What’s in Your Toolbox? Coping and Healing Strategies

Written by Wendy Hayes, Lived Expert, Kin Caregiver & Trauma Nerd

We all have a “toolbox” of strategies that help us navigate difficult times.

Some of the tools we put there ourselves – like when we learn to take a walk or listen to music to de-stress.

Not all our tools will help us at every point in our lives. Some of the tools in our toolbox we may have learned from others or had to develop to survive trauma. For example, many Lived Experts of child welfare may learn to be hyper-independent because their life experience has taught them caregivers/adults are unreliable.

This one resonates with me personally and has been one of the hardest to overcome in supportive relationships. I reach for the tool of independence to avoid the potential hurt that comes with being let down, but it also leaves me feeling overwhelmed and alone even when I am not. So, I’ve been learning to reach for new tools.

What follows are strategies and activities that have been helpful for me to have in my coping and healing toolbox.

No single tool works for everyone. Each of us has a unique toolbox. This is not a prescriptive list, but I encourage you to use or be inspired by these ideas for your own toolbox and when thinking about Living Experts you are connected to and supporting.

Note: Some of these activities can be emotionally intense and/or triggering.

Tools for Processing the Past

• Writing Letters to My Younger Self

  Many of my life experiences in my late teens and early twenties led me to downplay and/or ignore the impact of my Adverse Childhood Experiences. For me, writing letters to my younger self have been about acknowledging how painful those events were, how my caregivers let me down, and reminding myself that I did not deserve to be put in those situations or treated in those ways.   

  Addressing our Inner Child has become a more common idea. If you watch Ru Paul’s Drag Race this may remind you of when Ru holds up the Queens’ childhood pictures and asks them what they would say to their younger self. It can be quite powerful for those who have face a lot of adversity.  

• Map of Homes / Homes Tour

  I moved A LOT. This is quite common for Lived Experts. I went to 8 different schools and lived in 14 different homes by the time I turned 16 (not including any respite stays). For others, I’ve heard even higher numbers.  

  One Lived Expert created a Google Map, which contained all the places he had lived. I felt inspired by this, so with some sleuthing I did the same. When I was done, I decided to ask my Human to take me on a tour of all the places I had lived. It really helped me to understand my experience and connect with my Human, who would practice curiosity at each location and ask me about my experiences there. This really helped me integrate my experiences and contextualize how hard it must have been on my younger self after years of telling myself, “It wasn’t THAT bad, it could have been worse.” 

  Bonus: My human showed up with a little care-box to help me get through the day. See more details below.  

Tools for Ambiguous Loss

• Grief Buddy Application

  When my relationship with my adoptive parent ruptured, I needed someone who was willing to be there for me who “got it”. I also struggle with the fear of being a burden. Talking to people about my grieving experience wasn’t something I could “just do”.

  So I put together a Grief Buddy Application and circulated it to some supportive people in my life. It laid out what I was going through and what I needed. Most of what I needed was permission to send lots of messages about how I was thinking and feeling. The person who became my grief buddy was a fellow Lived Expert, and doing this helped grow my relationship with them.

• Asynchornous Collective Grieving

  Many years later, my relationship with my biological Dad crumbled. I was very fortunate to be surrounded by a community of people, but the idea of bringing them all together was too much. Still, I needed to process this as a loss – so I started thinking about how to do a “virtual funeral” that was not some sort of event.  

  I contacted some folks who are close to me and asked them to participate in grieving with me by leaving a message of support on a “virtual card”,  listening to a song that represented my experience, and/or making a meal I used to have with my Dad and take a picture of it.  

  The response I got was amazing, people did all of those things and offered additional support in their own ways. The acknowledgement of my grief and receiving of support and kind messages really made all the difference. I was no longer suffering in silence, or alone.  

Tools for Dysregulation/Triggers

• Manuals/Reminders for Moods

  When I am depressed or in a meltdown/overwhelmed, I can’t answer questions about how to support me. While I KNOW there are things that would help me in those moments, my thinking brain is offline, and I can’t remember them. Pair this with my fear of being a burden and when someone asks, “What can I do to help you right now?” I say nothing or I don’t know. Nobody wins.  

  It’s easy for me to forget people WANT to be there for me.  

  So, I’ve created mood manuals for people in my life that help us navigate those difficult times. They cover how to know what I am feeling, the most helpful way to talk to me, and what kinds of things will help me feel better. For example, I ask my partner to say ,“I want to do X with you” rather than ask “Do you want to do X?”. This small change in wording helps me to accept his help. My partner can pick from a list of activities in the manual which includes things like going for a walk or going to a local coffee shop for a positive sensory experience. 

  Since our thinking brains are not online in moments of distress, I also have the simplest tools I can access listed on a sign that is posted in the house. It includes things like listen to a specific playlist, drink a cold glass of water, go for a walk, etc.  

• Care/Emergency Boxes

  Care and emergency “boxes” are a great way to redirect or respond to triggers.  

  We often forget that self-harm and/or substance use are coping strategies in the toolbox. They also come with specific sensory experiences. Harm reduction principles tell us that meeting people where they are at in these journeys is an important part of support. These boxes are a great harm reduction tools, here is an example of some that I have made for self-harm:  

  • Open in Case of Emergency (triggered to self-harm but trying to avoid). To try and redirect self-harming behaviours this box had elastic bands (to replicate the sensory experience of pain without creating wounds), a colouring book for mindfulness, a soft plushie to remind myself that I deserve to feel good and my favourite snacks.  

  • Care Box (when self-harm has already happened). To remind my sibling they are still loved and cared for in relapse, I’ve put together post-self-harm care boxes that have: medical supplies (polysporin and band aids), favourite snacks, fidgets to keep their hands busy, craft kits for mindfulness, soft plushie for a positive sensory experience, journal to write thoughts down.  

  Care and emergency boxes also give us an avenue to talk about things that may be very difficult to have conversations about. The same principle can be used to help someone get through a hard day, for addictions, and when someone is ill/injured.  

• Getting Icey

  The vagus nerve is part of the nervous system which regulates our body including hormones associated with stress response. When our stress response is activated, our “thinking brain” turns off (something Dan Seigal calls Flipping Our Lid).

  While the purpose of this article is not to go into detail about the science of nervous system, what’s important to know is that when we are dysregulated, we may not be able to process information or problem solve. Instead of talking it out, sometimes it’s best to use a somatic (body-based) approach.

  Research shows that icing our vagus nerve can signal the body to reduce heart rate and relax. You can do this by:

  • eating something cold, like a freezie, popsicle or ice cube

  • putting a cold compress on your neck, chest or back

  • trying cold water immersion like a cold shower or dunking your head in cold water

Tools to Decrease Distress

• Accessing Low-Pressure Creativity

  A blank canvas is my worst nightmare. For whatever reasons, I have a hard time separating creativity from the pressure of “making something good”. Learning new skills can sometimes be rewarding, but depending on my mental state it can also be overwhelming and send me into a shame spiral if I cannot figure it out, triggering negative self-talk.

  For this reason, paint-by-numbers, colouring books and diamond art have become my best friends. They are creative, meditative and do not require too much of my higher brain to engage in.

• Leaning Into Playtime

  Many of us have missed out on the simple joys of childhood because of out early environment and circumstances. While it is important not to “baby” or infantilize Lived Experts, engaging in child-like play and child-like joy has been especially healing for me.

  This has included but not been limited to: going to play at the park (especially being pushed on the swing), spending time in nature, going to the zoo or a theme park, embracing the mess of crafting (rather than fretting the mess), and having at-home glowstick and dance parties.

Tools for Music Lovers

• Playlists

  Playlists are my life and have helped with every other category in this article. I have playlists for relationships, moods, affirmations, and playlists featuring songs and artists for specific times in my life (my favourite one right now is titled: high school sucked 🤮 ; but the music didn’t).  

  I also have friends who let me send the “vibe check” songs to let them know how I am doing.  

  Music can be a tool for connection and practicing curiosity. I pay attention to the music my sibling listens to and add songs I like to my own music. Every time one of their songs comes up, they get excited. Sometimes I ask about song lyrics or songs I hear them playing rather than asking “how are you doing?”. It demonstrates that I pay attention and care about what they care about.  

Find What Works for You

The toolbox analogy helps me not only to be intentional in understanding myself and my tools – it also helps me reduce shame when reaching for tools that I no longer want to use. As caregivers, we may default to responding to our Lived Experts in the ways our parents responded to us. Not all of those strategies will be helpful; some may even be harmful.

We can honour tools that helped us survive in traumatic environments while also understanding that its time has passed – and that’s okay.

I hope taking a peek into my toolbox helped you! What’s in your toolbox?