skills Archives

Cycles and Triggers: An Overview

We can learn to manage our cycles and triggers and influence their impact upon our mental health. Doing so helps us get to a place of peace.

Ways Our Support Network Can Help Us

What we see as sufferers is not always what you see as our support network. You have an opportunity to help us significantly in our recovery journey.

The Grieving Process: The True Stages

When we suffer a loss, we go through a grieving process. You may be surprised to learn the true stages of grief and how we experience them.

Mindfulness As a Tool to Overcome Emotional Numbness

When we are numb to our emotions, we lose control of our environment and feel disconnected from those around us. Getting back in touch with our emotions helps us accelerate our return to mental health. Mindfulness is the key to uncovering and rediscovering our emotions.

Meditation As Part of a Self-Care Plan

Meditation. It’s one of those words that brings up instant reactions for most people. For many, it brings with it a sense of spacey-sounding music and chanting. For others, there is an association with religion — particularly Taoist and “Eastern” philosophies. In reality, meditation is simply the practice of being still.

Coping Strategies: What Are They?

We hear a lot about coping strategies, and it’s not always clear what the term means. Eating better? Exercise? How are “coping strategies” different from “daily self-care?” Do we use them differently? All good questions. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Positive Coping Strategies: A Better Way of Living

Positive coping strategies help us handle the bumps and bruises life sends us. For some of us, using positive strategies doesn’t come naturally. Maybe we’ve tried before, with mixed results. We may even be afraid to change the way we respond to situations, because it could have impacts that we are not prepared to handle.

Negative Coping Skills & Shame

2 comments

It’s almost a given that those of us living with mental illness have and use negative coping skills. Often, we know exactly what they are, too. I’ve sat in more than one group reading off a list of negative skills and with quiet nods of agreement all around me. Where they enthusiastically check off items on a list of positive skills we can try, the negative list is often left blank.
The color of shame.
The reality is negative coping skills exist for a reason. Somewhere we’ve learned them, for some reason we’ve developed them, in some way they benefit us. Understanding what these skills are, how we likely developed them, and what they do for us is important work if we want to learn how to live a better way. A healthier way. A less destructive way.

The Importance of Routines to Our Mental Health

Routines—we all have them. Some of these routines are intentional – such as the bedtime routine – and others are ones we fall into. Routines are important for all of us; they create predictability and provide comfort. As we look at establishing healthy routines, we’ll provide a list of five steps to help us identify and tweak existing routines, and to build new ones.