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An excellent question.

Maybe a good place to start is to acknowledge that this concept is alien to you and why this might be so. What are your experiences of care and kindness? Can you readily name gentle people in your life? Are there people who touch your heart? Can you feel those tender feelings? Can you imagine others feeling that way toward you? If not, why not? What judgements do you have around your self-worth and self-esteem? Issues to ponder...


Essentially to self-soothe means to discover and embrace ways and means that calm fraying nerves. It is the realisation that we have never really learned to look after ourselves emotionally and instead we intellectualise, living from the head and not the heart. Many of us initially veer into self-destructive behaviours, such as booze, food, casual sex, shopping, over-exercising and other deadening, zone-out practices before realising that such actions take more than they give. The initial high is not worth the heavy, hard-hitting low. Invariably these behaviours worked once and maybe for a while especially when we were young but the results are ever diminishing and we finally must face ourselves.

Initially being kind to yourself means to go easy on internalized value judgements around the failure of aforementioned coping strategies. It means having the courage and kindness to go beyond knee-jerk reactions and it means forgiving yourself for the events and experiences that led you to become so emotionally shut-down that you no longer even recognise how emotionally flat-lined you are.

Then you begin to switch wires and substitute destructive behaviours for nurturing ones.

I am sure you instinctively know what makes you feel good deep into your bones. These are the things to focus on.

For me they are the small and simple. Cuddling up to my partner. Stroking a friendly dog. An early night. Cloudwatching. And most of all Nature. The forest, sun set, full moon, a powerful storm...moments that take us out of our small selves and connect with something bigger, something enduring.

Self soothing means caring for yourself, your needs as a human being. It means learning how to feel your emotions in the moment and not be thrown a curve ball. It means opening up not closing down. It is Love not Fear. It is the practice and thinking of becoming centred and at peace with who you are and then loving the hell out of yourself.