You Don’t Need another coping skill— You need to be…

Our mental health field is obsessed with skills. Count to 10. Journal. Go for a walk. Drink some water. Take a bubble bath. Reframe your thought. Drown yourself in “me” time. Repeat.

And let’s be clear: these things help. They’re not useless.

But they’re often not going to heal what’s stuck in your body. They’re not going to touch the parts shaped by early attachment ruptures, chronic invalidation, or years of invisible labor no one acknowledged. They’re not going to resolve the internalized belief that your worth is directly proportional to your usefulness.

Skills are tools. Great tools. But when we hand them out like candy, without context—without relationship, without attunement, without understanding the full picture of what the person in front of us is actually carrying—they become just another way to perform regulation. Another way to manage symptoms instead of meeting the system underneath.

And that’s not regulation. That’s containment.

There’s a difference.

Containment says: “I’m managing it.”

Regulation says: “My system feels safe enough not to be in survival mode anymore. To flourish.” Regulation is where we thrive — where what we call our “best selves” spring forth.

We’ve conflated coping with healing.

We’ve conflated function with well-being.

And we’ve sold over-achieving, over-worked, exhausted people the idea that more worksheets, guided imagery, boundaries, affirmations, and better time-blocking will lead to wholeness.

It won’t. Not always, anyway.

Because nervous systems don’t heal through logic. They have a logic all of their own. They heal through co-regulation. Not by pretending it doesn’t exist or shoving it down. Through being with—not just being aware. (Coming from the trail of failures, of a tried and true over-intellectualizer, herself, yours truly ;)).

And when someone is struggling in isolation—armed with nothing but a worksheet of skills or a guided imagery recording—it can reinforce the most painful, familiar narrative and lie of all:

“You’re still on your own.”

“It’s all up to you. To do. Alone.”

We have to do better than that.

The polyvagal theory doesn’t just teach us about dorsal, sympathetic, and ventral states for fun. It reframes how we understand distress. It shows us that dysregulation isn’t a failure of character—it’s a physiological adaptation. And the solution isn’t to “think differently.” It’s to experience differently. Safely. In relationship. In our own skins. Over time.

So here’s the invitation:

If your coping skills aren’t working, it’s not because you’re doing them wrong. It’s not about filling a cup. It’s not a cup! (And who coined this frustrating analogy, anyway?)

It might be because our skills were never meant to do this much heavy lifting on their own. You were never meant to do this much heavy lifting on your own. Of course, you’re tired.

Sometimes, what we need isn’t another tool. It’s not yet another thing to do.

It’s a different kind of support. A way of being. One that honors your brilliance and your biology.

One that doesn’t just help you cope—but helps you not need to cope so much in the first place.