4 Mental Wellness Options: Basics, Coping, Building Safety, and Getting Unstuck
- Justin Sunseri, LMFT
- Nov 18, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
When you’re navigating trauma recovery or striving for general wellness, feeling overwhelmed is common. With numerous techniques, practices, and self-help strategies available, how do you know where to focus?
I’m here to help simplify and organize your efforts by categorizing them into four key pathways or "buckets." Each bucket serves a unique purpose on your journey toward living more calmly, confidently, and connected.
Let’s dive into these four mental wellness buckets and explore how they can guide your efforts.
Bucket 1: Foundational Health Basics
To start, you must address the essentials—your baseline. Without these foundational practices, other efforts may fall short.
Sleep: Are you getting enough rest? Sleep is critical for both physical and emotional resilience.
Nutrition: Aim for “good enough”—balanced meals rich in nutrients. Avoid junk food or soda, but don’t strive for perfection.
Hydration: Drink plenty of water.
Movement: You don't need a vigorous fitness regimen; regular movement—like walking, stretching, or light exercise—can be beneficial.
These basics aren't glamorous, but they are essential. If your foundation is weak, other recovery efforts won’t be effective.
Bucket 2: Coping Mechanisms
Coping mechanisms often mark the beginning of the journey, commonly during turbulent times. These tools help reduce immediate distress, be it anxiety, depression, or anger.
Coping Examples:
Counting backwards to ease anxiety.
Using fidget tools for grounding.
Applying "hacks," such as cold showers or deep breathing exercises.
While coping strategies are valuable, it’s crucial to understand their limitations. These techniques might provide temporary relief but won't address the root causes of your emotions. Coping is merely a stepping stone, not the destination.
Bucket 3: Practicing Safety
Safety forms the cornerstone of genuine healing. It involves creating and nurturing a sense of calm, connection, and presence in your daily life.
Questions to Reflect On:
What makes me feel safe? Is it a warm cup of tea, the sound of rain, or feeling your pet’s fur?
How do I connect with myself? Practice self-compassion and embrace your experiences, even the difficult ones.
How do I connect with others and my environment? Savor small moments, such as hugging a loved one or enjoying the aroma of fresh coffee.
Practicing safety strengthens your ventral vagal pathways, promoting calm and connection. Over time, it diminishes the need for constant coping, making life more manageable.
Bucket 4: Feeling and Resolving Stuck Defensive States
The final mental wellness bucket focuses on addressing the root causes of feeling stuck—whether it’s flight, fight, shutdown, or freeze responses. This process requires deep inner work and builds upon the stability from Buckets 1 and 3.
Steps for Engaging with Stuck Emotions:
Allow yourself to feel emotions like fear, anger, or numbness without judgment.
Practice “pendulation”—touch on difficult feelings briefly, then return to your sense of safety (from Bucket 3).
Gradually increase your capacity to confront challenging emotions while maintaining grounding.
This bucket holds the potential for the most transformation. It helps release stuck emotional states, deepens your connections with yourself and others, and moves you closer to emotional freedom.
Combining the Mental Wellness Buckets
Each bucket serves a distinct purpose, yet they work synergistically in a cycle of healing and growth:
Start with the basics: Build your foundation with proper sleep, nutrition, hydration, and movement.
Use coping tools when needed: These tools help you navigate overwhelming moments.
Practice safety daily: Create a sense of calm and connection through micro-moments.
Engage with stuck emotions: When ready, explore your deeper feelings.
Homework Assignment
Take stock of your current efforts. Which pathway do they align with? What could you add or improve? For example:
Drinking water → Pathway 1.
Using a fidget toy → Pathway 2.
Hugging a loved one → Pathway 3.
Journaling about a difficult memory → Pathway 4.
Free Resource: The Four Wellness Buckets
To assist you on this journey, I’ve created a one-page guide summarizing these pathways.
Many more resources and a free course are available in the members center. Remember, recovery is a process. Small, consistent efforts can lead to meaningful change.
Recommended Blogs:
Recommended Courses:
Building Safety Anchors: This course helps you identify, practice, and strengthen your sense of safety. BSA focuses entirely on Bucket 2 and prepares you for Bucket 3.
Unstucking Defensive States: This course strikes a balance between safety and defense, helping alleviate your stuck defensive state. You will learn and practice essential skills like pendulation, titration, and Justin's A->W->E Method.
Author Bio
Justin Sunseri is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Coach specializing in trauma relief. He hosts the Stuck Not Broken podcast, is the author of Stuck Not Broken: Book 1, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Polyvagal Institute. Justin specializes in treating trauma and helping individuals get "unstuck" from their defensive states.