You Know the Drill: Practicing Coping Skills Before You Need Them and Start Benefiting From Them When You Do
Imagine this scenario:
You are discussing a challenge you have been facing lately with your therapist and they provide you with a new handy, dandy coping skill. You both discuss it, practice it, and come up with a plan to continue using it between sessions. You might leave your session feeling great because you have a new skill in your back pocket and you feel prepared. Then, that challenge resurges, you notice emotional discomfort setting in, and you notice your distress level increasing a few notches. You might think back to that new coping skill, but wait.
“What were the steps, again?”
“Was I supposed to breathe before counting or count while breathing?”
“What was that really clever affirmation that my therapist and I came up with that I was supposed to remember?”
“Okay, I’m doing what we did in session, but it isn’t working. I feel the same!”
Suddenly, that hope you felt when leaving your therapy session is gone and the challenge seems just as or even more challenging than before.
If this scenario does not sound familiar, that may be great! You may successfully use coping skills. However, learning to “troubleshoot” coping skills is a valuable skill. Even when you have an entire toolbox with working equipment, you need to be able to know how to problem solve if that needed tool isn’t working as well that day.
If this scenario sounds familiar, you might struggle to find your go-to coping skills or know how to effectively self-regulate during more distressing times. You may also find yourself getting frustrated with therapy or the mentality that you are putting the effort into going to therapy and want to grow, but you aren’t seeing any changes. You would have every right to feel frustrated, but I ask you to consider this statement:
“You cannot practice a fire drill during the actual fire.”
Growing up and even as adults, we have had our fair share of having to stand outside and line up for roll call during a fire drill. At the time, it may seem fun because you can miss class or it is a nuisance because it is taking time from your day, but what is it really for?
It is in case of a fire.
We practice the steps of noticing and managing a fire safely so that should we find ourselves in a building that is on fire, we know how to seek safety. During a fire, our panic sets in, the sirens are blaring, lights are flashing, and our only thought is about survival. How can you know the steps to survival if you don’t practice the steps when your survival isn’t being threatened?
To remember what you do in case of a fire, you need to be in an environment where there are no loud sirens, lights are not flashing, and the risk of interruption outweighs the risk of safety. The same mentality can be applied to practicing coping skills when we are not in a state of emotional distress.
This may all sound great, but what does that mean about finding a coping skill that works?
Well, we first start with identifying what your goal of using a coping skill is.
If we are looking to coping skills as a way to make the emotion go away or make something no longer cause us discomfort, we may need to re-evaluate why we are using a coping skill. However, if we are using a coping skill to find a way to cope with the intensity of the discomfort so that we can tolerate an emotion, we may just need to re-evaluate how we are practicing it.
After you have identified what your coping skill is, why you are using it, and embracing the realistic expectations of its outcome, try first incorporating this new skill into your daily life when you are not in emotional distress.
For example, if you read the ACE skills blog post that I wrote, you may have tried to acknowledge your emotion, connect with your body, and engage with your surroundings. There were a few steps and questions that you needed to remember. So, if you were trying it out for the first time, from memory, and in distress, chances are, it was difficult. Without practice, it will be difficult to acknowledge an uncomfortable emotion while remembering how to connect with your body, and the benefits of engaging with the world when an emotion is dominating your mind, body, and how you see the world.
That is why to effectively use ACE or any other coping skill, you need to practice while doing minor tasks like brushing your teeth or at a red light in traffic. When you notice yourself feeling calm or neutral, that may be the best time to introduce your new skill. You may also want to try it for a few days or weeks before truly looking to it when an emotion or challenge has you feeling like the world is crumbling beneath your feet.
Just like a fire drill, try using the coping skill when you need a break or you feel like you need a switch in tasks. Or, even if you are doing a task that does not require full concentration. Regardless of how and when you practice, make sure you are practicing your emotional de-escalation drill prior to when the distress flames break out. Then, when you find your inner siren blaring, lights flashing, and your emotional survival is in question, you can recall and implement the steps that you practiced more naturally and fluidly.
After all, if you are in emotional distress and/or crisis, your mind already has enough going on and can sometimes feel like it has so much going on, it is spinning out of control. Trying to remember how to regain power of your internal world is one step you can cut out of the coping process.
So, next time you find yourself struggling with a coping skill, try to decipher where the struggle is coming from. With practice, you can tell the difference between a coping skill that genuinely does not jive with you or your way of coping versus a coping skill that has potential, but needs help with application.
That way, when you feel the need for a coping skill, you are already skilled in knowing what to use and how to use it.
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"What’s Wrong With Me? How Do I Cope?”
Ace Your ACE Skills: Use Mindfulness Anywhere and Anytime
What to Do When You're Feeling Overwhelmed, and How to Manage It
Concrete Steps For Managing Your Worry
When You Don't Implement Healthy Coping Strategies Between Your Therapy Sessions
Stress: Effects on Your Personal Life, Mental Wellbeing, and Physical Health
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Interested in Online & In-Person Counseling for Stress, Anxiety, and Coping Skills?
If you’re a Marylander who knows that counseling is the direction you need to take, the therapists at LifeSpring Counseling Services are here to help. We offer online counseling services for mindfulness, depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief and loss. We also offer Brainspotting as a specialized service, and Brainspotting can be done online, too!
Here’s how you can get started! Online and in-person counseling for stress, anxiety, & coping skills aren’t the only services offered at our Monkton, MD office.
The counselors and social workers at our Maryland office also offer counseling services for trauma, grief and loss, boundary setting, communication skills, and difficult life transitions. We also offer specialized counseling services including Brainspotting and spiritually-integrated counseling. Because we are located next to several local universities, we also work with college students and international students.
Written by: Sophie Koch, LGPC
Sophie is a LifeSpring therapist who offers online and in-person counseling services to adolescents and adults (15 and up) to offer help with depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, trauma, and mood disorders.
