Coping Skills Archives - Kate Gegg, AM, LCSW

June 10, 2025June 10, 2025

Anxiety

Anxiety isn’t like other emotions, and we need a special tool kit for addressing it.
Most of us are used to thinking of anxiety the same way we think of our other emotions (like happiness, guilt, sadness etc). Anxiety, however, doesn’t resolve with the same techniques we use for other emotions, and managing it requires a different approach.
(1) Anxiety can be a signal about an unmet physical need (i.e. sleep, food, rest, etc). It can be our body’s way of signaling that we’ve hit a limit or something is wrong. Many of us feel anxious before a fever, during an illness, or in response to substance use or withdrawal. This type of anxiety is relieved by meeting our unmet physical need.
(2) Anxiety can be a suppressed emotion; you’re not consciously in touch with the emotion, but it’s there trying to find a way out. The anxiety won’t dissipate until the emotion is found. You may have no idea the emotion is lurking under the surface (until you find it, then it often feels like it hits you with intensity).
(3) Anxiety can be multiple feelings that we believe are in conflict with one another, and we’re having trouble tolerating the experience of them at the same time. For example, you might be feeling excitement, hope, shame, and guilt together, but instead of “feeling” any of those emotions distinctly, you might solely experience anxiety.
To address (2) and (3) we need to “find” the emotions that are not on your radar, but that you are experiencing, and bring them to awareness. More on this in the body of the post and the comments, but an emotional scan, accessing your emotional lexicon, grounding, and mindfulness can all help bring awareness to undetected emotions.
Sometimes anxiety exists because we (4) are in denial or we are disavowing something: a part of us knows some unidentified truth to exist, while another part of us is invested in keeping that truth in hiding. This tension of knowing on one level and yet being unable to tolerate knowing on another can create anxiety.
In scenario (4), we have to find the truth we “know” by bringing it to conscious awareness. It is only then we can “problem solve” for it. Sometimes we have to find beliefs, opinions, judgments or preferences we aren’t proud of, experiences we wish were not true, or some other undesirable truth that exists for us.
We may be anxious because (5) we trying to control something that cannot be controlled. In this case we need to work on acceptance, often of something we may be tempted to resist accepting.
Sometimes anxiety is a (6) chemical imbalance, and it signals a need for medical intervention (i.e. medications). Even the best coping mechanisms in the world can’t override a significant chemical imbalance when one is present. In these scenarios, it’s time to speak with a medical professional.

We’re all familiar with many of the core emotions: sadness, happiness, guilt, fear – etc. Many of us regularly include anxiety as one of those “core” feelings, but anxiety operates differently, and as such we need to approach it differently to resolve it. There are a lot of ways to cope with and reduce anxiety, but it first helps to understand what it is, which is what today’s post is all about.

Anxiety due to scenario (1) has the most straightforward solution: meet your body’s physical needs (or give it time to recover), and the anxiety will dissipate as your body resets.

For scenarios (2) and (3) we are working on building insight into our emotional state. There are many ways to “find” emotions we aren’t aware we are experiencing, many of which are detailed in the comments. Tips for all the tools in the comments: remember that you may be feeling more than one emotion at the same time, and remind yourself that feelings don’t have to “make sense” (i.e. we can feel excited and guilty about the very same topic, just as we can feel hopeful about something we are also dreading). The more we can tolerate dissonance between emotions that feel conflicting, the more we can tolerate the complexity of our inner worlds.

To address scenarios (4) and (5), (5 is actually just a common variation of 4), we have to build insight into our thoughts and be open to uncomfortable truths (like we might be angry with someone we feel we’re not allowed to be angry with; jealous / envious of someone who we also admire or are grateful for; or disgust toward someone we love, need, or depend on etc.). Finding these truths will help resolve our anxiety (though we may be left with a different but more addressable problem, like ‘how do I deal with my anger towards this person I feel I can’t be angry with).

Arriving at scenario (6) is not a failure, and can’t be avoided in scenarios where medication is indicated. Many people hold questions around “if it’s ‘bad’ enough to merit medication”, or “if medication will change me”, or “if I’ll have to take it forever”. These are all questions best addressed on a 1:1 basis with a medical professional.

Comments:

This post differentiates anxiety from other emotions. Unlike other emotions, Anxiety can be a state of disconnect from your body. It’s not uncommon for people experiencing anxiety to notice a lot of “thinking” but not a lot of “feeling”. This post can help further your understanding of emotions.
Tools for finding buried emotions (scenarios (2) and (3)): First, it may help to center yourself with Grounding. Then a few options for finding your emotions: (a) you can use mindfulness skills to help you connect to your inner world; (b) you can use the emotional lexicon which helps us identify how our emotions feel in us; (c) or another method is an emotional scan, where we run through all the emotions we can think of. Literally ask yourself, “am I feeling guilty? Scared? Excited?” etc. Pay attention to how your body feels when prompted. This is a bit like internal “fishing” where you “bait” your inner world with the word describing the emotional state and hope some inner experience latches on to help you gain increased insight into what is happening internally.
If you have kids, and / or if you’re open to building your emotional lexicon in a visual manner, take a look at the book “the Color Monster”. In the book the monster is “all mixed up” because his colors (which represent his emotions) are all tangled together. Through the book you work to help him sort his colors (feelings) into categories to help him feel better. This process works for kids and adults alike.
Tips for addressing scenarios (4) and (5): Judgments, obligations, and shoulds are often a culprit in having buried thoughts, and it’s not uncommon to find we hold beliefs that hold us back, and need to be dismantled. You can learn more about how to identify a judgment, unpack a judgement , and the problems associated with judgments in the linked posts. Another type of experience that can lead to anxiety is the “shoulds”.
Another tool to help manage anxious thoughts can be found in my thought management tool.
At the root of many of the antidotes for anxiety is the concept of acceptance. Whether it’s acceptance of your feelings, your thoughts, an uncomfortable truth, an unthought known – having the ability to accept is a crucial coping mechanism.
If you are one of the folks out there who manages emotions by stuffing them down, I’m sorry to say your emotions are still impacting you, your relationships, and your thoughts and beliefs.
I mention hitting a limit in the post. Limits can be hard to recognize, and I’ve got a whole separate post to help with gaining that awareness and insight.
A major trigger of Anxiety for many? Social media. Click here to learn more about why social media can be so tough.

June 4, 2021March 27, 2023

Tolerating Trauma

Sometimes the most tragic of stories are the ones we have a hard time finding empathy for.
Instead, we can create distance from the story, person, or situation by finding ways it couldn’t happen to us, in our lives, or in our community.
Sometimes that can look like denying it could happen to or near us.
Other times we create a narrative about how the person participated in creating their painful experience
Something like: “if they had lived their lives differently, more carefully, this wouldn’t have happened to them, and so I can feel secure that this won’t happen in my life because I would be careful in ways they were not”
This is a natural response; we are trying to keep our sense of safety in the world as we know it intact.
While natural and often automatic, it is important that we own it as OUR response to OUR sense of vulnerability and OUR fears that this could happen to us.
Too often, how someone may or may not have participated in the outcome of their situation becomes the focus of the conversation with and about people who have experienced something terrible
While accountability, when due, is an important part of prevention moving forward, we can be tempted to hold someone TOO accountable for their tragedy as a way to help ourselves feel safer in our lives.
There are unfortunate consequences to this style of coping by distancing for all parties. Learn more about the impact of this in today’s post.

Have you ever found yourself hearing a story about something horrible that happened to someone, only to find yourself distracted by your internal effort to look for a reason that couldn’t happen to you or in your life?

Some version of “this wouldn’t happen to me because I live my life in a such a way where I am protected from the possibility of this horrible thing happening here, to my family, or to me”.

Examples include: “My child couldn’t drown in a pool, I would have a gate up.”

“I would never be out that late in that place”

In those moments we are doing something very natural, which is trying to keep our sense of security in our world intact after hearing a story that leaves us feeling profoundly unsafe.
As Bessel Van Der Kolk writes, “We all want to live in a world that is safe, manageable, and predictable, and victims remind us that this is not always the case”.

It is natural for us to want to feel safe in our lives, and having these protective thoughts is ok – and for many of us very automatic. It is important, however, that we recognize when we think in this way it is a response to our sense of vulnerability and our fears that our lives could be shattered in the way we are hearing about.

If we don’t recognize this is OUR protective mechanism, rather than an objective reflection on the situation, there can unfortunate consequences to you, the person sharing their struggle, and your relationship with that person.

If the focus of our response is on how safety could have been preserved if they acted differently we leave a person whose sense of safety has been shattered feeling isolated, and at times ashamed or like the outcome is entirely their fault*.

We can, in an effort to hold on to our sense of safety and order, develop blindspots about threats in our community that could impact someone more vulnerable than us, and eventually us.

Responding in this way to someone’s vulnerability when they share their story shuts off your vulnerability from you AND from them, creating disconnection.

There is no one “the right” way to respond in these situations, but be on the lookout for your own need to feel safe interfering with you ability to hear someone else’s pain or story.

Notes:

Quote is from page 196 of the Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. Full citation: van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
*I do not mean to undermine the importance of accountability when it is due. Instead, I want us as the listener to be on the lookout for our desire to find a way that this couldn’t happen to us. Sometimes we have trouble accepting that someone may truly just be a victim and some times terrible things happen despite reasonable efforts to prevent them.
It is not your job (unless you are a therapist) to tolerate hearing all the gory details of someone’s traumatic situation. Instead be mindful of your own protective mechanisms when someone is being vulnerable with you and sharing their difficulties. It is always ok to hold a boundary around what you feel able to hear and when you feel able to hear it.

May 31, 2021March 27, 2023

Emotional Blocking

Our emotions continue to effect us even if we don’t perceive them
Even if we don’t feel or notice our feelings they can still have a major impact on how we process the world around us
Some of us believe our emotions don’t influence us, and we are ruled only by logic or reason
Some of us know we have feelings, but they slip away and escape us before we can really make sense of them
This post is for those of you who feel like your emotions are far away or hard to hold on to. There will be posts to come to help you sustainably get in touch with your inner world
To get better at noticing, feeling, and making sense of our emotions we need to learn how to turn the volume up on our feelings in a way that doesn’t overwhelm us, but has emotions stick around long enough for us to make use of them.
Emotions are complex, but they involve brain and body changes in a feedback loop. We can learn to tap into that feedback loop to help us be in better touch with our feelings
For those of us that have a hard time registering what we are feeling starting with our bodies is often the more accessible entry point.
Each feeling has combination of body sensations and brain changes that make it distinct. We can learn to pay attention to those body changes and stay present with them as a way to help us connect more to our emotional world.
Remember: if something feels like too much, return to grounding skills.

Thus far I have written a lot about feeling overwhelmed by emotion, the times when we are filled to the brim or feel like we are bursting. For many of us, however, we have the opposite relationship with our emotions, we struggle with not being able to hold on to our feelings; they slip our of reach, or just aren’t there.

At times, it’s not an intentional pushing down or away, it’s just what happens, like the feelings don’t ever really seem to bubble up. Other times it may be more intentional. Some of us have come to believe that emotions are a waste of time, or we we’ve trained ourselves “not to have them” and consider ourselves to be ruled solely by logic and reasoning.

As Daniel Seigel writes, there are consequences to this non-experience of emotions too, “When we block our awareness of our feelings, they continue to affect us anyway. Research has repeatedly shown that neural input from the internal world of the body and emotion influences our reasoning and our decision making. Even facial expressions we’re not aware of…directly affect how we feel and so how we perceive the world.”

In short, what Dr. Seigel writes is that even if we don’t notice our feelings are there, they are. Even though we aren’t conscious of them, they impact us, our decision making, and how we perceive what’s going on around us.

So, for these folks, we want to help you learn how to turn the volume up on emotions in a sustainable way. For that to happen, we need to help you tolerate the experience of your emotions, which have probably been whittled down because at one point they were too painful, or perhaps you came from an environment where they were not welcome.

We can help you increase your ability to notice your internal world by helping you work to be more connected to your body. Emotions are complex, but they involve brain and body changes in a type of feedback loop. We want to help you plug into that feedback loop by being more present with your body. That way we can help you work to notice and gradually hold on to the emotional signals within you.

There will be more on how to do this, but keep your eyes peeled for mindfulness and body based posts to come.

Notes:

The Daniel Siegel quote comes from his book, Mindsight. (page 125). Full Citation: Siegel, Daniel J., Mindsight : The New Science of Personal Transformation. New York: Bantam Books, 2010.
The theory of emotions (the part about emotions being a feedback loop that involve brain and body changes) is a brief summary of what is laid out on pages 87 – 88 and page 137 of Marsha Linehan’s DBT manual. Full Citation: Linehan, M. (1993). Skills training manual for treating borderline personality disorder. New York: Guilford Press.
If you are eager to start working on increasing your awareness of your emotional world run yourself through the exercise of taking some core emotions (anger, sadness, fear, joy, confusion), and sit quietly. Work to pay attention to what happens in your body as you bring up a memory that includes each emotion. Each emotion has a distinct feeling experience in our bodies, and we want to become aware of how those feelings manifest in each of us. Knowing “what” they feel like and “how” it feels in our bodies, and being able to tolerate that feeling helps us become more able to identify and tolerate emotions as they come up naturally in our lives. Be sure you have mastered grounding skills before trying this, it may be overwhelming to start “turning up the volume”. If so, consider starting only with emotions that are more tolerable to feel and get to the more difficult ones once you’re comfortable there.
Wondering why on earth you’d want to feel your feelings – especially your negative ones? Read this post about how are emotions are like “traffic signals” in our inner world .