Coping Skills for Distressing Times

Weeks like this one make my heart heavy.  

Another school shooting killed six people in Nashville. Three of them were children.  

As a mother, my gut instinct is to try to control any situation that could put my son and my family in harms way. I feel a need to protect and survive at all costs.  

As a clinician, I realize that this is me trying to control a world that is inherently unpredictable and is definitively out of my hands. It helps me to break down what I am going through into a few manageable steps. This specific coping tool is called Flexible Mind skills, borrowed from Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or RO-DBT.  

Feel the Distress:  

I start with feeling of distress that comes up when I think about the disturbing event. This means really noticing how the distress feels in my body. I notice the pit in my stomach, the lump in my throat, the heat on my cheeks. I might notice my breath, and whether it feels constricted or shallow. This will look differently on everyone, but most will experience some unpleasant somatic symptoms when they are exposed to painful events.  

As I consider what is coming up for me in my body, I mindfully try to relax, and unclench my muscles.  

Do whatever your body needs to do, to the extent that you want, until you feel more regulated.  

Use Self-Enquiry to Learn:  

Self-enquiry refers to digging into why you are feeling so distressed. It is important to realize that the questions you are asking yourself are probably more important than the answer.  Make note of the emotions, the struggles, the insights, and other times you can remember feeling this way. This will require courage and compassion, particularly when you are considering heinous events like the one that occurred this week.  

Over the last few years, I have noticed a pattern of my clients feeling like they are powerless, and they can’t trust people, systems, or governing bodies. It helps to gently remind yourself about common cognitive distortions, such as all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralizations, mind-reading (jumping to conclusions), and many more. In situations where your brain feels stressed or anxious, it is more prone to cognitive thinking errors.  

Self-enquiry is not something that should make you feel worse. It is a skill that will help you challenge your sense of reality and consider other possibilities. It allows us to slow down, examine our automatic thoughts and emotions, and rechart our course appropriately. Remember to be compassionate towards yourself and your thoughts.  

Flexibly Respond to the Problem:  

Take a deep breath and consider your actions moving forward. Try to respond to the problem in a way that will align with your values, while also being flexible. You might feel conflicting feelings about the school shootings, that is okay. Two things can be true at the same time. Honor your emotional experience with respect but stay flexible and open.  

As always, I recommend self-compassion and introspection during these times of distress in the world around us. It is easy to let the discord and chatter make us feel like everything is hopeless. For many of my clients, the lack of control when events like these occur can feel overwhelming. No one can guarantee any one person's absolute safety. But what we can do is learn to use skills aimed to manage big emotions when they overtake us and respond to them with understanding and flexibility.  

Employ these skills as often as you need to. Take care.

Lynch, T. R. (2018). In The skills training manual for radically open dialectical behavior therapy: A clinician's guide for treating disorders of overcontrol (pp. 58–59). Context Press.