Learning To Soothe Yourself When Times Are Tough

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.

Nice thread :) I hope people can gain some understanding and info for themselves and how they can support others.

Ta Natty :) Can I just add that I certainly don't have all the answers and am no expert at self soothing! When I saw my hen yesterday I fell to pieces and cried into DHs shoulder intermittantly for a good part of the day! But I was also aware of helping my boys deal with the situation so eventually I go to work on some strategies such as realising that the fox wasn't evil... it could have easily been a mumma fox desperate to feed young cubs or to make milk because she had just given birth to them. Reminding myself that this is just the cycle of life help to soothe my distress. I'm still sad about it... but can deal.

I think I fail here, lol. I will get angry, yell, scream, do what ever in the heat of the moment. But then take a deep breath, try to make a coffee & tell myself to accept that life is not easy & I will survive this.
I've endured alot worse & come out the other side in one piece...

(This is of course in reguards to having a reflux baby I can't put down, challenging jelouse toddler, 5 year old who won't stop drawing on walls, no matter what I do & an 8 going on 16 year old with an attitude problem! Chuck in lack of sleep & DH winging about how 'hard' work is & life is fantastic right now! :lol:)

Thank you for posting this, it's just what I need this week! Am feeling life's stressors are getting the better of me lately.

I struggle sometimes too. I think everyone does. Things I have learnt though is to watch my own behaviour when I'm struggling and whilst I'm trying to find the right coping mechanism make sure I'm not doing something that would later be seen as bad behaviour knowing I'll justify it with my feelings. I even try to do this with depression. Note that I said try, I'm still working on it but it's something I always analyse first.

When it comes to coping I tend not to lash out as I think often that just enflames my feelings and keeps me in the "not coping" zone. Which then becomes the "Oh crap look at the mess I've created and now have to clean up" zone.

I have a few close sounding boards who are non bias and will hit me with a good dose of reality when needed but also nurture me when needed too. I also take time out to energize doing something grounding. And sometimes if I really can't cope with my emotions or keep them under check I'll sleep. For me sleep is the best option because it stops everthing and when I wake up I tend to have a little more energy to start fresh.

I think categorising the seriousness as you mention Bath is important too.

My two biggest problems are not coping and then putting those feelings in the too hard basket because I can't find a resolution but in doing so I bottle. And the other is going into preservation mode and treating the situation with logic rather than feelings and then breaking down two weeks later over something minor and completely unrelated because I was still quite fragile from the week before iykwim?

This is something I often struggle with so I will be watching this thread with interest.

Sleep deprivation certainly affects our ability to self soothe! I think that's why lots of us feel the extra burden when having children. I've also read that when we have children our minds (as mothers) are subconsciously cast back to when we were babies/toddlers/children... and a little of the helplessness and frustration we felt back then creeps back into our outlook.

When i read about this in a book "Families And How To Survive Them" by Robyn Skinner I had a real "ahhhh" light bulb moment. My parents divorced when i was 12... and sadly when my DD was 12 our relationship started to flounder... because a bit of subconscious panic had started to infiltrate my parenting. When i was 12 it was a time that i felt i had nobody help me to self soothe.... you would think that this would make me even more compassionate with my 12yo DD but it kind of did the opposite for a while... it was a time when my parenting floundered and i put her into the "too hard basket" like Rouge mentioned. And that can be quite hard to deal with when you also have a newborn to deal with as i did! Like i said, i'm no expert... but just being aware of the need to be able to self soothe effectively really helps.

You have to be able to soothe your feelings before you can organise them and work on resolving the issue. <--- but oh! if it was only that easy!

Thanks for posting this - I've been worried about how to teach DSs how to cope with difficulties when I have problems with this myself. I know I need to learn to do it myself before I can show them how to do it.

I was thinking about this thread today, and through the week. I used it when I found out my mum was sick, because I could see myself getting into a stress spiral.

Today, I was looking back to the most turbulent time of my life, and realised that I was instinctively doing this at the time. As I grew up, though, I seem to have lost the ability a little bit - I don't know why. I would have thought I'd get better at coping as I got older. So it's really nice to have a reminder. Thanks Bath.

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"Families And How To Survive Them" by Robyn Skinner

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Awesome book which should be compulsory for all adults to read :)

Awesome thread too!

Oh goodness, what a great thread Bath. I'm mainly writing to subscribe because my thoughts are somewhat jumbled right now.

I was going to say that I exclusively self-sooth, meaning that I barely ever go to other people for support. That's probably why I've used BB so much in the past, because I rarely go to my partner or my IRL friends when I'm having difficulties. And I've found the last three years VERY difficult for various reasons.

But, when I reflect a little more, I think that I actually haven't self-soothed at all well until very, very recently. I've mainly just bottled things up with the odd vent on BB here and there.

I think the turning point for me were a couple of books called Buddhism For Mothers. They talk about living in the moment and also accepting how your life has changed and that now things have to be done differently (usually meaning not as fast). In terms of dealing with difficult times, I guess I allow myself now to 'find things hard' for a while and don't place as big an expectation on myself to jump through hoops finding solutions to problems or to find things easy all the time. I guess I've just accepted that I'm human, that I will make mistakes (particularly in regard to parenting DSD) but that I should be proud of myself for always trying my best. This is quite a big leap for me as the only trigger for depression for me is feeling that I've done something wrong/bad.

Yes, it's interesting that you mentioned Audax that you expected to get better at it as you got older. I think this happens to lots of us... we just expect maturity attributes to be "bestowed" upon us as we age. So often it just doesn't happen that way. Unless we have maturing awareness little else will develop.

Fiona: I could have written similar! Somedays I beg the universe to send me a mentor of some kind... to kind of raise my awareness and therefore ability to help myself and my loved ones better.

I packed away my copy of "Families..." yesterday and remembered this thread... I also found a good description of the book in Wikipedia:

Families and How to Survive Them is generally acknowledged as being one of the best books for the lay person on family relationships and the social development of children. It was and remains a huge success, and is viewed as being both educational and amusing, as well as making a significant contribution towards the demystifying of psychological illness. The British Journal of Psychiatry described it as being "of paramount importance". People who read the book often speak of it as being "a complete eye opener" and of a desire to rush out and buy a dozen copies for their friends. Many people who have read it have identified it as being indispensable in giving insights into their own lives, and providing a better understanding about how to bring up happy and well balanced children.