Enhance Your Wellness: Harnessing Inner Strengths for Self Exploration and Development.
Embracing the Unfamiliar
Navigating through a situation either to manage or to survive is a common theme in therapy. There are several misconceptions surrounding coping mechanisms. Some believe that coping skills are only considered as such when they are used in a mystical or commercial manner to navigate a situation positively. For instance, deep breathing to manage an anxiety attack or counting backward from ten to recover from extreme frustration. This blog aims not to discredit the effectiveness of techniques like deep breathing or counting backward but rather to encourage you to explore the various creative ways you can cope or resource within yourself, some of which you may not even be aware of.
A significant amount of time in therapy is spent gathering insight to understand what clients can do to navigate tough moments. Often, goals are centered around shifting behaviors from non-desired to desired. Due to societal norms and pressures, clients may not always recognize that they are engaging in some form of coping. In this blog, I will discuss some common ways that clients have already resourced within themselves.
1. Music
Music has the remarkable ability to immerse you in a moment. It possesses properties that help connect the mind and body, alleviating unwanted or uncomfortable symptoms, emotions, or feelings. Depending on your emotional connection to it, music has the power to help you be resourceful to yourself. Music can help access historical memories and moments that trigger certain feelings and body responses, ranging from relaxation to sadness and excitement. Don’t believe me? Give it a try!
“Create a list of your favorite songs, these will be your go-tos, songs you listen to often or consider notable. After identifying your list, take a moment to spend some time with each song and listen intentionally. Intentional listening involves listening with your entire body, mind, and soul. Allow the music to pass through your ears and imagine it occupying various parts of your body, noticing any tensing or releasing of muscles happening. Notice your judgments of yourself or lack thereof. Most importantly, notice your feelings or emotions and the mental space you have shifted to. How does it differ from where you were previously before you started listening to the music? After the song is finished, document all the things you noticed about yourself and your immersive experience as described above.”
The takeaway here is that your highlighted experience of music happens unconsciously every time. This explains why when a song with a not-so-good memory, moment, or feeling plays, it has the power to dysregulate you. Think about it, how could you change your playlist to help you resource more positive feelings?
2. Movement
Movement is one of the most overlooked forms of coping. Research tells us that movement is linked to many healing properties related to anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. Societal stigmas make certain types of movement and their intensity seem more worthy of doing. I am here to say that all movement has the power to help. No matter what me and a client seem to talk about in sessions, we always shift to a place where movement has had the power to help decrease the intensity of symptoms. Some overlooked movements can look like tapping the tops of kneecaps, fidgeting with a keychain, pacing back and forth, dancing to a song, or even rocking from side to side. All of these are methods of self-soothing and resourcing within. These are moments when the mind and body find an opportunity to align and connect to serve as comfort. Think about how movement as a resource in the way that has been described, in what ways have you been able to connect with movement that helped you deescalate?
3. Connection
The last but certainly not least method that I will cover in this blog is going to be about Connection. Connection and the various ways in which we connect with many sources. Connection according to Oxford Languages is; “a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else”. In my practice, I find that connection is often the foundation of feeling better feelings but it can also be the foundation of feeling not so great feelings. Whichever one it ends up being it is always a gateway to healing. I like to take time with you to explore connection as a means to support and identify the many ways in which it can look. Examining connection often involves thinking about things that have the power to shift the way you are feeling as well as what you are thinking about that in most cases have an impact on your urges. It could feel like a distraction but it could also just feel like a shift in energy and a method of processing a difficult, uncomfortable, situation or feeling. Connection isn’t always about people. Our ability to connect lies within our ability to lean in and be in the moment with something that ignites our senses and demands our attention. Examine your connections by leaning into one and thinking about how it tends to impact your emotions, the things you are thinking about and what you are feeling the urge to do. Then ask yourself “do I like how I feel” and if not “how can I shift my connection habit to feel something else to feel something else”. I have included here a list and it is definitely not finite or exclusive but it is a start to help you begin to examine your connections. Nature Animals Media; television shows, youtube, social media websites, movies, music, radio, podcasts, Literary projects Podcasts, Theatre, Sports, Art activities, Physical Fitness.
