Self Soothing as An Adult
We are perhaps not as adept at taking care of ourselves as we were when we were babies.
A long time ago, a friend of mine who worked with kids told me that babies don’t instinctively know how to soothe themselves in the moment. They need to learn how to self soothe.
She said that since babies haven’t learned how to process and express all of their emotions during the day when they are put down to sleep, they cry. Not necessarily because something is going wrong in the moment but because they are processing what happened during the day and have to learn to calm themselves down.
I haven’t done any research to see if science supports this idea. It would be easy enough to see if it was, in fact, true. But I love the idea so much, to find out it wasn’t true would be extremely disappointing because it feels so relevant in my own life.
The ability to understand and express our emotions is so important to learn at an early age. I’d like to believe I did, but I don’t always feel as adept as I’d like to. There have been times when I have felt like, if not a master of my emotions, then at least a fluent interpreter. One who was capable of understanding and patiently communicating them.
