Another DBT crisis survival skill is called self soothing.
The idea behind self soothing is to actually be nice to ourselves during times of crisis.
For some of us, this comes pretty naturally, though for others, there are a couple of obstacles that get in the way, sometimes of self soothing. One obstacle is having the belief that if you're in crisis or an other, or if other people are in crisis, you don't deserve soothing at this time. Another obstacle is, some people sometimes have the belief that other people should suit me, I shouldn't have to soothe myself. Both of those things get in the way of practicing this skill. And I would encourage you to just recognize when those obstacles show up, and do the skill anyway.
Self soothing in a nutshell is being kind to yourself and doing things to soothe yourself in a way to remember things that you might do to soothe yourself or to think about your five senses.
So for example, with vision, you can think about what are images that are soothing to you, you can look out a window, you can look at the night sky, you can find a picture of painting of a painting online, you can look at photographs, you can go for a walk and really just take in the vision of nature, or the sensation of hearing, you can put on soothing music, music that you really love, you could hum or sing a soothing song, you can play an instrument, you can listen to other people playing instruments, you can make a mix of songs that will suit you in a particular way.
With smell, you can think about using cents that are soothing to you. So candles with cents or spices, cooking, smelling or using lemon oil or even cleaning products that have a nice smell. Or go outside and take a walk and notice the smells of nature or fresh air. With taste. This is often everyone's favorite, but how do you soothe yourself with taste is eating some of your favorite foods, drinking teas that have strong and soothing flavors, eating something that is soothing for you from your childhood. In moderation, of course, or also with candy or a little bit of a special food that you don't normally spend money on. These are all ways to soothe yourself with taste.
And then the last sense is to think about how do you soothe yourself with touch, taking a long hot bath or shower, petting an animal getting cozy in a blanket that's really comfortable for you putting on your favorite blouse or shirt that has a soothing texture or putting lotion on and just noticing the sensation of the lotion on your skin.
So ultimately, we're thinking about these five senses as a way to generate activities or items that give us a sense of pleasure, and also just promote this intent of being kind to ourselves. That's the skill of self soothe and that will help us manage our crises more effectively.
