The Coping Mechanism Conundrum

Affirmation :I stay with myself. I breathe. I feel. I return

If I’m being honest—and I try to be, especially with myself—my coping mechanism is scrolling the internet and isolating. There it is. Named. Not judged, just seen.

Coping mechanisms are curious things. They’re meant to help us shift our attention, to soften the edges of what feels too sharp in the moment. And sometimes, they do just that. They offer a pause, a breath, a buffer. But the trouble begins when the pause becomes a pattern. When the buffer becomes a barrier. When the thing we’re avoiding—grief, fear, uncertainty, even joy—gets buried beneath the scroll, the snack, the spreadsheet, the sweat, the silence.

We all have our go-tos. Work. Exercise. Food. Shopping. Sex. Relationships. Binge-watching. The list is long and familiar. The question isn’t whether we cope. It’s how. And whether the how is helping us return to ourselves—or pulling us further away.

For me, the internet offers a kind of numbing hum. A place where I don’t have to feel too much. Isolation, too, can feel like safety. But both, if I’m not careful, become ways to disappear from my own life.

So this week, I’m choosing something different. I’m choosing to stay. To stay present. To stay with the discomfort. To stay with the sensations in my body, the flutter in my chest, the tightness in my jaw, the ache behind my eyes. To notice. To breathe. To not rush to fix or figure it out.

This is not easy for someone who’s made a habit of sprinting toward solutions. Who’s built a life on being capable, responsive, resilient. But I’m learning that presence is its own kind of power. That feeling is not failure. That staying is a form of strength.

So here’s my gentle challenge to myself: pay attention. To my reactions. My responses. My feelings. Not to control them, but to witness them. To meet them with curiosity instead of critique. To let them teach me something true.

It’s a work in progress. But I’m here for it.

Let’s do this.