Why You Need to Learn to Comfort Yourself
The cold reality of adulthood is that there won’t always be someone around to make you feel better.
Parents find lives of their own, friendships wax and wane, time zones push out response times, partnerships burst, intimacy slides.
No longer can you run, screaming and tear-streaked, into an adult’s arms.
As a grown-up you may have found someone to run to, but be wary of over-relying on any single individual — they are human, they are on a journey of their own, and they are mortal.
In fact it is very likely that eventually the person or circumstance that made you feel so bad will be the person you used to rely on to make you feel better.
There is only one thing to do when faced with the cold aloneness of adulthood and that is to learn to self-soothe.
To self-soothe is to first of all recognise your own pain, to pause and sit with the weight of it, the ache of it, the sharp and breathtaking spikiness of it, and acknowledge it for what it is. The second part of self-soothing is the part where you do what you need to do to right the world again: thick books, strong coffees, long walks, hot showers. The third part is the part where you rebuild: where you reflect, where you learn, where you hatch your new plan.
