Session 152: Building Your Coping Kit

Published Apr 22, 2020, 7:00 AM

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

When we feel overwhelmed by our emotions, it can be helpful to have some things on hand to assist us in letting the emotions pass. In this episode I'm sharing 5 items you might want to include in your coping kit and how to use it effectively. 

 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Support for today's podcast comes from Causebox. Causebox is a beautiful quarterly subscription box curated by women for women that is filled with all sorts of amazing products and brands that are ethical, sustainable, and have a positive mission to give back and make the world better. Every Cause Box is limited edition and comes with six to eight full size products, including everything from skincare and jewelry to homewares and accessories. Each of the last four boxes sold out in only a matter of days. I got my own sample box a few weeks ago, and a few of my favorite things from it are a beautiful pink vegan leather portfolio to keep my notes and stuff together, and a jade roller, which has become one of my new favorite beauty products. Each Cause Box also comes with an exclusive magazine that tells the story and mission behind each product in the box. The Cause Box ships for free and is in beautiful packaging, making it a very nice surprise for the special people in your life or for yourself, and of course I have an exclusive discount just for y'all. Go to causebox dot com slash Therapy for Black Girls and use the code Therapy for Black Girls to get your first box for thirty percent off. As in, you can get your first box worth over more than two hundred and fifty dollars for less than thirty nine dollars. Grab your box today and then let me know which products you love the most. Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for Session on two of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. In last week three, for Thursday Chat, I talked about how to manage dealing with a breakup in the midst of COVID nanteen. One of the strategies I talked about was building a coping kit, and I thought it would be great to share more information about that here on the podcast. So the basic idea behind a coping kid is having a collection of things all together in one place that can be useful to you when you're feeling overwhelmed by emotions and need some ways to distract yourself. When I do this exercise with clients, I typically suggest they either purchase a nice decorative box or spend some time decorating and beautifying a box that you already have at home. Decorating the box can actually be a really meaningful and fun part of the process. The purpose of having the box is so that all of the items in your coping kit will be together in one easily accessible place. It's also important to note that it's probably most helpful if you build your kid before you really need it, so that is there for you when you do. Now that we have our box all taken care of, here are a few things you might want to include in it. Number one a journal. You've likely heard both myself and guests on the podcast discuss how helpful they can be to have a journal to write down how you're feeling in any given moment. It's especially helpful in tracking any patterns that might exist in your feelings and can give you information about potential triggers that might need to be attended to. I want you to try hard not to approach the journal as an academic assignment. It's not at all supposed to be that. Feel free to write in bullets, draw pictures, whatever helps you to get on paper what's currently happening for you. The second thing you might want to include in your box is some kind of puzzle or puzzle book, something like a word search book, maybe a collection of crosswear puzzles or other brain teasers that you've enjoyed in the past. Your coping kit is not the time where you want to try some kind of puzzle that you've never done before that will leave you feeling frustrated and upset. That's not at all what we're going for here. You want to include some kind of puzzle like activity that you've enjoyed in the past and might enjoy doing again. The third thing you might want to including your coping kit it's something that you can hold in your hand, so maybe something like a stress relief ball, some silly putty, or some play dough. Having something that is tactile that engages your sense of touch can be really helpful. In grounding you in the current moment. The fourth thing you might want to including your coping kit is a playlist of your favorite songs or podcast episodes that have typically made you laugh or made you feel good in the past. It would be helpful to go ahead and make the playlist on your phone or whatever device you typically listen on, and then just have an index card in your box that reminds you to play your playlist. And then the fifth thing that you might want to include in your coping kit is a list of shows you'd like to watch or rewatch, or a list of books you'd like to read again. You can use an index car to write out the list of shows, or you can add them to a queue on your favorite streaming service and just have the index car there to remind you of the list. You might also buy copies of certain books that you know you'd really enjoy and save those just for your coping kit. That way, you know you'll be engaged and it's almost like a treat you forgot you given yourself. Some other things you might want to consider adding to your coping kit or candles or lotions in your favorite sense, old pictures that help you to recall happy or fun memories are a collection of quotes or prayers that have been helpful to you in the past. Again, the idea is to make this a collection of things that will help you to be distracted and engaged in something else so that your thoughts or feelings are less overwhelming for you. If you're able to engage in one or all of these activities, usually you will have given yourself enough time to allow the intensity of whatever you were experiencing to come down a little. So I am curious, is this something that you've done before. I love to know what you've included in your coping kit or if you're going to be building one, let me know what you're putting in there. You can share the contents of your kid or share a picture of your box with us on social media using the hashtag tb G in session, and be sure to share this episode with two of your girls so that they can work on building their coping kit as well. If you're looking for a virtual therapist in your area, check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic and meet some other sisters in your area, Come on over and join us in the Yellow Couch Collective, where we take a deeper dive from the topics from the podcast and just about everything else. You can join us at Therapy for Black Girl dot com slash y c C. Don't forget to show our sponsors some love by grabbing your cause box for thirty percent off by going to cause box dot com slash Therapy for Black Girls and entering code Therapy for Black Girls. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take get care

Therapy for Black Girls

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a license 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 473 clip(s)