Some thoughts on healthy coping skills
Coping skills is a tricky topic. One person’s coping skills may not be accessible to folks that face additional barriers or even harmful is the coping skill activates a trigger. So acknowledging that not every coping mechanism fits every person here are some thoughts...
Coping skills are simply the responses and ways we survive difficult situations and stimulus in our lives. Some ways we respond are good for us and align with our goals, some are destructive to ourselves or others or not adaptive for new environments we find ourselves in.
A coping skill is not a solution. It does not ‘fix’ the stressors you are experiencing. They are intended to help you weather storms of heavy or overwhelming emotional/physical/cognitive sensation. Where possible, it is good to also working on managing or resolving root causes.
Coping skills often fall into the categories of:
Self-soothing - activities that may feel stabilizing or reinforce your desired emotional/physical/cognitive state
Distraction- give your brain something else to process for a while, change your environment so that you’re not reminded of what is causing the upset
Replacement- give your self the gift of the opposite; this can be affirmations when you are drowning in negative self talk or pulling out a box of ‘evidence’ that helps counter whatever false reality you are battling; doing a soft and gentle thing when you feel like raging or lashing out
Know thyself- naming what is going on; when we feel overwhelmed we often face a jumble of emotional/physical/cognitive signals, giving yourself time and tools to identify what’s actually present and where it’s coming from can be empowering
Mindfulness - there are mindfulness techniques based on ‘emptying’ yourself of extraneous sensation and techniques based on filling your mind with specific sensation, these can have wildly different impacts depending on what you’re struggling with
Support plan - sometimes called a crisis plan, it should not be held in reserve until you are fully in crisis; who are the people that you have asked to be part of your support circle when your day is heading in a negative direction? Preparation and communication and really helpful here
Here are some of the specific coping activities that work for me or people in my life. Feel free to jump into the convo with your own.
EXPRESSION
If you are working on an art project and can engage with that, great!
If not, do something that reminds you that you have a voice and that you are here.
Paint a chest of drawers: it is the distraction of researching the process + going out into humanity to buy supplies + the process itself, bonus you end up with a check of drawers that look like Starry Night done in purples
Coloring books!!!
A personal approach: Go ahead and destroy some objects you wanted to get rid of anyway, glue them back together and then destroy them again. Repeat as needed. End on either the constructive or destructive phase of the cycle as it might benefit you.
Go somewhere you won’t be arrested and scream. Scream a lot. Maybe cry. Laugh at how ridiculous you look. Scream some more. Kicking rocks is optional.
I know everyone says journaling but it really can help you not only express but it helps track your feelings so you become more aware of patterns.
Journaling can be written but it can also be visual or auditory - there isn’t a ‘correct’ way to do it.
A lot of folks don't want to stare at a blank page so doing something structured can be much more helpful. Back in my day the Mind Over Mood workbook was a clinical favorite and it is available at general bookstores.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
I do enjoy going on the stereotypical walk in the woods but it can be much smaller than that. Move from the room you are into another; Watch a youtube video and learn a new dance (even if no one will ever see it!) or practice holding your arm’s in a ballerina’s pose.
This can also be small motions, I repetitively touch each finger to my thumb when I can feel my emotions rising in a public space and need to give my brain another task.
This can be a variety of things in the touch, sound, sight, taste, smell categories
Watch kitten youtube videos or listen to music recommended by an internet stranger, try a new recipe or buy an ingredient that you’ve never heard of at an international grocery store, make your own potpourri
I know that have a lot of action oriented suggestions on this list but that reflects my own bias towards needing to feel like I am creating/impacting/changing things. That is part of coping for me.
But self-soothing can be putting your favorite blanket in the dryer so it’s warm and has the fabric softener smell and giving yourself permission to consume some guilt free media while snuggled up.
REPLACEMENT
This is my favorite because one of my top five personality traits is sheer contrariness. Events are conspiring to get me down? Watch me get up just so I can kick something. My trauma response makes me want to isolate or lash out? Forget that - I will stride up to someone and provide the tenderest caregiving you ever did see.
This doesn’t mean I’ve never been in a depressive funk for a month or that anxiety hasn’t kept me away from things I wanted - that’s very real too but when those struggles have left me even an inch, I have tried to turn it into a mile.
On the caregiving note - that doesn’t have to be people. Get a plant that you can nurture, make it’s caregiving a regular habit.
Around turning thirty I got really serious about providing the care to myself that I would provide to another person. I would never say about someone else what my inner narrator said about me. So I started saying out loud the opposite statements, the affirmations, that I would say to someone else when ever that narrator got to yammering.
What is love to you? Seriously, how do you receive love - quality time, words of affirmations, gifts, acts of service? GIVE YOURSELF LOVE! Be intentional about scheduling how you will get these things or have them on standby when thigs are spiraling OR get them for yourself. Do an act of service for future you. Give present you quality time with yourself enjoying one of your preferred activities (I go to a library). Give yourself words of affirmation.
