Dove's Inner B.E.A.U.T.Y. Podcast

Tears, Triggers and Toolboxes: Navigating Your Inner Landscape

• Demetria Nickens • Episode 29

Share episode

How Can We Create A Personalized Coping Strategies Toolbox That Fits Our Individual Needs And Lifestyle?

Ever feel like standard coping strategies just don't work for you? You're not alone. The latest episode of Dove's Inner B.E.A.U.T.Y. Podcast tackles the crucial but often overlooked topic of personalized emotional regulation. Demetria Nickens, a certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor and Trauma Recovery Coach with over two decades of experience, breaks down exactly why cookie-cutter approaches to emotional wellbeing fall short and how to build something that actually works for your unique needs.

"Only you can tell you what your coping skills are going to be," Demetria emphasizes, challenging the one-size-fits-all mentality that dominates much mental health advice. Whether you're someone who cries when sad or someone who tends to lash out when angry, this episode provides a framework for understanding your natural emotional responses and replacing destructive reactions with healthier alternatives—without suppressing your authentic feelings.

What makes this conversation particularly valuable is its practical, judgment-free approach. Demetria walks listeners through the process of building a personalized emotional toolbox through thoughtful trial and error. From physical outlets like boxing for anger management to creative adaptations of traditional techniques like affirmations, the episode offers numerous examples while maintaining that your most effective strategies will be uniquely yours. The goal isn't just temporary emotional management but true nervous system regulation that restores your ability to think clearly even in triggering situations.

Ready to transform how you handle life's emotional challenges? Listen now to discover how to build coping mechanisms that feel authentic to who you are, rather than forcing yourself into strategies that never quite fit. Your personalized emotional toolkit is waiting to be assembled.

Send us a text

For more information about Dove’s Inner B.E.A.U.T.Y. visit:
https://www.DovesInnerBeauty.com/
Dove’s Inner B.E.A.U.T.Y.
(336) 298-6599

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Dove's Inner Beauty Podcast, where we foster emotional awareness, one individual at a time Leading the way is Demetria Nickens, a certified mental health first aid instructor and trauma recovery coach with over two decades of experience in fostering emotional awareness in others by engaging their mental health awareness in others by engaging their mental health.

Speaker 2:

No two healing journeys are the same. Demetria shares how to build a personalized emotional survival kit tailored to your triggers, strength and daily rhythms. Welcome back everyone. This is Garfield Bone-Caho slash producer, back in the studio with Demetria Nickens, certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor and Trauma Recovery Coach. Demetria, how's it going? So far, so good. So, listen, how can we create a personalized coping strategy toolbox that fits our individual needs and lifestyle?

Speaker 3:

So, when you think about a coping skills toolbox, when you think about just having things ready to use, right. When you think about a toolbox in general, right, your regular toolbox, your wrenches, your things like that right. So this idea that you have something ready to use when you need it. But if you never understand or never know, right, when you need to use a tool, then you won't have a toolbox ready to use. So, for me, the first step is being able to notice what's happening. Right, you have to know what is going on. When you are sad, do you cry. When you are angry, do you throw things? When you are, um, uh, jealous, you know, do you bust windows out the car? Right, whatever it looks like, right? Um, being able to know yourself enough to know that when there's a specific emotion, what is your natural reaction? That kind of comes next, because you want to be able to tailor that reaction with a coping skill. You want to match this up, because if you don't, if you notice, but then you never do anything with noticing, then you're just going to still do the same thing. So feel however. You need to feel whatever it is right, so you can be jealous, but we don't want you busting windows out of cars, right? So it's necessary that we understand that, okay, feel the jealousy, it's okay. It's okay to feel the jealousy, but what are we going to replace that instant anger with? Right? What are you going to replace that with? And you replace it with a coping skill right. What are you going to replace that with? And you replace it with a coping skill right. You replace it with something that says, okay, I'm not going to do this negative reaction, I'm going to do this instead. So does that look like? I'm going to go to a fitness gym and I'm going to box? Right, I'm going to sit there and I'm going to do some boxing, because that's going to help me release whatever this anger is that I'm feeling? I need to release the anger out on somebody. If that's what you feel like, okay, don't release it out on somebody. Release it out on something. Right, that's what fitness places are for, right, go do Tai Chi, go learn right, some sort of wrestling, whatever. There are many, many physical ways that you can get out that frustration. If you feel like that's what you have to do, right, but do it in a way that's positive, right. So if you never know what it is that, the reaction that you have and how you react, right, then you can't pair it with the coping skill. So sadness, so let's take that.

Speaker 3:

So people say you know I cry and I don't want to be at work crying and it's terrible. Oh my gosh, I have to fix this. Okay, okay, right one, we got to be okay with crying. It's your body saying that you gotta cry and so your body's natural reaction. It's a bodily natural reaction. That's one thing.

Speaker 3:

But if you just really want to stop yourself from crying, there are a couple of things you know that you could possibly do. So there's a technique where if, like, you can raise your eyebrow, like your eyes up, and it's it's not like fully up, but like at a angled spot, and it stops tears. It's really weird but it really works. And this idea to kind of stop the tears for the moment, you know this idea of like slightly looking up and then being able to replace it with a coping skill, because I just need to cry. So at some point I want you to go cry in the corner. Do what you need to do, please get it out. However, if you feel like you have to suppress, please know that you got to find a different coping skill, because suppression is just going to hurt you later. Right, you have to find something else to use. So you know what's that coping skill going to be. You can't just suppress the tears forever.

Speaker 3:

So what does that look like for you? Is that breathing? Is that I'm going to go for a walk? Is that I'm going to look at pictures of the beach, because I know water relaxes me? Only you can tell you what your coping skills are going to be. At the end of the day, what helps you may not help someone else, and so it's important to know what your personal coping skills are going to be. What's in your box? Is it box breathing? Is it grounding? If it is grounding, is it looking at colors in the room? Is it your senses? Is it being outside in the dirt? Is it painting? You have to know right. Is it going to ride horses? Is it being on a farm?

Speaker 3:

Everyone is going to have vastly different coping skills and we have to be like, okay with people finding out what coping skills work for them and what don't. Right, I can tell you all day. I want you to stand in the mirror and use positive affirmations to increase your self-esteem. I can tell you that all day. But if you feel like you sound ridiculous or you look ridiculous doing it, but if you feel like you sound ridiculous or you look ridiculous doing it, then you're going to stop and you're not going to do it anymore, no matter whether or not I tell you, if you stay consistent, it's going to help you. If you feel like you look ridiculous doing it, you're not going to do it. Right? So you have to find what's going to help you. Maybe you're a stickers person, and as long as you buy stickers that say I'm the best or that have those positive affirmations on it, you put stickers everywhere then maybe that's the way you positive affirmation Cool. Find that out, right.

Speaker 3:

What type of person are you? And it takes some trial and error, right? Some people, if they just sit and breathe, that, oh, they love it. It is everything to them. They have their breathing and that just does everything it needs to do. And others, they just can't get used to it, right, like the breathing, it's like it doesn't do much.

Speaker 3:

So it's important that you really try some things out, some trial and error, just as we think about and I mean, I hate to say it like this. But just as we think about medicine, right, medicine can be very trial and error, right, like, is this medicine going to work? Maybe, right, and I'm not downing medicine. If you have to take medicine, I'm not downing medicine. Please don't think I'm saying that at all, but it's very trial and error, and so I'm telling you that coping skills are the same. So, being able to figure out exactly what helps you to feel better as a person are you somebody that just, I don't know, likes to cook? And cooking helps you to relax? Right, be careful with cooking, because once you cook, you eat, and then that can be a thing right but whatever the coping skill is right, you have to figure out like is it beneficial for you?

Speaker 3:

right, because it's easy to do negative coping skills? Right, it's easy to pick up negative ones. It's easy to pick negative coping skills, right, it's easy to pick up negative ones. It's easy to pick up these things that aren't going to be beneficial to us. Right, it's easy to do negative. You know I'm going to go drink at a bar right, it's easy to go do that, it's easy to go. You know I'm going to go be this person and smoke weed.

Speaker 3:

It's easy to do those things and so, but it's not going to be effective for you in the long run, right, and so how can you find coping strategies that are really going to help you versus hinder you and have you doing some more treatment down the line? And so it's important that we really think through what our toolbox is for ourselves, and that starts with understanding our emotion. When we feel a way, what do we do next? What's our next go-to when we feel this way? And is that go-to positive or is it something that's going to hinder us moving forward? And if it's going to hinder us, can we try something else? What does that look like?

Speaker 2:

As you speak. I'm a basketball junkie, so I remember Kobe Bryant one time beating up a chair and I'm like what's?

Speaker 1:

going on there. You know what?

Speaker 2:

I mean, are there like one or two things that generally you know is likely to work for most people?

Speaker 3:

I mean. So when you think about things like coping skills, like you want things that are going to regulate your nervous system so when we are in states that are angry, jealous right, we're in these states of heightened nervous system it's important that we try to bring, like, what's going to help bring that down right to a more regulated nervous system state. So when we think about things to do that like, what are the things that are going to make us, help, make us calm? Is that drawing? Is that you know, like the whole idea of art therapy, right? Uh, writing poetry, um, journaling, right. So if you're like, oh, journal is not my thing, but you feel like you like rap or you like something, okay, well, don't journal, write a poem, right? You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 3:

And so it's being able to say let's take the traditional things and just tweak them a little bit so that it fits who you are and your personality. So maybe it's not I'm saying positive affirmations in the mirror to help me in my self-esteem. Maybe it is the stickers. Maybe it's not I'm saying positive affirmations in the mirror to help me in my self-esteem. Maybe it is the stickers. Maybe it is writing on a sticky note and having them. Maybe you know it's having the sayings on your wall. Like I have a whole word cloud on my wall here at home, and it's because, whenever I look at my wall, I see positive images and positive words and that, to me, helps me right Every single day. When I see love and laugh and live on my wall, it matters to me right, because that's the life I want to live and so being able to see that every day is helpful. So it's being able to say you know what, what's going to help me regulate my nervous system. It doesn't have to be your traditional you need to breathe and box breathe and you need to tell me five things to ground yourself. It doesn't have to be those things. Maybe it's those things, but in a different, tweaked way that personalizes it to you and who you are. So it's the same thing as decreasing the nervous system, but you just tweaked it so it fits your personality and the person that you are. So it's anything that's going to help calm what we call calm you, and it really just means bringing your nervous system back to a state that it's supposed to be in, versus the heightened state that it's in, because when your nervous system is in a heightened state. You're not thinking correctly, like that functional thinking brain is off, and so you wanna get that turn back on.

Speaker 3:

And you get that turn back on by trying to calm yourself down by coping strategies. What are those things that work for you? What does that look like? To calm yourself down? Often people pets people use pets all the time. This idea of emotional support, animals, where that idea come from, it's a coping strategy, this idea that this coping strategy has now helped me do what I need to do. So that's all it is. It's taking things that matter to you. You know, are you a gardener? Do you like flowers, getting in a garden, gardening right being that, things that are going to help you to calm down are going to be the things that are going to be the most helpful in your coping skills basket, in your coping skills toolbox whatever you want to call it that you can pull out when you need it.

Speaker 2:

I mean the way you break it down. It seems like everyone could benefit from this in terms of this being the best versions of themselves, because everybody has, you know, some upper downs and they can have something that will mellow them out. That's non-alcohol or drug related. Right, right, love, it's always been a pleasure. We're all learning here and listening to demetria. You got a lot of good stuff. Listen, you have a. Have a wonderful, blessed day. We'll see you on the next episode.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning in to the Doves Inner Beauty podcast, where we foster emotional awareness, one individual at a time. For a complimentary consultation, visit DovesInnerBeautycom or call 336-298-6599. That's 336-298-6599. That's 336-298-6599.