The words “self-soothing” might evoke an infant sucking on their thumb, but it is actually a very important skill to master as adults. Whatever our age, temperament and preferences, I believe that self-soothing is a super skill to cultivate for all of us and can really make a difference to our quality of life and our capacity to operate.
“Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.” Robert Holden
What is Self-Soothing?
Self-soothing is like a menu from which we can select the best response to a situation that we find difficult or triggering. It is a practice of self-reliance and safety to welcome and process emotions while connecting to our body and space, bringing comfort and kindness to ourselves. Self-soothing is a great way to come to terms with past trauma that may need to be heard and resolved.
Self-soothing brings us maturity, balance and resourcefulness, and by helping us to understand ourselves better, it helps us to understand others better, thus expanding our compassion and perspective. Self-soothing helps to create neural pathways that are supportive and relaxing, giving our brains a more helpful capacity to process and respond.
I
t really needn’t be complicated: I like to look at the fire when I am tired. I like to wash my face with a warm and moist facecloth when I am upset. Some people I know like to curl up and listen to an inner child meditation. Others will feel very soothed by a bath, a nap, a meditation practice, music or a walk in nature. Just test different things out, learn to lean into the raw emotions and listen to what might make you feel nourished in that particular moment. I will write another blog post about self-soothing rituals within the next few weeks, but for now, let’s have a look at the benefits of self-soothing.
The Benefits of Self-Soothing
The benefits of self-soothing are many, and this post is by no means exhaustive, but I want to share my experience of some of the amazing benefits I personally receive from deepening a self-soothing practice. What I love about self-soothing is that it is not exclusively self-serving: as we become more and more familiar with it, we realise it serves everyone around us, because it makes us more relaxed, more balanced, more responsible, more open-minded, a lot more fun, and much kinder.
Self-Soothing Gives us Safety
Practicing self-soothing reminds us that we can truly rely on ourselves when things get overwhelming. By building our relationship with ourselves in a safe, gentle and uplifting way, self-soothing brings us inner peace and stable confidence: as we deepen the practice of self-soothing, we realise more and more that we can truly rely on ourselves. By that I don’t mean that we never need anyone else (more on that below) but we become more assured in our own capacity to self-regulate and self-help.
We all have experiences of regret or shame when oversharing deeply personal things with certain people. Deepening a practice of self-soothing means that we learn to regulate oversharing: we become less addicted to sharing our every emotion and experience, we become better at picking exactly the right people to share with in a measured way, making us less needy and more clear-seeing. In turn, that makes us more stable and available for ourselves and for those who need us.
Self-Soothing Shows us who we Truly Are
We can get through difficult times more easily if we discover what soothes us and what really makes a difference to our days. I think that’s why it’s really important to know ourselves well. For example, it’s very useful for me to know that when I am particularly exhausted, I can feel quite needy and dissatisfied and can be under the illusion that I need a lot from my loved ones.
That is when I most see my wish to rant and overshare mindlessly. But in fact, what I truly need is time alone to sleep, take good care and process whatever experiences I am having, without the compulsion to share about them. Knowing that about myself helps me to pick the best self-soothing tools from my self-care box—in this case, quality time with myself, good sleep and deep relaxation. Once I feel refreshed and readjusted, if I still need to share about my difficulties, I can choose the right person and share mindfully to receive the best support.
Self-Soothing Helps us to Process Emotions
This is possibly the most important aspect of self-soothing: going through emotions is a process that we cannot control—by which I mean we can’t decide when certain emotions appear and how long it is going to take before we feel less upset, less angry, less anxious…
Self-soothing is precious because it offers us a safe space to process and welcome those feelings in a way that is completely secure, open, gentle, but firmly honest and courageous. When we meet ourselves so kindly with the intent of self-soothing while we are in the grips of difficult emotions, we grow very brave indeed, and in turn, we relax more and more with uncertainty and challenges. This helps us to face the world with more courage and integrity, as we get to know ourselves so well and know what will support us when we are triggered.
Self-Soothing Opens us to Ask for Support
As we learn to rely on ourselves increasingly, we become more relaxed and we get to know ourselves really well. This shows us where we might need more support. I notice for myself that as I get more and more comfortable with self-soothing, I know exactly when to ask for help and rarely agonise over it anymore.
It is so liberating to know that I can rely on myself while also being totally open to be supported and comfortable with asking. This means we can build a very customised self-care protocol that works perfectly for us, and when we know that we are so well prepared to help ourselves, we can relax and enjoy life and our loved ones even more, and we can be more present for them too.
Self-Soothing Helps us to Discover what we Truly Want
In those moments of self-soothing, we practice being here for ourselves in a peaceful way that is completely clarifying and resets everything for us. It is like we are unplugging the brain and restarting it so that it can function better. Self-soothing helps us to reframe and adapt our mindset so that we can be at ease and operate from a relaxed, but deeply efficient vantage.
This really helps us gain perspective and naturally refine our ideas, preferences and priorities. From a place of deep inner balance brought by self-soothing, we find it easier to discover what we truly want and to clarify decisions. We find it easier to make that first step towards what we seek to accomplish, and to take the necessary steps daily. In my experience, this really comes from the deep self-respect and poise that self-soothing enhances.
Self-Soothing is Also for Good Times
What I love about self-soothing is that we don’t need to wait for the raw and difficult emotions to show up before using our preferred self-soothing techniques. In fact, the more we integrate simple self-soothing moments throughout our days, the more balanced, poised and ready we will feel, and it is likely that the difficult emotions will not throw us off guard as easily as before. This is certainly my experience. As I meet myself daily in simple self-soothing rituals, whether I feel good or bad, I cope with life’s ups and downs in a much more measured and easeful way, and get out of ruts more quickly.
I hope that this post can support you to enjoy many self-soothing moments so you discover or deepen the beautiful benefits it has to offer. I look forward to writing the post about self-soothing rituals soon, and in the meantime, I wish you much enjoyment! Take good care.
