Ten Ways To Self-Soothe

Did you know that even adults, grown folks, need to learn how to self-soothe? I'll be talking about why and how to do that today. Hi, my name is Chrystal Hurst, and I am here on Facebook and YouTube sharing content, hopefully, that is helpful to you every week. I actually go live every week in my Inner Circle membership where there's a little fun and a lot of foolery. Every Monday morning, and then we take some of the content from that time and we share it, uh, piece of that, a portion of that on YouTube or Facebook every week. So if you don't want to miss the videos that I put up, be sure and subscribe to my YouTube channel, like my Facebook page. And if you'd like to know more about the Inner Circle, you can go to chrystalhurst.com/innercircle. I wanted to talk to you about self-soothing because I don't know that for us adult people that we think about that a lot, but it's really important that you do and that you know what it is and how to do it. Why? Because life will throw curves at you, and we all know that stress is not good for us. But to destress, to self-soothe, and some of the tactics of self-soothing that I'm gonna talk to you about today, that's exactly what they do. They help you to destress. There are a lot of things that we do to destress that unfortunately in the last year and a half, we haven't been able to necessarily do. For example, I have friends that destress by going to the mall. Well, for a really long time, that was not an option, or that was not something that they were comfortable doing. Like it's called shopping therapy. Some of us, not me, but some people, like to de-stress by shopping. Um, there are those of us who know we should not, but we will attempt to de-stress by eating, which we all know is a horrible way. Emotional eating is a horrible way to deal with stress. But there are other ways that you can de-stress. There are other ways that you can soothe yourself. And when we are in stressful situations like often we have been in the last couple of years, you want to have some tools, some, um, some processes and procedures by which you can be the most effective person that you need to be without building up unnecessary levels of stress in your life. And this is a very simple thing to do. Think about when you have a toddler and they work themselves into a frenzy. My daughter has 3 children, and that's one of the words that we use to describe when the kids just start crying, they just, it's just a fit of crying. And at, there's a certain point at which nothing is really wrong. It's just, they've just worked themselves into a frenzy. And what a good mother will do, or a good grandmother will do, will just try to calm them down. They just, you know, they start heaving and breathing and, you know, you know, they're just in a frenzy. And we know what to do is nurturing women to calm a child down. You'll hold them, you'll distract them, you'll rub their backs, you embrace them. There are these things to do. And then there are times when you need children or teenagers, because the teenagers in your lap all the time when they're having a meltdown that looks more like an attitude is not, you know, holding them and patting them on the back. While there's room for that sometimes, when they're losing their minds, they need to self-soothe. And what that looks like is you need to go to your room until you can compose yourself, get yourself together, and come back down here and talk to me the right way. Um, I actually have one of my children, um, he works himself into a frenzy all the time. He's a high-strung personality. And ever since he was little, I would say, um, like, I'm not doing that with you. I mean, the way you're talking to me, your body language, I'm not doing that with you. You need to go to your room, get yourself together. And when you can come back down here and communicate with me in a level-headed way, then we can have a conversation. In effect, what I was saying is that what the behavior that you're exhibiting needs some toning down. It needs some addressing. And I need you to go and address it. I need you to lay down. I need you to breathe deeply. I need you to think about what you're going to say, and then you can re-engage. Okay. As adults, there are times when we do need external soothing. We do need to let the tears roll and we need to call a friend and we need to get it all out unscripted. We need to get on our face, we need to pray, we need to, you know, ask God to help. You know, there are times when the frenzy is allowed, and the frenzy needs to happen so that you can just empty yourself of all the craziness. And you need to feel God's loving arms around you, soothing you. You need to feel your mom or your sister or a really good friend saying, Girl, it's going to be okay. Like, don't worry about it. It's going to be okay. Or just somebody there to listen. Then there are times when you working yourself into a frenzy is an inappropriate behavior. And I'm sure that many of us have been in situations where we've worked with someone in the workplace, uh, in corporate America, or even at church where it was clear they did not know how to appropriately soothe themselves in an environment with other people. And they were just losing it and they did not know how to sequester themselves, um, and soothe themselves until they could reenter the conversation in an appropriate way. So you being able to calm yourself, to take a moment, and get yourself together is a skill that you need to practice and learn. And I'm not the only person that's talking about the need for you to self-soothe. Let me read something to you, uh, from Shondaland. I found this article when I was Googling around doing research. She says, on top of saddling us with excruciating levels of stress and anxiety, the pandemic has derailed many of the pastimes that help us to decompress, and recharge. Either we don't have access to them anymore, or the experiences that we have access to are so restricted, they're no longer something that we look forward to. A Maryland-based licensed psychologist said typically people have relied on changing their environment to self, self-soothe, like going to a restaurant or hitting the road. And that type of change, an external change, can give you a psychological reset because you physically, and from a, from your brain space, you are literally changing the environment and giving yourself an opportunity to just get a fresh experience. But when we have been, as we've been the last year and a half, we've been confined to our homes with a steady stream of social isolation and methods of coping that are primarily sedentary. Binge watching TV, scrolling on social media. People that are day drinkers have had all day at home to drink. I mean, it's a whole situation. It's changed. And so we've had to, we've had to re-figure out, and I believe that everything is figure-outable, but we've had to figure out how to be okay in a set of circumstances that's not changing. So if you have not figured this out yet, and as we are You know, hearing everywhere now that, okay, we've got second waves of COVID and, you know, Delta variant. And I mean, we were like, we're almost done. And then here come the waves again with all of the different concerns. And, um, the world is the same but different. Um, kids are going back to school and I mean, teachers are going back into the classroom. And so all of these things that even the, in our new normal, the normal is yet changing again. That brings more stress. So I want you to have tools that will help you, very simple tools that will help you to, um, figure, find you in the chaos and to kind of get yourself together on the inside, regardless of what's happening on the outside. So these are really simple tools, but they're tools to remember to do in the chaos of life when you might not be thinking about doing them. Okay? And they don't take long. So here are some ideas for self-soothing. Number 1, stretch. I actually had a podiatrist, as a matter of fact, tell me one time— I had some tightness in a calf because of a problem I was having in my foot— and he gave me these stretches. And he said, if you're like most of my patients, I'm gonna give you these stretches and you're not gonna do them because you just are not gonna think that they're really that important. He said, listen, of course we know that eating a healthy diet is important and we know that movement is important. He said, but more important than either one of those is stretching. And I said, really? That sounds a little extreme. He said, it's because, um, if you don't have a limber body, you will move less. You will move less. And if you move less, you will have, um, less of an appetite because you're not burning as many calories. You won't have a need for energy. And so it's this trickle effect, he said. And that's why as people get older and they get more stiff, with that stiffness there's limitations and all these different things. He said stretching and keeping yourself limber It's one of the most important things you can ever do. Stretching doesn't take long. I have a friend who would get up every morning and she would do what she would call good mornings. She would put her hands on her hips, she would bend over at her hip, twist her body to the right, twist her body to the left. Now I bet you, even as you're watching this video, if you do that just right then, or even if you pause this if you're watching the replay and do that, you're going to actually feel something. It's just like life goes like this. Your life in your body. That's the only way I can think of to describe it. Something awakens in you physically when you stretch. And that one little thing, my grandfather used to get up every morning. You know, he was almost in his 90s and he would get up every morning and had this set of stretches and exercises that he would do in the morning. So I wanna encourage you, bend over and touch your toes. Like raise your hands above your head, like at the end of an aerobics class and you'd have to, you know, take a deep breath in and take a deep breath out. And yes, believe it or not, I used to teach step aerobics. But the little thing of stretching actually centers you. It literally releases hormones into your body. And I don't know if physically what the feeling that I'm describing is a feeling of the hormones. I can't tell you that. What I can tell you is you will feel something. And what I can tell you is you will release good hormones into your body that wake your brain up and that make you feel better. So super simple, 5 minutes, butt stretch. The second thing is y'all take a shower, like just pause and go take a shower. If you have a routine of taking a shower before you go to bed, and I know that earlier on our live, we were— that's a little bit of our foolery, was how to kind of set yourself up for success in the evening. We were talking about the importance of routines. Well, if your routine is to take a shower before you go to bed, but you've had a stressful day, flip the script. Like, come home, put your stuff up, tell your kids to eat cereal for dinner. They will not die. Don't do it every day. But every now and then it'll, they'll be all right. And go take your shower. Like go into the, just go put your stuff down, put your purse down, come in the door, tell everybody to fend for themselves, make peanut butter and jelly. You go straight to the bathroom, take a shower, just allow yourself to be soothed. Turn on music that you like, set an environment, put a candle back there. Do it. Find things to look at with your eyes that are peaceful. So if you have not taken pride in your surroundings, your surroundings in your office at work, your surroundings at home, um, and y'all, if you've been watching me or listening to me for any length of time, you know that me and clothes and getting dressed is just not how I want to spend my life. And I also don't want to spend my life decorating either. It's the same stress level, to be honest. However, what I've found is that In fact, I was talking to a friend of mine recently who is a very eclectic designer, and I was just like, you know, it's just so interesting all the different things that you put together. And she said, oh, I just find stuff I love and just buy a lot of that. She said, I don't really pay that much attention to whether or not it brings together a cohesive feeling. She's like, I'm not a designer, I can't do that. What I do know is that I love being around things that I love. And you need to give yourself permission to put things in your sphere of sight, your line of sight, that you love, that are soothing you. Right now I've got a painting on the wall with colors that I love that actually soothes me. I love words. And so buying, um, artwork that has great quotes that are positive and encouraging and putting them around, even if it's just magnets with great words on your refrigerator, are you intentional about putting colors, signs, words, thoughts, um, visual images that make you want to smile. So that is another way to always be in an environment of self-soothing. I had a coworker one time, I walked into her office and I was like, oh my gosh, it felt like I was in her bedroom. She had the fluorescent lights off. She had a lamp in the corner. So the lighting was very soft. Her office was very homey. She had a rug and I mean, it was just like, she just, I said, girl, you just have made this like, you know, your house. And she said, I got to spend most of my days here. So why would I not make it somewhere that I want to be just like I've done the same in my home? Okay, good point. But I literally crossing from the hallway with other people into the space of her abode, I felt a shift. In me. It was calming and it was peaceful to enter her space. What do you like looking at that brings you joy? And in little small tangible ways, put it around. You can buy a cheap picture frame and print a quote or a scripture off of the computer to fit the frame and stick that in there and put that on your desk so you can see it. We're not talking about, you know, spending a million dollars We're talking about intentionality and your senses. A lot of the things that you can do to self-soothe involve your senses. Here's another one. We don't think about often what we hear that we say, but I've often said, in fact, I said it in my book, She's Still There, we have to learn to talk to ourselves. You have to learn to talk to yourself like you would talk to a friend. Speak compassionately to yourself. Because actually when you talk, you're the closest person in earshot. So what do you need to say to yourself to self-soothe? Of course, think about it, my original illustration with a small child. You hold them close, you pat them on the back, and you say, "It's going to be okay. Don't worry. It's going to be okay. Now, now." There, there. So what does it look like for you to talk gently and compassionately to yourself when you feel your anxiety rising, when you feel stressed as your job starts talking about what's changing in your work schedule or your work location, or as many of us are back to this rhythm of school as we get back into the, these habits, but the world is still got some scary things going on. What does it sound like for you to notice that you're not okay and for you to speak to yourself? Girl, just take a minute and breathe. You know that if you get all worked up, it's not gonna be good for you. It's not gonna be good for them. Just take a minute. You don't have to rush. Take a minute and breathe. Get your thoughts together. Slow down. You don't have to rush. You literally need to be okay with talking to yourself, literally out loud to yourself. Just be okay with it because there is, it's one thing for you to think think nice thoughts to yourself. It's another thing for your ears to hear the girl in you telling you, "Just breathe." So speak compassionately to yourself. Okay, so there is this concept called grounding. Now I have heard of this before, but I actually just realized that it's something that I do when I write. So I was describing to a friend of mine how in order for me to get into the zone when I write, I have to kind of shut everything else down. And there's a, there's a list of a very few things that I do that help me to focus. I need a certain kind of music. I need to be in a certain kind of place, and I need to feel a certain kind of way. I have a favorite sweater that I use to write in, and I need to be in a place where it's not totally quiet, but the noises are indescript. So a coffee shop where nobody's talking to me, but people are talking to each other would be an example of that, or a library. But being around people and then cocooning in there by having music that I can hear, and I have playlists on Spotify or playlists on YouTube that I will listen to, or or enjoy, but there's no words. It's no rhythm. I don't want to get up and dance. It just provides an environment that allows me to get into my own head to the words that need to come out on paper. And I was describing this to a friend of mine who's a fellow author. She's also a psychologist, and she said, "What you're describing is grounding." I said, "What?" She said, "That's grounding. It's knowing where you need to put your feet." in order to be most connected to you. Now, there are lots of different types of grounding. I obviously ground myself in order to do what I think is my best writing, but grounding can look like a lot of things for even your family. So in my family, when it's— when our schedules are all going crazy and I'm just like, we gotta look each other in the eye, grounding looks like, y'all, this day, on the calendar. Don't anybody schedule work. Don't anybody have anything else to do. We need a family dinner. There are activities that kind of just allow you personally or familially, professionally even, to hit the reset button and to say, I know that there's a lot of stuff going on, but in order for me to connect to the best of me, the best of us, the best of what we produce at work, we have to be grounded. Sometimes it's going for a walk. You may hear people talk about going outside and walking barefoot. Like, there's a physiological component to this. The other day I was stressed about a little decision that I needed to make, and so I went and sat outside, just sat in the sun for a second, just sat there for a little bit because I just needed to change environments and be in a place that allowed me to connect to my ability to make a decision. So what can you do that allows you to connect to you? And you don't have to leave home to do any of that. You just need to figure out where is the space where you feel the most calm. Does it require you lighting a candle? Does it mean that you are, um, on your knees because you're praying? Um, does it mean you need to be quiet? Uh, that's often why as a mom, I sit in my car a lot. I'll bring, come home. I'll send the kids in. They know what they're supposed to do. And I sit in the car with no radio, no sound. I just sit there because I just need a moment to reconnect. Be ruthless about finding moments to connect with you. If you know that that means taking a bubble bath every night, that's what we grew up seeing on TV. Calgon, take me away. That was a mother's effort to ground herself. So morning coffee, being up before everybody else gets up, or having your devotions, that's a method, that's a, that's a type of grounding. So be ruthless about that. I've already talked about listening to soothing music, but even if you're not working on a project, I have a certain type of music that we play in our house all day. It's the environment that I want to have in my home because I know that my children, even my husband, may not be interested or effectively and actively, um, soothing themselves. So my job as the creator of the environment of my home is to create a soothing environment. And so we're diffusing essential oils and I have certain music playing and my, even my children know when they get up, And if the music is not on, if the essential oils aren't going, or if a candle isn't going, they know to turn it on. So I want you to know that your home atmosphere, your car going to and from work, these spaces, whether it's music, sights, sounds, or smells, you can create the space that you need. And that is a way to self-soothe. Practice mindfulness. Now, I know this is a term that, you know, means different things to different people, But what I want you to think about is that instead of your brain being in the next 5 minutes, instead of your brain being in the last 5 minutes, that you are actually fully aware and awake in the moment that you're in. That's all mindfulness is. It is paying attention to where you are right now. If you've ever— I got up yesterday, I was actually meeting with some people at Panera near my home. And we were talking and eating, and I had given my credit card to one of the girls because she's like, "Let me go and pick up the order and I'll pay." And I was going to pay for it, so I gave her my credit card. I saw the credit card when she gave it back to me. I saw where she put it. And I thought in that moment, I probably should go ahead and put it in my wallet right now, but I didn't. So when we got up to leave, I left the credit card because while I was leaving the table, I, We were engrossed in a conversation. I was not thinking and being mindful about getting up to leave because getting up to leave means I have to gather my things. I need to look around. How many times have you left your phone somewhere or your keys somewhere or a credit card somewhere? And if you would've just been paying attention in that moment, you wouldn't have left it because you knew it was there. So mindfulness just says, instead of being so busy doing one thing while you're doing another, do the one thing that you're doing. Have your brain in it and have your brain on it so that you are not splitting your attention. One of the best ways to slow down and to enjoy your life is to have your brain in the moment that you're in. And because we're so busy, we tend to not only be stressed, but to also create additional stressors by losing things or forgetting things because we're moving too fast. So mindfulness is not about sitting like a pretzel and, you know, humdalahumdalahum. It's not that. It's just focusing on what you're doing right now. I don't, I cannot tell you how much peace there is literally In standing and doing dishes, if you have a house that has a window above your sink, if you will stand there and do dishes, like that's it, like not talk on the phone, like, you know, not be busy doing other things, just stand there and look out your window and just spend a moment as you acknowledge with gratitude the plates that you're washing, because that means you ate, you know, noticing the water on your hands, um, noticing the clean sink when you're done, looking out the window, noticing the cars that are passing by. If you've never actually attempted to be mindful in simple things, you are missing out. Like, let me give you an example. When I fold clothes— now, there's nothing wrong with folding clothes and watching TV, but occasionally I'll just be folding clothes, and what will happen is I'll fold an old towel And because I'm paying attention to the thing that I'm doing right there, I'll fold an old towel and think back to 4 living arrangements ago before I was married in that, you know, in what is now an old towel when that towel was new. And thinking back to that old apartment that I would live in when I was a single parent and how I was so proud of my apartment and how I was adding, you know, the sheets and the towels and, you know, decorating my little apartment. And now what is a really basic thing, folding the towels, has become a trip down memory lane and an opportunity for gratitude. So in that moment of folding a towel, I am now soothed and because you know what? I'm in the middle of what is still a good life. And this old towel has been with me through 4 places. And I bought this towel with my own money. And I was so excited when I got this Egyptian cotton towel. And here it is, still serving me and my family. Do you see how just being aware of the towel that you're folding and letting your mind relax, being mindful in that moment, how it sets you up for room to breathe. So don't miss simple opportunities to have your thoughts serve you well in any given moment. Another way to self-soothe is to move your body. Like literally just get outside. You don't have to walk for 5 miles. If you just walk for 15 minutes, um, there are things that start coursing through your veins, hormones that start pumping through your body that actually do a lot to calm you down. I literally tell my teenage boys one of the things that they have to do when it's— when they're getting cranky, and it's, it's physiologically true. I'm like, oh, I know what's wrong with you. You need to go move. Bye-bye, go run for a mile. You know, set the timer, run for 20 minutes. I'll see you when you get back. And I'm tracking you. So if you're not running, if you don't actually go anywhere, I know. They come back and the tension is simply lower. Okay. So I want you to realize that the opportunity that you have to soothe yourself is not only is it important, but that it's easy. It's easy. I want to give you one more, um, that it doesn't really sound exciting, but it really, really does actually help. It's okay to let yourself feel bad. Now, we don't want to roll in it for months. But if life has been hard, if you've been struggling with grief, if you have had a bad day at work, if you just realize it, you know, you're going to have to take a package because, you know, your department is closing. If you had another argument with your husband, if that kid is really causing you to struggle, if you're sick of being single, it's another Valentine's Day and you're by yourself. Okay. These are very real things that can happen. Um, or that our brain can remember, and we don't like them. Okay. And it does make the tears well up and it does make you feel frustrated. It does make you question, you know, why can't I get this right? Why is this not better? It's all right to laze around for a minute. It's all right to put on your robe, put on your fuzzy socks, order in, you know, watch a chick flick, let the tears fall. And just sit in it for a second. That's the equivalent of a parent holding a child who's still trying to get it together. You let them work it out. Don't feel bad about a part of your soothing process being giving yourself the room to just experience the emotion. At the end of the day, sometimes a part of your self-soothing is just giving yourself the room and the time to feel the thing, to get through the thing, and then to be kind enough to give yourself grace to move out of it slowly. So I hope this has given you some practical ideas for what you can do to soothe yourself. Know that with the stress that we're under, with the life that we've been experiencing, there have been days for me, and I know there have been days for you, where your stress level or anxiety level is higher than you want it to be, and you simply need to just, uh, figure out how to feel better. But you have the power to do things, small things, that will help you feel better. And if you will give yourself the space and the grace to do it, it actually empowers you to be the person who is the most in tune with you, which is an awesome gift to give yourself since you are with you the whole time. So know how to self-soothe. Notice when you need that. Give yourself the grace to do it. Don't apologize for it, and know that it's a skill that helps you live well. If you do not take the opportunities needed to self-soothe, here's what will happen: you will be stressed nonstop, all the time. You will be waiting on other people to give you what you can actually very well give yourself. And then you will not give yourself the the grace, the time, and the opportunity to reinforce you with what you need to actually be good. And I want you to be good. I don't want you to just live. I don't want you to just check off your to-dos. I don't want you to just check off the boxes of the things that are action items for your life. I want you not just to do, but to be. And in order to be good when life isn't good, you have to know how to soothe yourself. There are tons of ideas online. You know, like my friend Ali Worthington says, with God and Google, we can do anything. So if you need other ideas, take to Googling for sure. There were tons of ideas that I had and I just selected a few that I thought that were important. Let me tell you this story. My daughter used to suck her thumb. I'm convinced, my oldest child, that when she was in utero, that I could feel her sucking her thumb. She came out on day one and she knew where her thumb was, and she was a thumb sucker for a very, very long time. And then I found out that, of course, thumb sucking is a form of self-soothing. We give our babies pacifiers, and we do this because the sucking reflex is something that babies have. And when we give them a pacifier in their mouth, or when they put their thumb in their mouth, it's a way for them to soothe themselves. My daughter would rub her ear or rub a blanket and she would stick her thumb in her mouth. And I didn't actually fight that. She never wore braces. Her teeth are straight. I'm very grateful. It's amazing. But I remember she was such a pleasant, happy child. Everybody was like, "Get that thumb out of her mouth. She's gonna mess up her teeth. She's gonna do this. She's gonna do that." And she was such a pleasant and happy child. When I look back on it, I just was thinking it's because a lot of the stuff that she probably would have wigged out about, when it upset her, or when she was afraid, or when she wanted to feel comforted, she just would stick her own thumb in her mouth and rub her own ear or rub her blanket, and she would be fine. Now, while everybody else wanted her to take her thumb out of her mouth, I looked at her and said, I like it that you know how to be fine. There may be people in your life that look at what you need to do to soothe yourself and think, why are you doing that? My family says even to me now, why do we have to listen to this music all the time? Because I— y'all need me to be good. That's why. Don't let anybody talk you down. From what works for you for soothing yourself. Because at the end of the day, you will be so pleasant and so good to be around because you know how to take care of you. So hope that's helpful. Be sure, make sure you've subscribed here or that you followed me on Facebook so that next week when I share hopefully some content that is useful to you, that you'll be notified, and then you can join the group of women who are watching the live replay, um, because the community in the chat, it's all about the chat always. And I will see you here next week, same time, same place. Have a great week and know that it is a good thing for you to be your own best friend. Here's to self-sleeping.