CHOOSE THE HARD YOU’RE WILLING TO TOLERATE
“Choose the hard you’re willing to tolerate.”
I repeat this mantra every week, whether I’m saying this to myself, to a friend, or to one of my clients. From time to time, life inevitably throws us into adverse situations where the choice in front of us is between one hard thing and another hard thing.
No easy options. Just hard.
I remember, years ago, I’d gotten hurt by a friend neglecting our friendship. I kept my hurt feelings quiet. My mind went from generous interpretations like maybe they were in a busy season and couldn’t keep up with any friendships, to deep insecurities like maybe they no longer found me interesting or “sparkly” and therefore the upkeep of this friendship was fading for them. For a time, I thought I could deal with the impacts of feeling hurt privately. And then, they went absentee on me again. It was becoming a pattern. I struggled with allowing myself to feel hurt about it, because I really believed that wasn’t my friend’s intention. However, the impact remained the same, I felt hurt and unseen.
I hemmed and hawed: Do I risk sharing how I feel and tolerate the consequences that come with changing our relationship by opening up? That felt hard, exposing and scary. Or do I risk not sharing what goes on for me and my friend never getting to know me fully or what impacts me? That felt privately hard and oriented towards self-abandonment.
The stress was real.
The first scenario meant I’d have to practice tolerating being honest and vulnerable. Admitting to my friend that how they treated me impacted me and hurt my feelings. The hope was to repair and build a better connection with them. The risky bit? Their response to hearing my hurt didn’t guarantee reconciliation or repair. They could decide it wasn’t worth it, they could decide not to adjust, they could drop the relationship.
The second scenario meant I could maintain homeostasis by keeping quiet. It meant I would tolerate my hurt and swallow my discomfort privately. It certainly brought the comfort of avoiding a big confrontation. And also, it brought the stress of not being fully known or seen in this friendship. I desperately wanted to maintain connection, but this decision would mean tolerating disconnection without addressing it with them.
The stress I chose to tolerate was bringing up my honest feelings and allowing them to make choices with the information they learned about me. They said they really wanted to be a better friend to me. However, their actions didn’t follow their verbal commitments, and I learned that though they wanted to repair, they weren’t ready to engage in a deeper friendship. This also felt devastating. Full stop. However while I was feeling devastated, I also felt proud that I did the right thing for me. I did my best to be honest, I gave it my all, and I could let go of the friendship knowing I’d tried everything I could.
This scenario can replicate itself over and over.
Do I stay at this job and tolerate not feeling heard? Or do I leave this job and tolerate starting anew?
Do I stay silent in this relationship and tolerate my needs going chronically unmet? Or do I try communicating vulnerably and tolerate the risk of exposing myself to the other person’s response?
Do I try staying connected to myself and tolerate the risk of abandonment from certain relationships? Or do I tolerate abandoning myself to maintain relationships on fractioned connection?
Do I tolerate the stress of changing my situation? Or do I tolerate the stress of staying in the situation I’m in?
Do I try authenticity and tolerate the risk of being unliked? Do I detach from myself and tolerate the risk of relationships that won’t know me fully?
Do I tolerate staying? Or do I tolerate leaving?
Do I tolerate speaking up? Do I tolerate staying silent?
Do I tolerate staying the same? Or do I tolerate the stress of change?
I gravitate towards this mantra because…
It’s real, it’s tangible, it happens for everyone.
It comes up in life repeatedly.
Enhancing distress tolerance is an actual skillset we can practice that helps us navigate these exact scenarios.
When we’re met with hard scenarios, as the author Glennon Doyle says: “it feels hard because it is hard”. There are consequences to both choices. There is stress in both choices. A follow-up question to consider as you navigate your hard vs hard: Am I willing to expand in tolerating the distress of the consequences that follow this decision? There is nuance to each decision we make. Not all hard decisions are binary and certainly some scenarios allow for a middle-ground and compromise. This could be rich territory to explore with a therapist when reflecting on what decision feels “right” for you.
Grounding reminders:
You get to wrestle with the hard, no one’s exempt.
You are capable.
There is agency in being able to expand your abilities to tolerate distress.
We all deserve autonomy—autonomy is both stressful and empowering.
Choose the hard you’re willing to work towards tolerating.
