Learning To Soothe Yourself When Times Are Tough

[Bathsheba]

A few situations have cropped up in my life recently that have reminded me that some adults I know, myself included, sometimes struggle to soothe our own feelings and have the expectation that others do this for them.

Yesterday a fox killed my chicken, last month DH had to endure a humiliating training session and role play examination at work, last week my DD's FaceBook account was hacked by a so-called friend. These were all really tough things to endure and we had to call upon strategies that are a part of our emotional intelligence repetoire to deal with them. Yes we all asked for a bit of help, but we mainly managed to self soothe our own feelings. This is a learned skill. We aren't born with it. A baby will cry loudly everytime it needs soothing because it doesn't know how to deal with the situation... but as the child matures emotionally it will learn to draw on strategies to do it by itself.

Adults who lack self soothing strategies can often be quite draining to help but if you gently try to make them aware of the situation using compassion rather than criticism then this often resolves the issue faster.

HERE is some good information about such strategies. Mods: I hope this link is ok... i couldn't see any commercial content... if there is I'll cut and paste the relevant material.