Why You’re Going to Start Hearing About Distress Tolerance
Why You’re Going to Start Hearing About Distress Tolerance
One of the most transformative concepts I work with—both in myself and in my clients—is distress tolerance. It’s essentially the capacity to feel hard emotions without needing to immediately escape, fix, or numb them. It’s not a flashy skill. It doesn’t give instant relief. But it does slowly shape how we move through disappointment, rejection, frustration, and even heartbreak.
One of my favorite living psychologists is Dr. Becky Kennedy, founder of Good Inside and a trusted voice in parenting and emotional development. When it comes to raising emotionally resilient children, she reminds us that our job isn’t to make our children’s feelings go away—it’s to help them feel safe having them. She says that big emotions are not emergencies, and that’s a lesson many of us never learned. I know I didn’t. Many of us grew up with the message—spoken or not—that certain emotions made us “too much” or “not enough,” so we learned to avoid distress rather than tolerate it.
In therapy, I see what happens when people didn’t get that emotional scaffolding early on. Adults who struggle with distress tolerance often feel overwhelmed at the first sign of emotional discomfort. They may lash out, shut down, withdraw, or spiral into shame. They may not have been taught that feelings, no matter how intense, are safe to feel and will pass if we allow them to.
So how do we help children build distress tolerance? It starts with co-regulation. When a child is melting down, our calm presence is more powerful than any quick fix, distraction, or lecture. We can name their feeling without trying to change it: “You’re really upset that the tower fell. That’s so frustrating.” We can sit beside them in their distress, showing them with our presence that they can feel hard things and stay safe.
And for those of us who didn’t get that growing up, reparenting becomes essential. Reparenting is learning to offer ourselves the support and safety we once needed but never received. It means noticing when we want to numb out or overreact and instead pausing—even for a few seconds—to name what we’re feeling and remind ourselves, “This is hard, and I can handle hard things.” It’s learning to sit with discomfort in small doses and offering ourselves warmth instead of judgment. Sometimes that means journaling through a tough moment, reaching out to someone we trust, or simply breathing deeply and staying with ourselves as we ride out the wave.
When we help our children build distress tolerance, we’re not just teaching them to behave better—we’re helping them grow into people who trust themselves emotionally and know that hard things are part of being human, not something to fear or avoid. And when we commit to building it in ourselves, even years after childhood, we give ourselves access to deeper relationships, more patience, and a more grounded sense of self. It’s not easy work. But it is deeply healing.
About The Author
Helena Habes, MS, AMFT, an associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT15024), is supervised by Jeremy Mast, MS, MDiv, LMFT, CSAT, CPTT (CA90961). With a strong background in addiction treatment, Helena brings a compassionate, trauma-informed approach to therapy, creating a safe and supportive space for individuals and couples to heal and grow. Helena empowers clients to make lasting changes, strengthen their relationships, and create healthier patterns of communication and intimacy.
