Hey, everybody. Welcome to the addiction unlimited podcast, where you get to learn everything you wanna know about addiction and recovery. I'm your host, Angela Pew, c founder of Kansas City recovery, life coach, and recovering alcoholic, To learn more about me, you can listen to episode 0 on your podcast app or find us on the web at addiction unlimited dot com. Hello my friends. I'm your coach, Angela appeal, Life coach recovering alcoholic and entrepreneur. And this is where we talk about life, healing, coping and how to feel better. And you don't have to struggle with addiction to listen to this podcast and get great information from it. I am recovering alcoholic, and my success in sobriety being able to maintain sobriety for the long term, is because I learned life skills. You hear me say being an alcoholic is the best thing that ever happened to me because it was the catalyst that made me get off my ass and take action to change my life. Otherwise, I'd still be sitting around wasting my life away feeling sorry for myself and blaming the rest of the world, for my problems in lazy, it's... But because of my recovery, I got to learn a different way to live I became a life coach. I studied behavior how to create change and the anatomy of habit and all the nuance that goes with having a happy life and being a happy person. Success full sobriety is no different than successful life. It's all about life skills. And that's what I love, whether you are dealing with addiction or not, we all need life skills. So here's the deal today, my friends. I wanna dig into coping skills. People ask about coping skills a lot in my world, and I get the impression that coping skills are largely misunderstood. Meaning, it's 1 of those buzz words or terms that gets thrown around a lot, but there isn't a lot of understanding what a coping skill is. Tools for your emotional toolbox, That's what we're gonna call it. And coping skills really are anything. Any activity that is good for your mental wellness. And I really wanted to start with the dictionary dot com definition of coping mechanism, and then we're gonna get a little bit deeper from there. So dictionary dot com says, an adaptation to environmental stress that is based on conscious or unconscious choice and that enhances control over behavior or gives psychological comfort. That's a lot of words, people. And you know I'm a control freak. So the first place I wanna start is, enhances control over behavior. My goal in everything I do is to help you see how powerful you are in your life to understand that you are responsible for yourself, your life and your choices, and when you get good at making good choices, your life turns into this amazing thing that you love. It is a hundred percent in your power. When you're feeling stressed or angry or hurt, and you don't have any coping strategies, you'll react in a way that does not get the result you want. Like, if your partner says something that hurts your feelings. You don't have coping skills so your your immediate reaction is to hurt them back. Say something mean and insulting because they hurt you, so you wanna hurt them. That response is not going to get a good result, It's gonna cause pain, deeper hurt, anger resentment and the rut in that relationship just got bigger, all because you didn't have the tools to cope with your feelings and control your mouth. Really, that's always my problems controlling my mouth. Always my problem. And think about it the other way, your partner gets irritated with something and says something that hurts your feelings. If you just take a second, and think, and maybe give some grace and forgiveness and think, wow. They must have had a really crappy day to be irritated by that. Maybe I'll just give them some space and we can talk later. If you can just do that, there's no fight Your whole day or evening doesn't get turned upside down with a bunch of unnecessary drama, and you can address it later as a calm human. And what I said right there, that little scenario, take a second and think. That's a coping skill. In 12 steps, we say restraint of pin and tongue, and email and text no, but rest restraint of pin and tongue, just the ability to pause for a few seconds and collect your thoughts and feelings. That's a coping skill. And it's a game changer. Coping skills are things that we can do in the moment, When we are feeling lousy or upset or irritated, disgruntled, whatever the thing may be. That helps us turn down the volume of our emotions, so we don't have to get overwhelmed. Coping skills help us get through the stressful situations with a little more ease. And without doing something, you'll regret later on. What I want you to see is how much power you have here. You can see how big the difference is by you doing the smallest thing. It's not huge action. It's not profound. It's the most simple action of pausing for a moment and making a choice to not react. That changes the outcome of the whole situation. That's how powerful you are. And coping skills aren't gonna solve the deep underlying issues. Okay? Having healthy coping strategies isn't going to cure why you have the anger resentment or general discomfort in life. It doesn't take all of that away. What it does is allow you to create more calm in your life. So you can start to dig into those things and understand them better. Powerful coping skills allows you an entry point to get deeper into what's really bothering you. If I can't cope with myself, and manage myself on a minute to minute basis, how will I ever have the opportunity to dig deeper? That's how I was in my twenties and thirties. I was a mess. I did nothing but react to every stimulus, good or bad. I was reacting all over the damn place. And now looking back, I can see that just reacting to everything, didn't allow me to make healthy choices for my life. When I learned to pause, then seek guidance from my coach and talk things out. Or journal write it all out of my journal, then and only then was my head clear enough to make a good choice. All of those things I just mentioned are coping skills. Pause, seek guidance from a coach or your person whoever your person is, seek guidance to talk things out, write it out in the journal. Those are all coping skills. Here's something else you can start practicing immediately. Non blaming. This is big. Whenever a feeling pops up, most people's immediate response is to start figuring out who to blame. Whose fault is it? Who did what? It's their fault? They did this? If they would have done that instead of this, then I wouldn't feel this way. If that would happened this other way, then I would've have gotten what I wanted and I wouldn't be upset. They said this, so I feel this. They did this, so I feel this. It's always someone else's fault. This is exactly how you give your power away. Again, I want you to see how much power you have in these situations. And if you think like you're a victim, and everything in your life is because of someone or something else, then you give all the power to the someone and something else. Take your power back. The circumstances of your life are a direct result of your choices. Other people and situations are out of our control, but how you respond to them is a hundred percent in your control. You can be a victim, or you can have power, but you can't do both at the same time. They don't go together. So coping skills don't cure every issue you have, what they do is bring it down a notch so you can think about things before you respond. And that takes the edge off the feelings and allows you to make better choices. Different coping skills serve a different purpose too. Relaxation coping skills, calm your body in your mind. They're soothing to calm anxiety. Anxiety has a huge physical response, meaning you feel it in your body. Like, when you get super anxious. I'm sure every... I'm sure you can name every single thing that happens in your body when your anxiety goes through the roof. Right? You can have stomach issues. You can get a headache. Your heart starts racing. These are physical symptoms that you can calm. So if your anxiety is high and you're feeling this stuff, your mind is going crazy, you're feeling the physical symptoms. Then you want relaxation coping skills take a warm bath, have a cup of tea hot tea or calming tea. Whatever tea makes you happy. Do the deep belly breaths that we always talk about, deep breathing. Any kind of deep breathing helps calm your body and your mind, stretch. This is really good. Do some stretching yoga or just simple stretches to alleviate the tension in your body, meditate for a few minutes. All of these are coping skills for calming your mind and your body. Another set of skills are mindfulness skills. This is another buzz word that gets thrown around a lot. But you wanna use these when you're worrying or future tripping as I like to call it. You're worrying about things in the future that may never even happen. Right? That's future. What if I don't get the house? Or what if I don't get the job? What if I don't get the raise? What if I don't stay sober? What if I don't have enough money or the check doesn't get here in time or what if I wear the wrong outfit or I say something stupid? What will they think of me? You know, We get caught up in worrying about situations? That we largely make up in our heads. First of all, if any of those things happen, there's a solution. Right? You figure it out. When you're putting a crappy situation that doesn't go the way you want it to you. Figure it out. That's all. But in this instance when you're worrying, future tripping, you wanna get mindful. All that means is focus your awareness on what is actually happening right now in this moment. Do a quick gratitude check. Right? I can always gratitude list. I'm grateful for my dog. I'm grateful for my bride. I'm grateful for my family. Or if I'm in my car, I'm grateful. I hit 2 green lights in a row, or I'm grateful. My favorite podcast is on. I'm so grateful for this badass, iced chai tea latte in my hand. I'm not really having 1 of those right now, but I did have 1 the other day, and it was badass. I love those things. You just can't have them very often because there's, like, 2000000 pounds of sugar in there. So... But get that gratitude list going really quick. Right? Get? In the moment. What's happening right now? What's around me right now? What am I grateful for right now? Do a short meditation to get focused. You could find... You hear me talk about this on so many episodes, a 2 minute meditation, 1 Youtube 2 minute meditation. Bam. Get in touch with what's happening right now. Do the 54321I think I just talked about this in another episode 254321. Identify 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste. And if you can't remember all of that, you could do my version, which is 3 of each. 3 things for each of your sentences, were 3 things I can see right now, 3 things I can hear right now. 3 things for each of your son. Senses. That's it. And this brings you back to the present moment and not focused on a million things that may or may not ever happen in the future. That's mindfulness. It's just that awareness of the present moment. Next, let's talk about expressing yourself. In these coping strategies. It is imperative that you have safe ways to express your feelings. Any kind of strong feelings you have when they're trapped inside, they're gonna come out in destructive behaviors. Right? Being hurtful to yourself or to the people around you. Feelings are energy, and it needs to come out. This is why people who don't communicate well. They can keep it all together for so long and then they have a huge blow up. That energy is going to come out 1 way or another. You can figure out how to do it to be a healthier kinder human or you can blow up and hurt yourself and hurt the people you love. You know, journal is a healthy way to express yourself. Physical activity like sports or exercise. Go for a bike ride or go for a walk. All of that is a healthy way to ex expand energy. Diy projects around your house. That's great way to exert some energy and release strong feelings or spend a little time learning how to communicate better. So your feelings don't get ignored or bottled up. That's probably the best time you could spend. Just learn about communication how to do it better. Challenge yourself to do it better if you aren't good at it. It's 1 of the most valuable skills in life in every area of your life. And the last set of coping skills I wanna talk about are positive reinforcement, like rewarding. Skills. Right? We have to have fun in our lives. We have to have ways to enjoy ourselves. This is what brings us a sense of meaning and helps keep depression and sadness that bay. Right? You have to have some sense of purpose. Do some positive recreational things. Recreational sports, art, painting, drawing, all of that stuff, photography, gardening, any hobbies that inspire a sense of accomplishment. Right? When you're doing it, you can see it all coming together. I remember. Over the summer, my girlfriend Carrie was telling me we were meeting for dinner, and she's telling me, she's, like, I got really caught up in power washing my deck today. Because it's almost like an addiction. Is that even possible? And I was cracking up. I was like, of course, it is because it's instant gratification and accomplishment because as your power washing, you see what you're accomplishing, you see it working, you see it happening right before your eyes, and that feels good. It's so big. You guys anything like that where you can see it all coming together and you have that sense of accomplishment. Those are really healthy, coping skills. Reinforcement reward all that stuff is so good for us, spending time with friends, volunteering, All of these things lend a sense of purpose and meaning and goodwill. It's hard to feel bad or feel sad when you're engaged in those kind of activities that make you feel good and give you that sense of purpose and sense of meaning. So I'm gonna recap these really quickly because again, I want you to feel empowered. I want you to have that sense of. I can do this. I have power over my life, my choices, my feelings, my reactions, you have power over all of that stuff. And those are the things that are game changers that really earn your life around. Right? So relaxation skills, which are calming your body of mind, high anxiety, you wanna calm. You wanna soothe self soothe. This is a big thing. I think where my skincare stuff comes in. This is a very self soothing activity for me. You know, if I do a mask or by micron needle or steam like anything. It is an act of caring for myself and it's very soothing for my anxiety. So relaxation skills. Take a warm bath, have some hot tea, deep breathing, stretch, meditate. Mindfulness skills. Again, if you are worrying future tripping thinking about the future and you have fear, financial insecurity, any of that stuff, worry and future stuff, then you wanna get mindful, get in this moment, get present with what's happening right now. And that is for me of course, always first, it's gonna be a gratitude list. Like, check myself, check my crappy attitude, and recognize how many things I have to be grateful for at any given moment. So that's the first thing I'm gonna do is a gratitude list. What's around me right now. What do I see that I'm grateful for? What's happening in this moment that I'm grateful for? Or meditation is good for this too. Or the 54321. Right? Think all your senses, see, feel hear, smell taste, and identify those things in this moment and that brings you back instead of future tripping about things that will probably never actually happen. That's mindfulness. And then express yourself find safe ways to express your feelings, let those feelings out, get that energy out from inside of you So you don't do self destructive things, hurt yourself self sabotage or hurt the people around you because oftentimes, that's what we do before we even really hurt ourselves. Right? Is we start picking fights and being mean and being struck in our relationships and friendships and that kind of stuff. So you've gotta check yourself. Right? Learn how to communicate or Like I said, journal, do anything physical, get some physical activity, sports or any kind of exercise. Go for a bike. Right? Go for a walk. Do some Diy projects around your house, anything to get that energy out from inside of you in a healthy way. And positive reinforcement and rewarding skills. Fun fun, fun. That's what I want you to think about here, fun, recreational things, recreational sports. And when I say recreational sports, I mean, go do something that you enjoy with people you enjoy. Don't get crazy competitive and get mad if you lose, Like that defeats the whole purpose. Go, have fun. Do some art, paint draw, whatever makes you happy, photography gardening, any hobby that in buyers, a sense of accomplishment where you can see the accomplishment as you're doing it, you can see it all come together. Spend time with friends. Go volunteer, all of those things again, a sense of purpose, a feeling of accomplishment a sense of meaning in your life, and that makes it really hard to feel bad When you're doing those good, healthy fun things. Okay. Those are coping skills I hope you have a little better understanding of what coping skills are and how to use them. And literally, you guys there are millions of coping skills. Right? Just wanted to get a rundown of kind of the... How I break them down what I use different coping skills for different situations, and give you some ideas to get the wheels turning so you can adapt it to your own life in your own hobbies in your own situation. So we can start having responses instead of reactions, and you can start gaining a little more power and control in your life and what's happening and making better healthier choices. And don't forget if you love this episode and all these coping strategies. Take a minute and share this episode or leave me a review on your favorite podcast app. All of that stuff is so helpful. To me, and I appreciate you guys for taking a few minutes to do it. I hope you're having a fantastic day, and I will see you next week. You've reached the end of another great episode of the addiction unlimited podcast, candid an honest conversation about addiction and recovery. Be sure to visit us at addiction unlimited dot com to join the conversation and access show notes and links to everything we talked about Love this episode, please take 30 seconds to subscribe great and review on itunes to help us improve and give you the information you want. Thanks for listening. See you next week.