How to Cope In Difficult Times I Stress I Coping Skills I Healing

Hey, everybody. Danielle Thornton here. And I want to talk today about.

How to cope when you're in difficult situations, dealing with just regular stress or dealing with something bigger, like a breakup or major, like a loss.

So we're going to talk today about how to cope. And really, the way you cope is just an extra focus on four areas of your life that hopefully you're focusing on every day. But when you're going through a stressful situation or dealing with something, you're going to put some extra focus on these things. And so the four areas of your life are your physical health, emotional health, mental health, and spiritual health. And so let's start with physical health. We are all very familiar with this. You know, your physical health entails getting enough sleep, nutrition, exercising, getting enough rest as well. And so, you know, and all of these areas of your life are going to intertwine, right? If there's one of these areas of your life that is off, then it's going to affect all of the other ones.

So with the physical health, it's something that we have to take care of every single day. And some of us do a better job of this than others. I know for me, exercise has been one that I have not been doing as much of lately. And so that's an area that I need to work on. But it's also a very common area that people need to work on. And the reason why that's important is you have to move your body for several reasons. Number one, kind of like a car engine, if you let the car sit, the engine isn't going to work very efficiently. You have to get it going and get it moving so that it will continue to function efficiently. Excuse me, but the other aspect about getting your body moving is that everything, all of your motions and everything inside you is energy. And if you have a lot of emotions and.

Things there that are not moving is going to help you get that stuff unstuck. There's a lot of. We'll talk about the emotional health and other tactics there. But moving your body really does help move a lot of those emotions through your body. And sometimes you don't even realize that they're there, but that is really going to help. Nutrition is obviously very important. It affects everything. Sleep is super important. We know that when we don't get enough sleep, our emotions are out of whack. And so if you have struggles sleeping, you might turn to other tools that are helping because sometimes you can't sleep because your mental emotional health is off. And so we'll talk about those as well. But then sometimes you just need a nap, sometimes you need to rest, Sometimes you're going too much and you need to go on the opposite end of things and do a little bit more relaxation too, depending on where you are. And you'll know that in those moments, if you're focusing on your physical health and how to take care of yourself, you're going to notice that. So next, let's move on to emotional health. And emotional health is super, super important, but it's one of the things that a lot of people don't have the skills for, and they don't exactly know how to take care of their emotional health. And the problem with this is there's a lot of misconceptions about emotions out there. And we're taught that we should be, you know, stuffing our feelings down, or we're taught that we have to be positive all the time. And so unfortunately, all of those things are going to hinder you because.

Feeling your emotions is really, really important. They're there for a reason. They're often there to alert you to something that you either need to change within yourself or outside of you, even in your life. Usually, you know, there might be a factor of both of those with that. And so. And so looking at those is really important. Feeling them, not judging them as wrong or bad, because they aren't. And so your emotional health is something that you should really focus on. Like I said, these are all things that you're focusing on all the time, but you should be putting extra focus on them when you're dealing with any stress or difficult situation with emotions, there's a lot of tools that you can use to help do that. You know, sometimes just sitting with them and feeling them is important, but sometimes journaling, you know, a lot of these things are things that I didn't do for a long time and people suggested that I do, and I now do them. And they actually help a ton. You just like exercising. You have to take the time to do it. And so, you know, journaling is one of those that actually getting your emotions out onto paper. And writing can be really helpful. Eft or tapping is super helpful. It not only helps you accept the feelings and recognize the feelings and where you are with them, but then it kind of moves that energy through your body and moves it out, especially if you've had emotions that you've. That have kind of been there for a long time in the background, underlying. And so tapping can be a really important one. Meditation, even, you know, meditation is a way it's probably more in the mental category, now that I think about it, because you're. You're slowing your mind down and giving it space so that you can, you know, kind of see both sides of the coin. But again, on the emotional side, there's a lot of tools that you can do. You can talk to a friend, you can talk to a therapist, talk to a coach, somebody that can, you know, help you process those emotions. Because sometimes having another opinion is, you know, really helpful to someone who knows you well, who knows your strengths and your weaknesses can kind of help you process that as well. Even crying. Crying can be really, really helpful because again, that energy might be stuck. Those emotions are in there. And so crying can be a huge, huge relief and letting that out and just getting it out. And so it's actually a really healthy thing. And then boundaries. Having boundaries for yourself and for your relationships in your life, if you are a parent and you often don't take time for yourself and you don't have boundaries with those that you love in your life, then creating those boundaries so that you can have some space for yourself can be a really huge piece in being able to deal with certain things going on in your life. The third category is mental health. And we all, you know, some of us have to practice this more than others. But if you are finding yourself in a really negative mental space, again, there's nothing wrong with feeling your emotions and paying attention to that. But if you find yourself consistently in a negative mental space, then it's important that you learn the tools to feel your feelings, but then be able to shift out of that. One of the great things that's super important, some people do it automatically, some people don't. Sometimes if you're focused on the lack of what you want in your life more than what you actually have, a gratitude practice is really helpful. You can do this mentally by just focusing on what you're thankful for, but really feeling it and getting into that emotion is important. Or writing down every morning or every night before you go to bed, or every morning before you wake up, write down what you're thankful for or even what you're thankful that you are doing. That's right. Because a lot of times we're so focused on, you know, beating ourselves up and focusing on what we're not doing right that we forget about all the things that we are doing right. So taking five minutes a day to really tune into that and write that down or journal about that can be really helpful. The other thing on the mental health side is looking at your limiting beliefs. What are those beliefs that are not serving you? The beliefs that keep you stuck.

The beliefs that kind of keep you limited in life about yourself or about other people. These are really huge. If you can determine what they are and how they're interfering in your life and then switch them around to a belief that feels more believable and, and you can kind of build up to something that feels really good. But you might have to start small. So determining what those limiting beliefs are is another really good task to help with your mental health. And then if you have compulsions that you're doing that aren't healthy, that you know, make you feel better in the moment but don't help you long term.

Some of those might be, you know, reaching out to other people too much for reassurance or for acceptance and not doing that for yourself. It might be food or alcohol or drugs. For some people it sucks. There's all kinds of, you know, compulsions that people do that, that they feel like you're helping them, leaning on other people too much and not really relying on yourself for that support. These are things that aren't necessarily helping you and they're keeping you from growing. So really paying attention to those is important too. And then really just back to the self talk, making sure that you are really compassionate with yourself. If you're going through a really difficult time. The more compassionate you can be with yourself and patient and non judgmental with what you're feeling, the better. That is crucial, very crucial to healing faster and being able to deal with things a little bit easier. And then the last part that we'll talk about is your spiritual health. And everybody has different beliefs, whether it's God or just, you know, believing in the universe and energy, whatever it might be. There's always a benefit in having faith in something that there's something bigger than you out there that is going to either go guide you or that is going to guide your future. And so really tuning into that. I also think that on a spiritual level it really is about tuning into your higher self, which for me it feels different for everybody when you really tune into this. But for me it just feels like me, but like up here, kind of above my head. It's kind of strange, but that's how I think about it. When I think of my higher self, it just feels like me a little bit higher up here. And I can kind of tune into that when I'm dealing with confusion or I'm dealing with uncertainty, or I'm not Sure. What to do about something, or even if I'm just feeling down, whenever I can just kind of tune into that and ask myself, what would my higher self say? What would my higher self want me to do? Or just tune into that. If I'm struggling with something, there's always an answer there. It's very clear, it's very compassionate, it's very loving, and it's a great tool that we can all use when we're kind of struggling with indecision, not knowing what to do or that we do need some comfort in our lives. And then meditation again, meditation can fall into emotional, mental, physical. Because you're. It's a physical act. It's something that we, a lot of us resist. But if you can take a couple minutes a day. I personally like guided meditations because I have that. That voice. Sometimes there's music there that guides me and just, it's. I'm able to listen to something that is calm and soothing and positive. And that's really crucial for me, I think mostly when I'm struggling to go to sleep or if I have something on my mind. Listening to a guided meditation before I go to bed, it always calms my mind, puts me in a more positive spot, and helps me to really just have more positive affirmations and things going on in my head versus the negative. And that will definitely help you with your sleep. It'll help you with, you know, dreams. If you're having nightmares, it'll help you when you wake up the next morning. It's super helpful. But all of these tools, you know, you can. You can practice one, you can practice all of them. I practice them, you know, kind of intertwined and they've been really crucial. But the key is just to take those steps when you are dealing with something difficult. When you're stressed, the holidays can be difficult.

So taking the time to really take care of yourself again, all these are things that you should be doing most of the time. But you really want to hone in on these when you're going through something difficult or stressful. And you'll start to learn what works for you and which tools that you enjoy better. And you might go back and forth from one to another.

But hopefully this helped you when you are dealing with stressful situation or trying to cope. If you have any other thoughts or ideas that you use when you're coping with something difficult, definitely share those down in the comments. And actually, I just had one pop up which is even more important, which is having fun, you know, make sure that you want to feel your feelings, you want to deal with all this stuff, but you also have to have fun. And so schedule time to go for a walk, schedule time with your friends, plan a trip.

Really make sure you're. You're intertwining all this with, with things that bring you joy and happiness, because that's really where it's at, right? And so if you have any comments, questions, definitely post those below. Make sure you subscribe to my channel so that you'll get more information just like this. And if you enjoyed this video, also click like and I hope you guys have a wonderful day. Bye.