How Are We Coping?
We are tough, wise, and managing some rough seas. How do we do that? Last week I got too excited and saw how close I was to the edge. I was doing a bad job of “coping”. These days we are all coping, so I decided to give it a closer look.
COPING (dealing with difficulties) is an essential ingredient to maintaining balance in our well-being. We tend to overlook it and focus on the breakthroughs or the breakdowns. “Coping” holds us together.
I am going to introduce some ideas of what is happening when we “cope”. “Coping” comes from our rational thinking and the not-so-rational autonomous input from extensive layers of nerves wrapped all through our body picking up information. We are like well-lit Christmas trees.
Lets start with some often heard words in the therapeutic jargon, and then I will describe three familiar constructs guiding professionals in nurturing the coping process.
COPE- Deal with difficulties, manage a balance, avoid an overly excited response.
REGULATE- Keep our actions and reactions within the extremes.
CONTAINER- Best tool for regulating is having a safe, secure place to hold excitable elements.
Now let me describe three common constructs used to illuminate the build-up of stress requiring us to cope.
Construct Example 1: The Container
Our stresses need to be safely “contained.”
Find a Big Thick Glass Jar container and add these ingredients one by one:
1/2 cup Sand standing for “coronavirus worries”.
1/2 cup Coffee grounds standing for “election anxiety”.
Handful of Walnuts standing for “economic uncertainty”.
2/3 cup Dirt standing for “Racial turbulence”.
3 cups of Water standing for “climate Change catastrophes” and “General Anxiety for family” It is getting full!
3 ice cubes standing for the cat getting sick and dying. The ice cubes overload the container spilling sand, coffee grounds, walnuts dirt and water all over the table.
Was the sick cat the cause of the overload or was the total accumulation the problem?
Too often modern medicine looks at the cat, not the whole load.
Managing the contents of the container as it fills must be a stronger consideration particularly as it approaches overload. This is thoughtful coping.
Construct Example 2: The Window of Tolerance
Visualize the open area of a window. This clear open space is the emotionally regulated Comfort zone where one is calm, cool, collected and connected. This is where self-soothing and self-regulating is working well. When we dwell in the open area, all is well.
But above the opening is the HYPER-AROUSED area which includes:
overwhelmed, anxious responses and emotional outbursts of anger and aggression.
Then below the opening is the HYPO-AROUSED area which includes
freeze responses that are disassociated, non-present, and disconnected. They include separations from self, feelings, and emotions.
Ideally there is a large safe opening between the Hyper and hypo aroused areas.
Coping is managing to stay in the window of tolerance and not drifting either up or down losing control of the state of arousal. Often the prefrontal cortex representing higher cognition and planning is needed to stay in the window of tolerance, but sometimes it goes offline, and individuals feel pushed up or down away from a controlled state of arousal.
Construct Example 3: The Triunne Brain –
This is based on the idea that different brains developed as Homo Sapien evolved. Now there are three separate brains operating at different levels of sophistication and sometimes in conflict with one another. They include:
1- The early Reptilian brain (primitive brain) was responsible for arousal, homeostasis, and reproduction.
2- Later the Limbic brain (emotional brain) evolved with learning, memory and emotion. The Fight or Flight capacity gave direction to intense emotional responses.
3- Finally the Prefrontal cortex (smart brain) added conscious thinking and self-awareness providing a more executive overview for rationally evaluating a situation. Sometimes the Reptilian and Limbic response blocks the more measured cortex. Balance is tough without it. The Cortex is essential for rationally maneuvering away from hyper or hypo arousal conditions. Coping is undermined when rational thinking vanishes as the cortex (smart brain) is forced off-line..
ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, PANIC ATTACKS, AND TRAUMA are all results of imbalance and overloading beyond the capacity to cope.