What are your healthy coping tools for stress? If you’ve ever tried to “pull the weeds” in your life, those habits that grow back no matter how often you uproot them, you know how persistent they can be.
Weeds can look like overeating, overworking, people-pleasing, or numbing out with food, alcohol, or endless scrolling. These are our negative coping tools but they’re not weaknesses. They’re signals.
They tell us that something inside us is trying to feel better with stress, fear, or grief. Humans just want to feel better and without having learned healthier tools, we often turn to negative coping tools (what I call our weeds). If we aren’t careful, we pass these same weeds onto our children.
🌱 Healthy Coping Tools For Stress: Why We Lean on the “Weeds”
Most of us weren’t taught healthy coping tools for stress. We picked up whatever we saw around us, or what eased the discomfort of the stressor in the moment, working harder, avoiding emotions, or chasing perfection because those behaviors helped us survive.
But surviving isn’t the same as healing.
The good news is, we can teach ourselves (and our kids) better ways to respond.
🌿 Healthy Coping Tools For Stress: Stress Isn’t the Enemy
Stress and anxiety are completely normal human feelings. What matters is not whether you experience them, but how you interpret them.
For years, I talked about stress as something to eliminate. Then I heard health psychologist Dr. Kelly McGonigal, quote a statistic and it changed everything.
Dr. Mcgonigal shares a powerful study (Keller et al., 2012) showing that people who believed stress was harmful had a 43% higher risk of dying — not from the stress itself, but from believing it was dangerous.
Even more striking: people who experienced a lot of stress but didn’t view it as harmful had the lowest risk of dying — lower than those with very little stress.
The takeaway? Stress isn’t what kills us. Fear of stress might.
When we learn to see stress as a signal, not an enemy, it can actually strengthen us.
🌸 Learning to Replace the Weeds
Healthy coping tools start with awareness:
- Notice what you feel.
- Name it without judgment.
- Create a positive coping tool list.
- Next time you are about to turn to a negative coping tool, remember you have a better way to moved forward now.
- Choose something from your “positive coping list” that helps — a walk, journaling, music, deep breathing, or reaching out for connection.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being present.
🪴 Join the Workshop: From Weeds to Wellness
In this live, interactive workshop, we’ll explore:
✨ Why negative coping tools develop (and what they’re really trying to do)
✨ How to identify your “weeds” and replace them with healthier roots
✨ Practical ways to teach yourself — and your kids — how to manage stress differently
✨ How to make peace with stress instead of fighting it
🗓️ Workshop: From Weeds to Wellness: Turning Stress Into An Ally
📍 November 18th, 6:30 PM PST.
🎟️ Reserve your spot here
You don’t have to pull every weed overnight — just start noticing what’s growing, and why.
That’s how healing begins.
Find out more about parent and health and wellness coaching. I created a 7 step evidence based program designed to move parents from stress and chaos to peace and connection. Learn more about me and the Move FORWARD coaching program. Book your complementary coaching session here.