Are you coping or avoiding? A therapist explains the difference and talks about the release of her second book with Williams Commerce Publishing Company.

Therapist & Author

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Taryn Hayward, the first therapist to publish their book with Williams Commerce Publishing Company. In 2021, she published her first book, There’s A Method to My Madness. Five years later, she returns to the literary realm to provide more value for readers with her second publication, “Am I Coping or Bypassing?”

Ross: What do you want the biggest takeaways to be from this book?

Taryn: If readers walk away with anything, I hope it’s a deeper sense of honesty with themselves. Healing is not always linear, and it doesn’t happen overnight. In a culture that encourages quick fixes, emotional healing happens at a pace of honesty. Growth takes time.

I also want readers to understand that coping and healing are not the same thing. Coping skills can help stabilize us, but they are not meant to replace deeper emotional processing. Sometimes the most meaningful progress happens when we slow down and allow ourselves to ask the honest questions.

Ultimately, the book is an invitation for reflection. I hope that readers leave with a greater sense of curiosity about themselves and a willingness to approach their lives with more compassion.

How did you come up with the title?

The title came from a question I found myself asking frequently in both therapy sessions and personal reflection: “Am I coping, or am I bypassing?”

Over time, I realized that many people use the term “coping” to describe behaviors that may actually be forms of avoidance. We stay busy, distract ourselves, or rationalize our feelings in ways that help us function. Still, those strategies aren’t sustainable in the long term and don’t always address what’s happening beneath the surface.

The question felt simple, but powerful. That’s why the title is a question, rather than a statement. Healing often begins with curiosity.

It invites folks to pause and examine their patterns without immediately assuming they’re doing something wrong. It isn’t about having the right answers right away; sometimes it starts with just asking yourself more honest questions.

What have you learned the most as a therapist since the release of your first book?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a therapist since my first book is that insight alone does not always lead to change. Many people today are highly self-aware. They can name their patterns, identify their triggers, and even understand the psychology behind their behaviors. But awareness and transformation are not the same thing. You can understand your patterns and still avoid the emotional work required to change them.

What I’ve seen over time is how easy it is for people to intellectualize their healing. We can understand our experiences logically while still avoiding the emotional work required to integrate them. This realization deepened my approach in my work as a therapist and for this book.

Instead of focusing solely on understanding problems, I emphasize emotional presence and patience in the healing process. Real change often happens slowly, and sometimes the most powerful work occurs when we allow ourselves to be present and stay the course. We are human beings, not human doings.

What mental health habits have you improved the most since your first book?

Since writing my first book, two habits have stood out most in my growth. I have improved at slowing down and actually sitting with my emotions instead of immediately trying to solve them. As therapists, we are often trained to quickly analyze and identify patterns, but healing does not always happen at the speed of insight.

Over time, I have learned that awareness is only the beginning, and true growth happens when you allow yourself to experience what you feel without rushing to fix it. Feelings may be terrible leaders, but they are great informants.

I have also become more mindful about rest. Earlier in my career, I often equated productivity with movement and visible progress. I have learned that rest is not the absence of growth; it is part of it.

Practicing what I teach has helped me approach my own life with more compassion and patience. Those shifts ultimately inspired my second book. It reflects not just the tools I teach but the deeper lessons I have had to embody.

What motivated you to write a second book?

The motivation for my second book came from a theme I began to notice throughout my life, in my work as a therapist, and in broader wellness spaces. Many people are learning coping skills, which are important, but sometimes those skills are used to avoid deeper emotional processing.

In other words, people may feel like they are “doing the work” while still bypassing the very emotions that need attention. I wanted to explore that relationship more honestly. The idea for the book grew out of conversations with clients and readers, as well as my own experiences and reflections on what it really means to heal.

My first book focused heavily on providing tools and structure for reflection. This next one goes a step further. It invites readers to pause and ask themselves a deeper question: Am I truly coping and processing my emotions, or am I simply bypassing and managing them?

Are you seeing any new concerning trends regarding mental health challenges?

One trend I’ve noticed is the growing popularity of mental health language in everyday conversation. While I believe that increased awareness and destigmatization are incredibly valuable, oversimplified understandings of complex emotional experiences are not.

Social media, for example, often condenses psychological concepts into quick advice or labels. While that can make information more accessible, it can also create the illusion that healing is straightforward or immediate.

In reality, growth is often messy and nonlinear. I hope that conversations about mental health and well-being continue to expand in ways that encourage both awareness and depth.

What do you think readers overlooked the most in your first book?

If anything was overlooked, it was the importance of slowing down with the exercises and reflections. Workbooks can sometimes motivate people to move quickly from page to page, focusing on completion rather than reflection. The prompts in my first book were designed to create space for deeper emotional awareness, but that kind of work requires time and patience.

Some readers may have moved through it more quickly than intended. That realization partly inspired the expansiveness of the second book. It encourages readers to stay with the process longer and explore their thoughts and emotions more intentionally.

What advice do you have for someone who isn’t open to therapy?

I would first say that therapy is not the only path to growth. Everyone has their own entry point into self-reflection, and that can look different for each person. For some people, journaling, reading, spiritual practices, or meaningful conversations with trusted individuals can be a starting point. The key is to cultivate curiosity about your inner world.

Oftentimes, resistance to therapy isn’t about therapy itself; it’s about fear, vulnerability, or uncertainty about what the process will involve. My advice is to begin wherever you feel most comfortable and allow that curiosity to guide you. You don’t have to be fully ready for therapy to begin learning more about yourself.