Coping Skills

A coping skill is a behavioral tool which may be used by individuals to offset or overcome adversity, disadvantage, or disability without correcting or eliminating the underlying condition.
Virtually all living beings routinely utilize coping skills in daily life. These are perhaps most noticeable in response to physical disabilities. An easy example of the use of coping skills in the animal kingdom are three-legged dogs, which typically learn to overcome the obvious disability to become as agile and mobile as their four-legged counterparts, whether born with the disability, or having received it due to an injury.

When helping humans deal with specific problems, professional counselors have found that a focus of attention on coping skills (with or without remedial action) often helps individuals. The range of successful coping skills varies widely with the problems to be overcome. However, the learning and practice of coping skills are generally regarded as very helpful to most individuals. Even the sharing of learned coping skills with others is often beneficial.

Coping mechanisms

One group of coping skills are coping mechanisms, defined as the skills used to reduce stress. In psychological terms, these are consciously used skills and defense mechanisms are their unconscious counterpart. Overuse of coping mechanisms (such as avoiding problems or working obsessively) and defense mechanisms (such as denial and projection) may exacerbate one's problem rather than remedy it.

There are two primary styles of coping with problems such as stress.

Action-based coping

Action-based coping involves actually dealing with a problem that is causing stress. Examples can include getting a second job in the face of financial difficulties, or studying to prepare for exams. Action-based coping is generally seen as superior[citation needed] to emotion-based coping, as it can directly reduce a source of stress.

Examples of action-based coping include planning, suppression of competing activities, confrontation, self-control, and restraint.

Emotion-based coping

Emotion-based coping skills reduce the symptoms of stress without addressing the source of the stress. Consuming alcohol, sleeping or discussing the stress with a friend are all emotion-based coping strategies. Other examples include denial, repression, wishful thinking, distraction, relaxation, reappraisal, and humor. There are both positive and negative coping strategies that can be defined as emotion-based. Emotion-based coping can be useful to reduce stress to a manageable level, enabling action-based coping, or when the source of stress can not be addressed directly.

Harmful coping methods

Some coping methods are more like habits than skills, and can be harmful. Overused, they may actually worsen one's condition. Alcohol, cocaine and other drugs may provide temporary escape from one's problems, but, with excess use, ultimately result in greater problems.

Sun, Nov 9, 2008  Permanent link

The Nows .. how many are there?

I feel dazed in a foggy dreamland, disconnected from friends, lovers, sweet beings because I don’t hear what they say .. I slowly keep up with the eyes and body language, I feel .. The little details of words whiz by .. and I don’t want to talk either anymore. I’ve run out of stories, and jokes, questions to mortals .. but the mystery of the universe compels me and inspires me. How would it feel to be the only human on earth? Spaced out .. I catch myself being in company, an engaged conversation, and then the voice just flows away down an infinite well, .. I hear nothing … Why are they telling me their stories anyway? So someone said, stop thinking .. You know what happens when you think too much?
What happens?
You’re not in the now …..I must be in the now though; I’m not thinking about the past or future … is there some other now, a total now which I’m not clued in? ‘over there’ now

Sat, Nov 8, 2008  Permanent link

is it now or never?

tell me, what do you think?

Thu, Oct 30, 2008  Permanent link

Calling all Tweakers!

Yo yo yo! Earthfreaks!
We are Smugglers, Lovers, Dirty, Dirty Hippies!
Calling all Tweakers! How do you tweak? Out ..
That’s my goal, to travel around the world and meet tweakers and their ways.
I want to do the world! Front and backwards!

‘All we Earthpeople are Smugglers. The hardcore power establishment forces us experimental, global nomads to smuggle our consciousnesses from fake nation to fake nation - from fantasy border to fantasy border - until we finally come to protected freak Earthbubbles like Vientiane and Bali - like Koh Samui, Katmandu, and Goa - where we can let our pure, natural humanity all hang out - and create our own mellow, stoned-out, and sexy world.’

Have you ever tasted a Durian?
We met Darryn Songbird (but he calls himself Durian?) in LA, in his very shagadelic psychoactive loft; he makes magical wings and Ocarinas
then Jacqueline told me of the fruit durian .. a love / hate relationship, of sweet creamy fleshy texture and strong garlic flavour. Have you tasted a Durian? Go out and seek it’s pleasures. It’s on my list.
My latest sweetest experience acquisitions have been:
Baby kiwis. Yum
And Thai Tamarind - wow, have you checked out the seeds of this fruit? alien dice!!

And the ultimate must must - Lucent Dossier

Be nice.

Mon, Oct 27, 2008  Permanent link

lets play

" Genuine PLAY is essential for holistic health and wellness. Underappreciated by modern society and conventional health practitioners, play is a most potent way to dissolve stress, build confidence, increase physical vitality, transcend self imposed limitations and expand our possibilities to include the as-of-yet, unimagined. "

- a message from the sense-inspiring Holistic Body Therapy

Wed, Oct 22, 2008  Permanent link

watch this

Zeitgeist: Addendum

Fri, Oct 17, 2008  Permanent link

Solar System

Sun
The center, the hub, attracting all the VIPS,
Where the hoi polloi meet and greet,
The wise and the naive,
The clairvoyant and the charmingly clueless,
The toughs and the meeks,
The clowns and the heroes,
The gossips and the cheats,
The spinsters and the studs,
The satyrs and the staid,
The bachelors and the widows,
The princesses with their maids,
The princes with their aides,
Beauties and beasts ... constantly turning ...
not often learning ... trying then failing ...
and warming with the heat





Mercury : The bringer of glad tidings / The messanger who is blamed





Venus : The object of affection / The demon of lust





Earth : Our stern mother / The charismatic zealot





Mars : The weathered General / The rose pachyderm





Jupiter : The saddest girl in the universe / The jolliest fellow you'll ever meet





Saturn : The brat with promise / The bringer of old age





Uranus : The legendary magician / The dazzlin' rodeo star





Neptune : The mystic / The monkey





Pluto : Boy and his dog ... Adrift / Boy and his dog ... Adrift








+ more by Thomas Woodruff

Fri, Oct 10, 2008  Permanent link

spherical continuum

globular clusters and planetary bodies ... I wonder what the dimension of a triangular-basis looks like?












. Sphere .

. Triangles .

Mon, Jul 21, 2008  Permanent link

spherical galaxy

we live in a spherical galaxy ... from atoms, cell structure, the shape of Earth, all heavenly bodies, and beyond ...

here are some inspirational artworks by Lisa Beck:























"I’ve always appreciated the way we refer to an artwork as a "piece." For me, the artwork is a selection out of a continuum, like a snapshot is a piece of stopped time. Our perceptions and ideas are amorphous and evolving- at least mine are. So an artwork is an encapsulation of a particular moment in that evolution. There are other possibilities that may come out in other work or they may remain unexpressed."

+ more +

Mon, Jul 21, 2008  Permanent link

a Shroomy Night

Beginnings of the night dwellers :


Insights into the night:
don’t believe. Don’t even believe of not believing, as the Atheists believe in their non-belief. The believers limit themselves … so don’t believe, just experience.

Meet the beings from the sweet sweet smiling watermelon:



You’ve got to light up to be lit … and for now, being sober is our new high…

Tue, Apr 15, 2008  Permanent link