Coping-Ahead- Planning for the Inevitable
There I am, sitting in my Subaru on a Friday morning, trembling as I pull up my 5-Minute Meditation for Anxiety. My Youtube app is buffering. It is always buffering. Beyond the safety of my car, the dentist office looms. The frosted windows obstructing the horror within. My body crawls with discomfort, fear and unease. My heart is racing, my face is hot and I try to take deep breaths. Yeah, I hate the dentist. It hasn’t always been this way, but over the years, my anxiety around the dentist has picked up in severity.
Some events in life create anxiety that cannot be avoided, overruled or reasoned with. Most of the time, this anxiety makes very real sense. Doctor and dentist visits are an easy example but you might experience reasonable and rational anxiety during travel, work-related tasks, or communicating with a partner. Sometimes life asks us to do hard things, and oftentimes anxiety shows up to support our ability to navigate the event with vigilance and awareness.
We all have personal soft spots that cause disproportionate anxiety responses- meaning the fear is bigger than the realistic/objective danger of the event. In these moments, I try to recognize that I can’t avoid or solve the anxiety, but I can support myself while I cope. I can anticipate the stressful event that I know will be difficult and plan ahead. This is what I like to call a coping ahead plan.
Coping ahead plans are useful tools that help you feel supported and prepared in times of elevated anxiety. In this article, we will discuss what it looks like to identify moments when you might need to cope ahead, how to develop a thorough plan and why it might help ease the intensity of the anxiety.
The first step to approaching our coping ahead plan is to meet our anxiety non-judgmentally. I find that for many people, there is this pressure to change the feeling when it isn’t a pleasant one. Many people want to “fix” or “turn off” their anxiety. I always have to deliver very disappointing news to my clients, we cannot get rid of or fix anxiety. Let’s take a moment to play a tiny, sad violin while this news settles. I’ll give you a minute.
Humans are quite lucky that through our evolution, anxiety has kept us safe, alert and alive. The function of anxiety is much like the function of a fire alarm. It’s an internal system that alerts us to danger or risk. Similar to when you’re cooking and the fire alarm gives you a false and annoying blare, sometimes anxiety responds to stimulus that isn’t threatening in nature. You might need to make a phone call, but your body is preparing you and pumping you with adrenaline to fight a bear. Anxiety does not discriminate, it thinks each stressor is as valid as the last. While we cannot disable the alarm, we can learn to regulate and reassure it when it blares.
Our alarm might encounter a breeze and perceive it as smoke. Rationally, we know it was a breeze but the alarm still believes it’s doing its job. Thank you anxiety, for being so vigilant, and also, I wish you had a software update available.
So let’s get back to our matter at hand, in order to develop a coping-ahead plan, we must first accept and understand that sometimes anxiety cannot be avoided and that is a part of life. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you or you aren’t strong enough to resist fear, it just means your alarm is still working. This is something to be grateful for, even though it is often uncomfortable. The next step in developing a coping-ahead plan is to identify the stressors that you might need it for.
The identification of these events will likely be immediate or intuitive for many people. The situation in which you might need a coping ahead plan has a few defining features. It will bring about anticipatory worry. The event will be accompanied by physical and emotional discomfort for the duration. You also might feel massive relief when it is over. Here are a few examples to help you ground this idea: attending a party where you know few people, getting your blood drawn, traveling to a new destination, trying a new workout class and don’t forget, the dentist.
Once you’ve identified your triggering events, you can move to developing your plan. A defining feature of an event that might need a coping ahead plan is that it can be predicted ahead of time and prepared for. Therefore, we will have time to develop the plan before the event arrives.
There are three main components to a successful coping-ahead plan. The plan should include regulating skills that work for you, clear boundaries that you can enact if you become overwhelmed, and a reward/recovery plan for after the event.
First, let’s talk about regulation skills. Regulation skills are what they sound like, skills to use when you feel activated and need to regulate your body and nervous system. You might already have a tool kit with these skills. Below, I’ve detailed a few of my favorite, trusted skills.
Paced breathing is a skill that physiologically cannot fail. There are lots of patterns to follow. In any pattern you follow, the exhale should be longer than the inhale. Sensory skills are also helpful when in a stressful environment. I often bring a fuzzy jacket, a fidget toy, or an ice pack in my car. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, focus on observing and playing with your sensory object. Ask yourself a series of questions while you fiddle with it. What’s the texture? What’s the temperature? What does it remind you of? You can continue to bring attention to your sensory object and provide a grounded distraction of your brain.
In my example of the dentist’s office, I used paced breathing techniques in the car and while in the waiting room. I used my sensory object while I was in the treatment room and I asked my hygienist to tell me about her exciting new dating life. Don’t tell your hygienist I told you to pry, but the distraction really helped. If these skills don’t align for you, recruit the help of a seasoned psychotherapist to help you find what works for you.
The next part of a solid coping-ahead plan is identifying boundaries that you can enact if necessary. This is a promise you make to yourself that you will take care of yourself and take a break if the stressor becomes overwhelming. In my example, the boundaries I promise myself relate to my tolerance for discomfort. The first promise I make myself is that I will be loud and advocate for breaks when I need it. Having this understanding with myself beforehand means I will be prepared with language to communicate what I need. The boundaries you determine for your stressor will be dependent on your event, however they often will revolve around your ‘exit plan’ or your plan for taking breaks. For further examples, let’s think about attending a party that feels uncomfortable. Your boundary might be that if you feel overwhelmed, you might separate yourself from the group and grab water and some fresh air. You might even decide that your boundary is that you will drive yourself so you can leave when you want. Boundaries give us security in knowing we have a plan to care for ourselves should we need to remove ourselves.
The final part of your coping ahead plan is your plan for reward and recovery after the event. This idea is very much rooted in the traditional image of giving a child a lollipop after getting a vaccine. It’s signaling to yourself that you care about the discomfort and will always make room for taking care of yourself after a hard task. In essence it’s saying: I know this was really hard for you and you were brave to endure it, now I am going to make sure you are tended to for the rest of the day. Similar to the rest of the coping ahead plan, your recovery/reward will depend on your event. After the dentist, I often get myself a big iced coffee and go home to snuggle on the couch with my cat. To me, this is the ultimate reward and recovery. For you, this might have your own personal flare to it. You might want to get outside and ground yourself. You might want to dance out your energy. You might need a lunch date with a friend to talk it out. Use your knowledge of yourself and your stressor to inform how you plan your recovery and reward.
Coping-Ahead Plans can be incredibly helpful for anticipated stressful events that cannot be avoided. They are made up of three parts. Regulation skills, identified boundaries, and recovery and reward. Addressing expectations and having a plan to cope with uncomfortable feelings can help you feel more secure in your ability to take care of yourself. Trusting yourself to manage the stress inherently reduces the danger of the stress. This month, I am hopeful you will integrate this idea into your life. Remember, we cannot fix anxiety but we can master the reassurance of it. We cannot disable the alarm, but we can determine false alarms and reassure ourselves of their innocence.
Thank you for reading this article and I hope you found it helpful! If you’d like to be notified of new blogs, please consider signing up for email notifications. Until I speak with you next, take very good care of yourself.
TLDR; Displayed above are the steps to developing a coping ahead plan so that you can try it out yourself.
