it so derailing.
When I’m feeling sad, bored, lonely, or frustrated, I like to use the light stream technique to acknowledge my emotions, allow them to just be without judgement, and wait for the sensations to pass. Here’s how to use this technique:
Notice any upsetting body sensations and identify where you’re feeling it in your body.
What does it look like? Identify the shape, size, color, temperature, texture, and sound.
Ask the following question—if that sensation had a ___, what would it be?
What color do you associate with healing?
Imagine a light that is this color and picture this light coming in through the top of your head and directing itself at the shape in your body. The light directs itself at the shape and resonates, vibrates in and around it. As it does, notice what happens to the shape, color, texture, etc.
Keep noticing the light resonating around the sensation in your body until that sensation is gone. Then bring the light into every part of your body.
Keep doing this until the feeling and shape dissipates.
The more you practice this, the more you’ll be able to tolerate difficult thoughts and feelings without the urge to resist and fight—which only causes us more stress!