A free online resource for coping skills is Therapist Aid for which you are encouraged to explore.
Journaling
A common first tool in therapy that should be utilized whenever a person is struggling to organize their thoughts, track their insights, or determine next steps. Journaling allows a person to reflect on what has been written, edit language that is designed to project plans and express oneself, and more accurately recall previous thought processes.
If you are new to journaling and struggling with coming up with prompts to reflect on each day, consider using grateful.org as a resource.
Clients are welcome to email journal entries but should know that unless prompted in their communication there will be no response directly to the messages received as feedback is typically given at the next scheduled session.
Mindfulness
The practice of mindfulness is related to meditation and finding space for one’s own mental process to organize, relieve, and orientate one’s thoughts, feelings, and mental obstacles. Mindfulness skills are the foundation of DBT and work to create small pockets of time in your daily life that orient you to your surroundings, subjective and objective senses, and intentions.
A free article with starting points in several techniques of mindfulness can be found at Positive Psychology for which step-by-step instructions are granted.
A free tool for meditation is Insight Timer which grants you a timer, background music, and a library of guided meditations that can be helpful in exploring options for personal practice.
Grounding
Affirmations and language that orientates a person to reality can be used when a person is feeling disconnected from their sense of self, place, or time. Similarly one can use the senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, smell to clarify the orientation of where a person is and affirm some degree of certainty, potentially safety. Grounding skills are important to maintain contact with reality and to help establish a sense of safety or control over perception.
For structured activities to help ground one’s self, please review this article from Therapist Aid.
Radical Acceptance
A cognitive exercise designed to help one accept the reality of what has been experienced with neutral compassion to the feelings experienced in order to project a pathway forward or in order to reduce the degree of distress the event has. This coping skill is relatively advanced and often requires direct coaching to customize and navigate language in ways that holistically meet your needs. It is a skill that when practiced effectively can help to reduce impulsivity and reactive self-soothing that risks engagement with target/problematic behavior.
A starting point to the structure of radical acceptance can be found here.
Music
Finding the right music to listen to and taking the time to actually enjoy the art can be a wonderful tool to help cope with multiple forms of distress. It is important to select music that creates an ambiance that is conducive to your mental health, aids in cathartic release of emotion, or soothes distress. Mindfully choose your music.
Empowerment:
When feeling small and lonely:
To cry and cope with trauma and loss:
Surviving Vulnerability:
Love Song based on Greek Mythology found in Plato’s Symposium
Just for Fun:
