The Strategies We Use to Get Through: How We COPE

From episode 2 of In Our Skin, listen on Apple or Spotify.

I have to say that it has felt nearly impossible to choose which subjects to focus on for these first few episodes because there is so much that I want to share and too much that feels valuable. What I landed on for today feels just right. It sets a foundation for the rest of what we’ll discuss moving forward.

Today we're talking about the strategies that we use to cope. We're talking about these strategies to understand why we do what we do. The big idea: I want you to know that you make sense even when you might find yourself doing something that goes against what you want for yourself.

There just might be a logical explanation for it. It's all too common that the women that I work with are at odds with themselves, with their choices, their behavior, and even more so with their bodies. Often I see problems getting reduced to the body.

“If only my body would change, I would be happier, more, loved, more accepted, more successful.”

While beliefs like these are all too common, they tend to be subconscious. Beliefs like these keep many women on the hamster wheel of restriction and self-judgment.

Whether it's our body we want to see a change or our behavior, the desire for a change of some sort is typical. Change can be great for us. I'm all for growth and expansion. It's the approach that I'm concerned with. I see so many women feel down, being hard on themselves, and getting stuck because of it. Change is something that most of us aspire to in some area of our lives. Unfortunately, feeling stuck is also a nearly a universal experience for the women I work with. Similarly, feeling confused about being stuck is more than common. I hope that today you'll walk away with a new perspective on yourself, why you do what you do, and what might keep you stuck in the patterns you'd like to change. We're going to go beneath the surface, so let's dig in.

For most people, when I ask them how they cope, they initially have to pause and really consider, so take a moment to do that for yourself right now. How do you cope? What do you do to manage tough feelings, difficult experiences, and challenging thoughts?

Here are some common responses: Call a friend. Take a walk, a breath, a bath journal. The list goes on, and I love this list, but let's look at some of the things we might not have identified. Here's another example: Stew, think repeatedly about the said stressor, try to avoid by busying oneself, watch tv, eat, repeat. Though I say this tongue in cheek, I want you to notice if you feel yourself wanting to judge the second list because you're not alone. And I have to tell you, the second list is more common and more likely for most of us, and it's not bad. There's nothing wrong with stewing because it means that we're trying to figure things out. There's nothing wrong with watching TV. We might be trying to change the channel in our minds. Eating can actually be taking care of ourselves.

While there's nothing wrong with any strategy we use. Some of them are going to lead to actually riding out feelings, addressing problems, to feeling better while others might lead to avoiding prolonging or putting off. And I have to say, there are times to come back to things. There isn't always a good time to go through the feelings of a certain experience or to express certain feelings. At times it is functional to set things aside and come back to them in a different way, at a different time, in a different place, or with different people.

Coping can be challenging and having a strategy that works around all people and all environments is very difficult. So it makes sense that we might lean into strategies that aren't as adaptive or maybe they aren't the wisest strategy that we have in our toolbox. But they make sense.

And most of us are coping and using strategies. We don't even recognize what we're using. Here's why. When we pair a response to a thought or feeling with an action to address it, say, feeling profound, sadness, and eating ice cream, they can become wired together in our brains, creating a neural pathway, and this brain pathway can be strengthened if this is repeated.

So the sadness might not even be so profound anymore, but the tracks are laid in our brain and now our mind and body begin to respond. So it looks something like this. Something triggers sadness, perhaps our friend canceling plans, and the feeling registers and our body and our brain as something we've experienced before.

Sadness and your brain, if it were a cartoon, would say, oh, we've felt this before. What do we do? Cue ice cream and an [00:06:00] impulse would be sent Compelling you toward the old familiar freezer Now, You might have patterns that aren't related to food. And this is just one example I can give because it was mine.

 I had a loss that was profound in my life. And when my father didn't know what to say to console me or to help me understand grief, he brought me a bowl of ice cream. You know, this is not bad again. And if I'm not doing that every day eating ice cream when I'm sad sometimes. Might not be dysfunctional, it might not be something I need to be concerned over or to judge.

So use the examples today, loosely, but understand that this is why some of the patterns that we have have set into place. The strategies we repeat are more likely to repeat eventually, automatically.

In the case of trauma, the effect can be more profound as if the tracks relayed overnight and the patterns can repeat from [00:07:00] that moment forward.

For example, if a trauma leaves us with a profound sense of feeling alone, When we feel alone the next time we might automatically go into whatever patterned response or strategy we developed at the time of the trauma.

It's not just feelings that cue us in these ways. Time of day can have the same effect, the same pairing effect, and the same cue and trigger effect for our brain and a response. For example, if it's 8:00 PM and you're sitting down on the couch to watch your favorite show, that. Settling in for the night.

That time in your routine in your evening can begin to get paired with something. It could be watching TV or it could be that you've also paired that with having a snack. You might find yourself feeling that you're hungry then, but it also might be that it's just an automated pattern and that.

The time of day is triggering it. What we also have in there is an [00:08:00] environmental cue. So in that same example, just going and sitting on the couch in your living room might have been paired many times with the same pattern behavior, and now it might be automated. Here's when to consider have you ever walked into your kitchen to grab something like a pen, but found yourself looking in the fridge before you realized you were doing it? That's an environmental trigger because you've walked into the kitchen so many times before and opened the fridge. That's what your brain, your mind, and your body have been trained to do.

 You didn't think, I'm going to look for the pen in the fridge. You found yourself in the fridge and had to go back to the idea of getting a pen. Some of this is really automated. We'll find ourselves compelled to do things without thinking mindfully or choosing mindfully to do so. The good news is that we can automate really helpful practices, patterns, habits, and behaviors too, and you'll learn about that later.[00:09:00]

 I want you to consider this the last time you found yourself coping in a less-than-helpful way. Did you actively choose to do it or might it have felt automatic? I want you to pay attention this week. You might be surprised by what's happening without you meaning to sign off on it.

 Increasing your awareness of these patterns can change that.

 So here's where I'm going to ask you to switch the language up a bit so that we don't slip into a discussion of good coping and bad coping because the judgment will do more harm than the coping. Let's start to look at all of these as strategies.

 Strategies are the things we did, and some of them we still do to manage difficult, uncomfortable, and unfavorable situations. Many of our strategies developed when we were young and we didn't know a whole lot about coping. And if you're like me and most of the people I work with, there might not have been anyone teaching you how to manage this stuff.

[00:10:00] So as a kid, you might've found yourself fumbling through making it up as you went along.

Now that we're grown, we might want to change up some of the patterns, those neural pathways in our brain that have been using the same strategies that might not be serving us any longer. I have to say here that we'll be coming back to this in future episodes because it becomes really important to understand that while these things might not be working for us anymore, while they might be doing more harm than good, At one time, they were all we had and they were the best we could do with the hand we were dealt.

So go easy on yourself here, and deal with a quick summary. We develop strategies sometimes without meaning to repeat them, our brain internalizes them and begins to automate firing for us to repeat the strategies and voila, patterned behavior is born. And if you're listening like so many are because you want out of the patterns you've found yourself in.

That's why [00:11:00] this podcast is here. And if you want new strategies to cope, listen on, and at the end I'll be sure to give you some resources.

 By the time you're done listening to this episode, I hope that you feel a little bit better about the patterns you might be judging yourself for right now. You walk away with a new way of looking at what you have been struggling with.

You might be asking yourself still. Why do we do the exact thing we are trying not to do? Challenges with food are a big reason. People come to me. Whether it's restriction, bingeing, purging, feeling that they're overeating or simply feeling out of control. So why is food almost universally challenging? Maybe it's because we can't really escape all the messaging around it and I'm not talking about ads. We received messages, both direct and inferred from our families, their routines, and rituals growing up. From the observations we make of adults in our life when we're young.

And as we grow from the [00:12:00] opinions of our friends, the directives of our coaches, the influence of our coworkers. Basically, everywhere we go. Food might represent your grandmother's love, your mother's shame, your best friend's insecurity, your coach’s judgment and your coworker’s newest diet.

You get where I'm going with this. And we can't manage all of these conflicting messages. Without some pretty good strategies to manage the thoughts, feelings, the behaviors that we have around food. It makes sense. Doesn't it? The list of strategies related to food is too vast to cover, but here are some examples. It could look like skipping meals or constant snacking cutting out foods that you feel are bad foods. Taking on a diet that doesn't seem like a diet to try to restrict or contain or control, like choosing veganism, but maybe for the wrong reasons. Calorie counting. Purging. Exercising to compensate for what you ate. Measuring food, logging food, and [00:13:00] an app to get reinforcement or a sense of control. Hiding food. Throwing food out, cooking for everyone else. Cooking and not eating overeating certain foods. When you feel certain ways. Eating to numb or detached or dissociate thinking about what you're eating all the time, thinking about what you aren't eating all the time, thinking and adding and calculating and planning constantly. Checking with others, checking your body, weighing yourself. Okay.

I think that's enough. If you do any of these things, you are still an amazing person. You just are stuck in a pattern with a strategy. That's probably causing some harm, but you're an awesome person. And I'm glad you're here. And there are a lot of strategies that have nothing to do with food. They could still be what we're using to cope with our beliefs around food or our body, or they could be about something entirely different. We have strategies to manage any difficult beliefs that we have. We have [00:14:00]strategies to manage anything that we don't feel like we can fully manage or contain or control. We have strategies to cope with our thoughts and literally every feeling that we have that is difficult for us to experience. So know that this isn't just about food.

There are a lot of strategies and things that we do that might do harm in the long run, but that might be working for us in the moment. Those might look like people-pleasing. They might look like pouring wine instead of meditating, lashing out. When we wish we were pausing and taking a breath. Or eating. One big reason. Coping with food is something that's easily reinforced by the brain's reward system. So if we keep eating ice cream, when we're stressed our brain wires itself to seek out the behavior, whenever stress arises. It becomes a cycle. Stress triggers the craving and you eat to cope with it. And then that eating makes you feel better, at least momentarily.[00:15:00]

We'll have a full episode on neurochemicals and the brain's reward system.

 What's another reason we do the exact thing we're trying not to do? Often these things are so ingrained. We don't even recognize where they came from or why they're there. Things such as social and cultural factors can play a role in the development of our patterns of eating. So this contributes to our relationship with food.

If you grew up in an environment where food was used as a reward or a comfort, it becomes learned behavior. You might've seen family members reaching for certain foods in tough times, and that can become a part of your coping toolkit too, without you meaning to accept it.

Let me shine a light on another challenge I often encounter when we're exploring, moving away from food as coping.

Our minds and bodies are usually cool with known discomforts. I know that that might sound odd, but I think we've all experienced it in one way or another. Change comes with trade-offs. [00:16:00] Waking up early might allow for more chill time with coffee time alone, or time to get in some movement. But sleep does sound better. Even when we know the stress of running late and rushing to get out the door.

So we repeat the old strategy of hitting snooze, maybe a few times. factor in those times of day and environmental cues, we were talking about before, and to seemingly simple change, like this can be truly challenging.

For example, the sun might not be up yet. In that cozy blanket you can pull over your head is right there. All of the makings for repetition of behavior surround you.

It can be really hard to do it differently. At least at the start. Yet. , I think we all know that the change we want for ourselves has benefits that outweigh the short-term pleasures.

Our new strategies can become second nature, just like hitting snooze. Once we get there a new way of being as [00:17:00] easily reinforced. It's just getting there that we can't shortcut.

What we want for ourselves tomorrow is never as powerful as what we want for ourselves right now.

It is much easier for us to accept the discomforts that could come tomorrow and stay in the familiar patterns. We know so well,

The new and unfamiliar can feel Chuck full of threat as if the potential for suffering is much higher than staying in the current cycle of whoa. This isn't me being dramatic. This is true with the experiences like for most of us. Our stress response is activated not only by the presence of a threat but by thoughts of something being hard, unpleasant, and challenging.

Trying to do things differently can truly put us into fight or flight or leave us frozen.

Even the strategies that we consider maladaptive can bring us temporary calming soothing avoidance of another stressor, or they can get us out of anxiety, and bring joy or pleasure. Feeling fear of change. Fear of [00:18:00] failure. Believing that you can't do it perfectly or that you shouldn't do it at all. Waiting for the perfect moment.

Avoidance is a strategy. Perfection is a strategy

And even though they can create a lot of stress. They might be our primary strategies right now.

there are so many reasons that we struggle to change the way that we cope. So, what do we need to manage this? We need a new way of looking at our challenges, our patterns, and the places we feel stuck.

Once we have a better, more accurate understanding of ourselves. Then we will know what to put in place to get us where we want to go. Then we'll need new strategies and approaches that anticipates the challenges instead of judging them. We need to learn how to self-regulate, that's how to manage the waves of feeling that we have when we're doing hard things.

When we want to tolerate difficult feelings when we want to detach from unhelpful thinking and learn to find new [00:19:00] focuses.

Here's what I want you to try instead of the old ways of judging. And frustrating moments when you feel stuck, ask yourself. Could it make sense that I'm doing what I'm doing? Could it presently be bringing me some soothing or relief, maybe joy? Maybe it's helping me numb or detached from something, something harder.

Try looking at it, neutrally having curiosity. Why does it make sense that I'm doing this? What function might this strategy be serving?

Asking yourself. These questions can help you build a new level of self-understanding that can springboard change. It shows us how we're coping now so that we can cope differently soon.

By paying attention by practicing seeing what's happening around us. When we're doing what we're doing with new eyes. We get a new understanding. Doing this without self-criticism and self-judgment is the best thing any of us can do. [00:20:00] You won't believe me likely until you try it. If you're deep in the muck and mire of self-judgment, start with catching and just releasing. Notice what you're judging and release it. Let it go and refocus on what you're trying to do. do. the next best thing.

What we're trying to understand is what's causing the pattern to repeat.

To do so. We have to notice how we feel before we do the things we do, and what our state of mind is like. What triggers and cues, might've set things in motion.

You'll start to notice why you use the old strategies. What kind of state of mind and body you were in, or that you were trying to get into? You'll start to notice how much you might be judging, criticizing, or vilifying your strategies. This will not help.

Eventually, you'll begin to see more clearly the kind of harm that comes of all of this self-bullying; It slows us down it doesn't speed us up.

Without adjusting our strategies without understanding the underlying causes and the roots of the behavior. We tend to drift right back into the old ways of being. The old self protections, the old ways of managing life stressors of soothing ourselves. It makes sense. It's not a bad thing. It's just a sign that we need something else.

I believe that for change, to be lasting. Doing this work is the best thing we can do. It's the way to truly heal. And it's a way to build real trust in ourselves. When we go the route of white-knuckling forcings of bullying, we also hold onto the belief that we can't trust ourselves. That we don't have control.

 Not only do we hold on to beliefs like this, we're often reinforcing and strengthening them. Beliefs like these are at the core of the work I do. And you will learn a lot more about them as we go. If we want to stop doing [00:22:00] one thing, but we haven't built another strategy to replace it. Aren't we just asking ourselves to white-knuckle it.

Expecting ourselves to do something that might be unreasonable because we've skipped the step of creating new ways to manage those feelings, those thoughts, or experiences. To replace those pattern neural pathways in our brains with new pathways. I want to help you learn new approaches to take new perspectives and to gain new methods for change, to make a difference in the way that you see yourself, the way you feel in your body, and the way that you live your life.

Thank you so much for reading along. I am so glad you are here. Until next week, take care.