Yesterday we looked at how we confuse being soothed with being saved. If you have not read yesterday’s edition of The Anxious Morning, go check it out, then come on back for today’s. We’ll keep your seat warm for you.
If we are not going to be saved because we don’t need saving, where does this leave us? If we’re asking for soothing, is that bad? What’s so wrong about wanting to have someone sooth us when we are afraid?
At face value, nothing is wrong with that. It’s a bit of a basic human need. We all want and need someone to stroke us and tell us that everything is OK now and then. That is not a crime, nor is needing that a failure of some kind. Feelings - and life - are sometimes hard. We all deserve a little help at times.
But in the case of someone struggling with forms of disordered anxiety - where the fear of fear has gone off the rails - the continuous demand for soothing is just like anything else in life. Too much can be too much. When we demand to be soothed whenever we experience anxiety, we trample all over the important concept that holds the key to recovery. Asking our safe people to comfort and sooth us as standard procedure never teaches us the central lesson of recovery - that we are capable of being OK even when we are afraid or anxious.
In fact, it does the opposite. If you see being anxious as a disaster from which you need to be rescued, then being carried out of the flames every time teaches you that your assessment is correct. Demanding the rescue by way of soothing reinforces the mistaken belief that discomfort and danger are the same things. This mistake in cognition is what drives the disordered state. Rewarding the mistake keeps us stuck. So in this case, soothing crosses the line from useful to borderline harmful.
Think about it. In all the time that you’ve been relying on your safe people to save/sooth you, what have you learned about your own strength or ability to move through anxiety or discomfort? If you insist that you must be saved, what does this say about your belief in your own strength and capabilities? Digging your heels in and insisting that your partner, sibling, friend, or anyone else must be close by “just in case” is based on a premise that stands 180 degrees in opposition to the premise that gets you out of this jam.
We recover by learning experientially that we are capable of handling the things we are sure we cannot handle. This means that we learn to stand on our own two feet rather than jumping into the arms of a rescuer at the first sign of trouble. In the process of recovery we leave habitual and automatic soothing behind in favor of challenging experiences that show us that we ourselves are strong and able to deal with all aspects of our human-ness.
So soothing as a default strategy isn’t such a great idea if you’re hoping to enact change and move forward in recovery. This is not to say that you are never allowed to lean on another human ever again. Of course you are! As with anything else in recovery, we are learning to bring things back into a normal healthy position in our lives - the use of soothing included.
But what about self-soothing? Where does that fit in? Good question, Drew. Let’s talk about that tomorrow.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
59. Habitual Soothing Of Your Anxiety