Coping Skills
Coping Skills
Coping skills are not meant to make existential change but are strategies to help manage and reduce emotional distress in the moment.
In a social world that is disordered due to structural exploitation, and in a time of social and cognitive mutation in relation to the rapidly expanding Technosphere, coping skills can be of vital importance in helping us clear the psychological space necessary for individual and collective living and transformation.
What is bothering you?
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Having a hard time managing distress and intense emotions? Check out the following DBT-based skills.
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Mindfulness can help you take back your attention from capture from work and the Technosphere. It can also improve general anxiety and depressive thinking.
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As social structures designed to provide basic care for people continue to be underfunded, and as more people's time and energy gets subordinated to work, the less time their is for building relationships and the harder it becomes to communicate.
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Negative thoughts and negative voices tend to stem from early life experiences, trauma, and oppressive socioeconomic structures. To transform negative thinking and resolve commanding voices might require a combination of therapy, collective strategies for transforming oppressive situations, and cognitive tools. To start the process of distancing from your negative thoughts/ voices, look into the skill of cognitive defusion. This can create the mental space necessary for later diving into the why behind your negative thoughts with a therapist. Additionally, try to identify what tends to bring on the negative thoughts/voices and plan things to do that help you in those moments (i.e. talking to a friend, taking a bath, listening to music, etc.)
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Often we find that as we grow up, we are still living according to the values of others. Use the following workflow from ACT to clarify your values and use them as guides for action.
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As a social body, we have never been more isolated than we are today as commodification and life subordinated to work and technology destroys communities and relationships. Therapy can be a helpful way to regain confidence and get back out into the social world, but you can also use the internet to get connected to new friends and in-person group meetups. Alternatively, look up things you are interested in (from art to volunteer work to religion) in your local community and try to get involved. You can also get involved in mutual aid projects to help transform your community.
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If you or someone you know are experiencing abuse, check out the resources here that avoid police involvement.
Additionally, check out the interpersonal violence toolkit provided by MAST. From the home page, click Other Resources and then Interpersonal Violence.
Beyond Coping: Transforming Your Circumstances
Work
The regime of enforced work for others is one of the major drivers of emotional suffering today.
Finally: Debt…
Housing
Housing is another area of our lives that should be a universal right but is not, and drives our emotional suffering.
“Debt is a tie that binds the 99%. With stagnant wages, systemic unemployment, and public service cuts, we are forced to go into debt for the basic things in life — and thus surrender our futures to the banks. Debt is major source of profit and power for Wall Street that works to keep us isolated, ashamed, and afraid. Using direct action, research, education, and the arts, we are coming together to challenge this illegitimate system while imagining and creating alternatives. We want an economy in which our debts are to our friends, families, and communities — and not to the 1%.”
- Strike Debt (2012).
Learn more about debt and your options in the Debt Resistors Operations Manual.
Join or get involved with the Debt Collective.