What does avoiding distress cost you?
When was the last time you heard anyone say it was ok to not feel ok?
Have you ever considered this … are you comfortable with being uncomfortable?
If you are routinely uncomfortable with any sort of distress it can hinder your ability to manage day to day stressors that need our attention in order to lead healthy lives. Therapists refer to this as distress intolerance, and it’s a big reason why many people seek out the assistance of a therapist. They’re seeking relief from pain whether that pain is physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental. In today’s note I’ll try and help you link the impact of distress intolerance on your overall financial well-being.
Are you noticing discomfort around money?
Distress intolerance will often manifest itself in deeply ingrained patterns of avoidant behavior. Avoiding looking at your bank account or contributing to your retirement account? It’s possible that when you consider doing these things you feel enough discomfort that tolerating it seems impossible and so instead, you avoid the thing. That discomfort is coming from an emotion you’re having, likely rooted in a past experience and/or belief that is holding on tightly to who you are today. People who struggle with distress intolerance and exhibit avoidant behavior often struggle with emotions in general.
Does that resonate with you? In what ways are you avoiding a financial topic or topics?
Avoidance comes with a cost.
Are you open to exploring that cost?
First, notice what you are avoiding. And then, give yourself a pat on the back for doing so. It’s an important first step, and it isn’t always easy to do. Here are some questions to ponder – all are examples of avoidant behavior I’ve come across in my practice:
Do you know where your money goes every month?
Are you able to tell yourself no?
Do you continue to max out your retirement account even though you don’t have the cash flow to do so (and now you’re dipping into your emergency fund to cover monthly expenses)?
Are you avoiding investing because you were told it’s akin to gambling?
Do you invest but don’t pay attention to any other area of your financial life?
You know you need help navigating the personal financial landscape, but finding a trusted professional feels overwhelming. So you ignore all of it.
Do you frequently find yourself thinking “I’ll deal with it later”? Yet later never seems to come.
To notice a thing is a powerful first step in moving towards change. Once avoidance is noticed, can you then begin to notice how you use it? Is there a meaning behind it? At one point it was likely an adaptive behavior. It served a function to help you survive, to help you make it through a situation. That was ok then. It’s just likely not ok now. The inability to tolerate distress can perpetuate the cycle of avoidance … ultimately it makes that which you’re avoiding worse.
What’s the good that can happen if you practice getting comfortable with being uncomfortable?
Humans are hardwired to experience a breadth and depth of emotions. When we are open to experiencing a wider spectrum of emotions, we open ourselves to hearing the messages such emotions are trying to deliver to us. These messages are information. They are indicators. Take anxiety as an example: anxiety is like an alarm system, trying desperately to alert you to potential danger – and in our modern world that can often mean you are too busy, disconnected or lonely, and therefore deeply tired. Anxiety is real as is our response to it. You don’t just wish it away, much like you wouldn’t ignore a fire alarm in your home. Pay attention to it. What’s it trying to alert you to? People who struggle with tolerating these distressful feelings often can’t pay attention to the message because it feels scary. That’s real. I get it. Yet learning to turn towards and lean in can give you a fighting chance to slow down and listen.
What is it this information is trying to tell you?
Information is feedback and feedback can help us navigate life in a way that we adapt and pivot in more helpful ways. A system without any feedback is not a helpful or growth-oriented ecosystem. Let’s stick with anxiety for a second. Every time you consider opening your budget and your bank account to see how much you have and make a plan for the next few weeks, you shut down. You just can’t do it. You tell yourself that you’ll do it tomorrow. You still go buy things, many of which are essentials (groceries, gas) but there’s a nagging feeling that something isn’t right. That something is that while you make good money, you have no idea where your money is going, and credit cards have begun to fill the cash flow gap. But because it’s too uncomfortable for you to lean into that discomfort you haven’t been able to create the space to consider possible solutions. Let me be clear – this is not a character judgment. It won’t fix itself overnight. It’s a practice to lean into the discomfort and notice what you learn when you don’t turn away or distract. Ignoring the fire alarm doesn’t put the fire out.
How do I practice leaning into discomfort?
You can learn to cultivate resilience in order to increase your capacity to be uncomfortable. Through the practices of mindfulness you can learn that emotions dissipate – they do not last forever. While some may linger longer than others (Brene Brown’s book, Atlas of the Heart, is a lovely read and addresses some of this) they will not stay forever. To experience the dissipation of a painful emotion is to give hope that it is in fact true that we can tolerate what may feel intolerable in any one moment.
It’s also important to be able to discern the difference between stress and distress. We all experience positive and negative stressors – they serve many important purposes like propelling us towards safety and out of danger, or connecting us to good, loving relationships. It’s when stressors stick around too long or are not dealt with that they morph into distress. Learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable helps us turn towards the stressors of life so that they do not become unhealthy versions of distress.
It’s also true that becoming accustomed to tolerating distress as a long-term coping strategy is not helpful. While distress may need to be tolerated long enough to face it and work with it, simply staying in a state of toleration is not good for you. Learning resilience to navigate stress is important. Sinking into a habitual pattern of tolerating distress is harmful. Toleration alone isn’t enough to foster resilience. At some point we have to turn towards the stressor, instead of avoiding it. You may be able to do this alone, with a friend or with the support of a therapist if you’re really struggling.
We’ve been sold on feeling better at all costs … on eliminating distressful emotions and doing that which makes us happy. That’s just not realistic. As humans we will experience a wide range of emotions because, if we are living our lives fully, we will encounter people and experiences that may prompt one or many of our emotions.
It’s not the emotions that are problematic.
As with most things, it’s our relationship with those emotions that’s problematic.
Yet our culture has promoted and normalized the avoidance of all things painful.
I’m not suggesting we seek out pain.
That would be ridiculous.
But in the normal course of a human life we will be sad, disappointed, angry, scared, exhausted, physically pained. You might have experienced days where you felt all of that! I have.
What will we do with those emotions when they knock at our door?
What’s the cost of avoiding these emotions?
More stress. It creates a state of arousal in our bodies that is on high alert … hyperarousal. This is not good for us physically or mentally – it perpetuates the stress response when engaged frequently and continuously. It’s also hard to connect with others because we’ve limited our experience with negative emotions in our own selves. As such we have no map or template for how to tolerate distress in others or how to sit with them to ultimately connect in warm and caring relationships. We are widening the gaps between our comfort zones because these zones are becoming smaller and smaller. We miss out on information that could help us navigate our inner and outer worlds more effectively. We bury emotions – but they don’t disappear. They are there, laying in wait, and it’s just a matter of time before they are activated, showing up bigger and more intense than they initially were.
What’s the cost of avoiding your financial well-being?
A diminished savings or investment rate? This can lead to delayed financial independence or hardship when you need to cover the cost of an emergency.
Out of control debt that ends up controlling your career choices? Do you now have to take or stay in a job you hate in order to pay the bills?
Not being able to care for those you love because you can’t afford to take time off?
Feeling stuck in a job you not only hate, but is impacting your health?
Living paycheck to paycheck – this often puts you in a state of continual hypervigilance and hyperarousal. Have you learned to tolerate this form of distress in an unhealthy way? If so, pause. Consider alternatives.
It is hard to lean into distress and to feel what everyone tells you not to feel. Our society really struggles with pain and discomfort. But if you can learn to lean into it, listen and grow you will be ok.
The power of the pause.
Can we sit with our negative emotions just long enough to gather the data we need? All emotions are information … there is a message there if we can slow down enough to hear it. This information is important.
When you lean into experiencing the uncomfortable can you notice where you feel it in your body? What thoughts come up for you. What images in your mind? “If I allow myself to feel this way then (this bad thing will happen).” How do we test for that? What’s an experiment you can run? Can we make this distress a helpful stressor … to be aware of the information it’s offering and to make different choices as a result. Be curious. Engage your learning mind. Connect with your desire for different outcomes. Identify the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
Why now? What brought you to this blog post now?
If you’re already noticing avoidant behavior AND feel ready to lean into your finances with the supportive guidance of a professional trained in finance and therapy, my approach to financial planning will feel refreshing to you.
However, if your inability to sit with the distress around your money is so big right now that you can’t even imagine beginning to work on finances, the assistance of a therapist may be the right choice for you at this moment. If you feel like regulating your emotions and sitting with distress is really challenging, consider looking for a therapist who practices Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
While I do make space for learning to tolerate that which previously seemed intolerable, it’s true that many people need even more space. More time. That’s the beauty of therapy – it will meet you where you are. As a financial planner I cannot offer as much space and time as a stand-alone therapist can. But I can certainly help you connect with one! And I will be here as a bridge when you’re ready to look deeper into the numbers and how to make them work for your vision of FI.
