Psychology Today: How to Learn a Valuable Lifetime Skill: Self-Soothing
"Self-soothing can get you through some of the most challenging days or moments of your life by helping you manage feelings of hurt, anger, sadness, or grief. It can make you more resilient as a person.
For many, self-soothing comes naturally because they learned it organically from their parents. This happens simply and automatically when parents soothe their children.
By listening carefully to a long story about something hurtful or unfair that happened to their child that day; by sitting with calm, quiet empathy through their small daughter’s tantrum; by lying next to their child to help him fall asleep after a nightmare; by smoothing their distraught child’s forehead. These are the ways that emotionally present parents teach self-soothing to their children.
Children who receive enough self-soothing from their parents grow up having it for a lifetime. They never need to give it much thought. But this is typically not the case for those who were raised by emotionally neglectful parents.
Why Emotionally Neglectful Parents Can’t Teach Self-Soothing
There are many different types of emotionally neglectful parents. They may be so self-focused that they’re not aware of their children’s emotional needs, much less meeting them. They may be doing their best to keep the family afloat financially so that they’re too exhausted, or not present enough, to respond to their children emotionally.
The Good News
Fortunately, self-soothing is not complex or difficult to learn. In fact, for most people, it’s mostly a process of self-discovery, trying different ideas, and observing the outcome.
Since every human being is unique, the things that will be soothing to you will be specific to you.
4 Steps to Learn Self-Soothing
- Make a list of possible activities that you think might be soothing for you. You will have this initial group of possible strategies ready to try when you need them.
- Watch for strong feelings of anger, hurt, sadness, or any other feeling that is too sharp or painful to manage. These are your chances to try out your list.
- Try different strategies at different times, since different strategies may work in different situations and with different feelings. Try one strategy and if it doesn’t work, try another.
- If one of your strategies isn't good, mark it off. Add new ones as they occur to you. It may be helpful to think back to your childhood. What comforted you as a child? How about earlier in your adult life? Perhaps you’ve already found and used some things that work for you. Make sure any strategy you add to your list is healthy.
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Examples of Self-Soothing
- write about what you are feeling
- take a warm bath or a shower
- play a musical instrument
- listen to music; this may require a particular song
- exercise
- cook something creative or healthy
- solve a Sudoku or crossword
- cuddle with your pet
- play with a child
- take a walk
2 Universal Self-Soothers
1. Self-talk: Self-talk is incredibly powerful and versatile. You can do it any place at any time. Talk to yourself in your own head about what you’re feeling or its cause. Remind yourself of simple, honest truths that will give you balance and perspective.
“This is just a feeling, and feelings don’t last forever”
“Everybody makes mistakes”
“You tried your best”
“Just sit through it and it will pass”
“I will learn from this. Then, I’ll put it behind me”
2. Cry: One study, (Sharman, et al., 2020) measured subjects’ physiological responses to stress before and after crying and found that crying helps you maintain biological homeostasis and regulates your heart rate when you are upset."
Read the full article here!
Reflection:
How do you self-soothe?
#Stress #Self-Soothing #EmotionalRegulation
@comfortableNight4463 I agree with the article that self-talk and crying can be really great for self-soothing! Understanding your feelings and combating the negative thoughts with positive ones can be so powerful! It's all about knowing your feelings and how to make yourself feel better.
