Well, yeah, it’s the difference between “I accept my feelings as valid” and “I accept my thoughts as true.” I’m not a DBT therapist, but I love this about DBT, that step 1 is to validate the feelings as allowed and valid, and step 2 is then to check the reality of the situation. Trying to check the reality of the situation when you haven’t first validated that you’re allowed to feel this way and, given your past conditioning, it makes sense that you feel this way, can lead to an attempt to shut down the emotional response and then further increase it. Inhale, exhale. Allow, and change. Dialectics. Same way Buddhism essentially teaches that you can’t just squash your desires. Same way as… a lot of things in politics and relationships and everything. Allow and change. I ❤ dialectics, basically.