In the fall I wrote a column about the necessity of preparing to live on your own. We talked about the importance of partners teaching each other the nuts and bolts of daily survival, from keeping up with insurance payments to doing the laundry. I said I wouldn’t even discuss the emotional part of survival because I felt there was no way to prepare for that.

But I’ve been wondering if that is true. To help answer this question, I turned to my “guru of all things emotional,” Linda Herman Land, a licensed clinical social worker. Together we’ll explore these aspects of “survival.”

MP: When I hurt my back a couple of years ago, I thought it was more pain than I could endure and though I got better, I didn’t forget what it was like to be miserable and depressed and wanting to do anything to make the pain stop. Good medical care, physical therapy and being diligent about doing the exercises helped me heal. Are there emotional skills, like the physical skills, that we can learn and use to survive the inevitable bad times that some of us will face? Are there ways to prepare for the worst without walking around with a cloud over our heads waiting for the worst to happen? Are there choices in the ways we handle adversity or are some things just so overwhelming that nothing can help?

LHL: One thing to think about is that what is an insoluble crisis for one person is a more manageable challenge for the next. That has to do, I think, with what inner resources the person has to call upon and whether they know how to bring themselves calm and comfort. That is what we call self-soothing—something we hope our children learn as we raise them. An example is my then 2 year-old granddaughter, who whimpered to herself when she fell on the sidewalk, “I okay, I okay.” Already by 2 she had learned self-soothing from her parents, who would comfort her by saying “you’re okay, you’re okay.”

I thought about inner resources during a session with a woman who had been recently widowed and whom I had seen in therapy years ago. She was in massive grief, but she was coping. She came back to therapy to express and validate her grief. She learned that her grief was normal—and even healthy, and that it would abate.

In therapy she rediscovered what she had learned about herself in an earlier crisis—that she had some reliable sources of comfort available to her. For her, those comforts centered on maintaining loving connections with friends. At this point, many people are still reaching out to her, but she knows that in time, as people go on with their busy lives, she will have to be the one to take the initiative and call others. She also remembered that she loved the out-of-doors and found ways to reconnect with nature so that also became a source of comfort.

MP: Years ago I was asked to recommend if an organization serving seniors should take a position for or against off-track betting. In doing the research, the most interesting thing I learned was that for a number of older people who gambled, it was used as a crutch, to take away the pain of loneliness.

LHL: Many of us turn in pain and loneliness to other kinds of relief — eating, drinking, maybe gambling, but while those behaviors do indeed offer comfort, they are often stop-gap comforts and at some point may start becoming problematic addictions.

Part of the job of dealing with loss is finding healthy outlets for managing the inevitable anxiety and depression. We need to build other coping strategies and explore new pathways for relief, for connections with others—and even for ways to have fun. The job of dealing with stress is really the job of finding non-harmful but gratifying ways to manage anxiety, grief, despair and maybe depression.

MP: Can one look at life like a fire drill, where we train ourselves to respond in certain ways? For instance, is there a mantra we could repeat when we are feeling despair?

LHL: Clients sometimes tell me that what they have learned in therapy is how to develop and use a survival mantra. Though it is easier to use a mantra, if like my granddaughter, you have been using them all your life, it is never too late to learn positive self-talk. “I can do this. I can do this.” “I can be OK, I can be OK.” “This is painful and unbearable but my grief will lift and I will find ways out of this despair.”

MP: That sounds good. Are there other ways to prepare for painful reality?

LHL: Some people find comfort in continuing activities that have lowered stress in the past. Exercise would be one, and maybe, if you don’t feel up to a whole exercise regime, just making a daily commitment to do some walking might help. If meditating has been useful, don’t let too much time go by before you pick that up again. And like mantras, even if these ways of self-care are new to you, learning them can help.

MP: I know people who lost loved ones who have found tremendous comfort in their faith. Is this another avenue to develop?

LHL: The crucial issue is to reconnect with what has been comforting to you throughout your life—and maybe learn a few new strategies. So if you have a connection to a church, synagogue or mosque, that’s a great place to turn—for the comfort of your faith, for the comfort of known ritual and for the comfort you can find in the support of others. Sometimes the simple act of getting there helps, and a real bonus is the knowledge that once there, you will feel safe.

MP: What about a support system?

LHL: We all need our support systems — our friends, relatives and colleagues. But know that there are limits to what your “supporters” feel comfortable to give. You may need their support for a long time, so be sensitive to any hints that they are burning out.

One final note—when life crises of any magnitude seem to be relentlessly overwhelming, it may be time to consider some medical options—talk therapy will help to put the loss into a manageable perspective, or perhaps medication can help to either lower anxiety or lift depression. These options should not be considered as a “last resort.” Knowing that crisis and loss makes us intensely vulnerable should be enough to keep us focused on the range of ways we can seek help for our pain.

MP: I saw a wonderful poster that said, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

Linda, thank you for sharing your experience and advice. Hopefully these observations will help us face whatever difficult rainstorms lie ahead.