What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?

AUTHORS NOTE: This post is the second of three posts that will satisfy this week’s goal for the 2026 Launch Challenger Series for my Pelotonia Fundraiser. You can find more details here.

For the longest time, I struggled with coping with negative feelings about a lot of things (namely the feelings about work, my weight and health problems within my family) Prior to 2020, I did not do a whole lot to try to cope with this. After an incident that nearly cost me my primary job, I decided to confront the problem head on.

The first thing I did was see a doctor, and decided to get back on medication for keeping my autism symptoms under control. After a couple of months, I noticed that I was not having as many negative thoughts about things, and as a result my performance improved at work. My next move was to address the problems with my back pain, and while that is still a work in progress, it has helped me cope with more of those negative thoughts.

It was also at that time, I discovered the art of meditation. I have a number of apps that I use (namely Calm, Apple Fitness, Headspace, etc.) as I need to recenter myself when things go sideways. Now, when I have negative thoughts, a couple of deep breaths with my eyes closed do the trick.