The Container Store Is Not a Coping Skill (A Confession)

Last week I wrote about how a dysregulated nervous system can make it difficult to embrace moments of free time. Today, I want to share another confession about a coping strategy that wasn't as helpful as it felt.

For years, when I felt stressed and dysregulated, my go-to move was to say "be right back" and head to the Container Store. Something in me would spike — overwhelmed, anxious — and instead of sitting with that feeling, I'd go find something external to fix. Organize the pantry. Buy the bin that would finally make the linen closet make sense. Order the thing on Amazon that promised to make my life just a little more organized. For a little while, it worked. My space felt more in order, and I avoided sitting with the feelings of dysregulation.

But here's what I understand now that I didn't back then: none of that was actually regulating my nervous system internally. It was temporarily managing it from the outside. I was reaching for control over my environment because I didn't yet have the tools to find control and ground from within.

This is incredibly common, and I don't think it gets talked about enough. When we feel dysregulated — anxious, overwhelmed, keyed up — a lot of us instinctively reach for something outside ourselves to cope: organizing, shopping, cleaning, planning, researching, overworking.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with any of these things in themselves. The problem is when they become the tool we are using to cope with dysregulation because they allow us to temporarily bypass the work that really needs to happen. The bin gets bought, the closet gets organized, and the underlying activation is still sitting there in your body, waiting for the next trigger.

Real regulation — the kind that actually changes how your nervous system responds over time — has to happen from within. That means learning to notice activation as it's happening and finding ways to create a shift, rather than chasing something that only brings temporary relief. It means having tools that work in your body: breath, grounding, movement, co-regulation with someone safe. It means building enough tolerance for discomfort that you don't need to immediately fix, spend money, or organize your way out of a feeling.

I'm not saying give up the satisfying trip to Target or skip the baskets and bins. I'm saying it helps to know the difference between something that genuinely soothes you and something that's just a very effective distraction from a nervous system that hasn't learned how to come back to baseline on its own.

Learning to regulate from within — instead of reaching for external fixes — is one of my favorite things to teach clients. Reach out if you want to learn more about what tools can help.