Healthy Coping Mechanisms

How you deal with situations—especially when life sucks—matters quite a bit.

Good morning!

What do you do when life just sucks?

Inasmuch as Stoic resilience can help with ensuring that you go mostly unaffected (emotionally) by life’s tragedies, it is nevertheless true that every now and then, life will just suck.

Whether that means you’re lonely at work or you lost your job or had a valuable possession stolen from you, the point is, life sucks, and no amount of reflection can help change the fact that you’re feeling the way you’re feeling. In those situations, what do you do? Who do you turn to?

I am extremely grateful for my 2–3 best friends that are willing to listen to me rant and vent when things go wrong; most of the time, just them allowing me to send them 15 texts in a row and talk things through allows me to process aloud just long enough that by the time they respond, I can say, “That’s okay, I’m good now, just needed to vent.”

Or, if that doesn’t sufficiently help, then I pray. Or go on a walk. Or both at the same time. That usually helps quite a bit too (especially angry when you want to be less angry at someone/something).

Whatever you do, the key is that you do something that works for you; the worst thing you can do when life sucks is choosing to do nothing but wallow in your misery or engage in some seriously unhealthy coping mechanisms. You don’t help anyone when you do that, and you make yourself less pleasant to talk to when you engage in conversation with whoever you talk to next. Just do something.

God bless you, have a great day!