Coping mechanisms are behaviors the body uses to regulate stress.
They're not flaws or failures.
They're signals.
Behavioral patterns are simply repeated actions that show up when something inside of us is activated.
Sometimes those patterns are obvious,
And sometimes they're pretty subtle.
What matters is that behavior often shows us what emotions have not yet reached our conscious awareness.
This is connected to how different parts of the brain operate.
The limbic brain is the emotional brain.
It is fast,
Reactive,
And focused on immediate relief.
When the limbic brain is more active,
We may crave comfort,
Distraction,
Or soothing through food,
Movement,
Or habit.
The prefrontal cortex,
On the other hand,
Is the part of the brain that observes,
Reflects,
And holds perspective.
It's the part that can stay present even when emotions are strong.
One way to think about this is that the limbic brain functions like a child brain,
While the prefrontal cortex functions like an adult brain.
Neither is good or bad,
But when the limbic brain is in the driver's seat,
Behavior often becomes the language of what we feel.
With that context,
I want to share how this showed up for me recently.
I didn't recognize what was happening all at once.
It arrived through patterns.
One day,
I noticed I was walking really fast,
And I was also eating really fast,
Which isn't typical for me.
My awareness clocked it,
But at the time,
I didn't feel it.
I didn't go any deeper.
Later,
I noticed I was lying in bed,
And my jaw was really tight.
And again,
That's not typical.
Then,
For about three days,
There was a very strong impulse for pastries and bread.
In the past,
I used to fight these impulses,
But fighting never worked.
Eventually,
The urge would build until it took over anyway.
So lately,
I've just been going with the flow and trying to stay present.
Over time,
I came to understand these behaviors as coping mechanisms.
They weren't random.
They were actually responses.
So,
After a few days of these patterns showing up,
I finally slowed down and sat with myself to understand what was happening rather than to override it.
And this is where the insight landed.
Sometimes,
We don't actually know what we're feeling.
At the time,
I felt fine.
I could even say I felt pretty good.
Nothing in my conscious awareness said something was wrong.
It wasn't until I recognized the coping patterns that the truth surfaced.
I realized,
Oh my goodness,
I'm deeply sad right now.
It was Christmas time,
And I wasn't with my family.
I didn't have close friends to spend it with.
Plus,
Work was slower because of the holidays.
And there was stress around money because I had fewer students than usual.
Seeing that clearly brought an immediate sense of compassion.
Of course,
I feel stressed.
And of course,
Life feels more uncertain than usual.
When I allowed that truth to be there,
The sadness finally moved into my awareness.
And when it did,
Something softened in my body.
The reason I'm sharing this is because emotions are not always immediately accessible through thought.
Sometimes,
We understand ourselves through behavior first,
Through how fast we move,
Or how we're eating,
Or how we're coping.
When we observe ourselves with curiosity instead of judgment,
We begin to understand what the body has carried and is carrying.
And when we meet that understanding with the same care we would offer someone we love,
Pressure releases.
The body receives what it has been asking for all along.
Many spiritual traditions speak about knowing oneself.
And knowing ourselves often means learning the language our body uses before emotions become words.
Healing isn't about making feelings disappear.
It's about sitting with what is true without trying to fix it or negotiate with it.
The willingness to stay is what allows the nervous system to feel safe again.
And that safety is what creates real integration.
