Self-soothing practices for your nervous system

Increase stability, self-love, and self-worth when life feels overwhelming, scary, unsettling, or a lot.

This week I'm recovering from the flu and my body is tired. After years of operating from burnout, it takes longer than it might otherwise to bounce back. I’ve noticed that emotionally I can hold a lot– I’ve naturally expanded my capacity, but my physical body is still catching up.  

Sharon Blackie, author of The Art of Enchantment, wrote about something she called “The Wasteland” in her book, If Women Rose Rooted. The wasteland is a place where our internal and external environments have become polluted; we burnout because we haven’t been listening to the rhythms of our souls and the rhythms of the Earth. 

I spent many years in the wasteland. 

It siphoned my energy. 

It leeched my body dry. 

It drained the life force from my bones. 

Part of the work of coming back home to myself has been to allow myself to be nourished and healed by my own hands and tears. There were moments in the last year I cried so much I thought my ribcage might crack. Nights I spent heaving, with hands on my body, humming and rocking as I self-soothed. 

What I was grieving most at these times were the parts of me I’d lost for so long. The internal voice I abandoned, the strength I’d forgotten, the confidence I’d left behind, the loss of play, the joy I slowly let slip away in exchange for the love of someone who cost far, far too much. 

Nothing is worth that price. 

I’ve come so far this year in my strength, power, sovereignty, and self love as a result of being divinely forced to walk myself through a fire. Marion Woodman called this period in a woman’s life, “a descent into the underworld”. A threshold or right of passage that initiates women through the death of their old selves and into their rebirth. 

I had a teacher once say, “this is your underworld. I can’t rescue you from this. I can’t hold your hand. You have to walk it on your own, but I will be here for you”. 

It was, by far, the deepest descent I’d ever been on. 

The practices I’m sharing with you are the ones I used to hold my own hand when I felt lost, alone, and had very little sense of what was up or down. They’re the ones that got me through, over and over and over again. 

These practices are tangible, practical support for the times in your life when things feel impossible, scary, lonely, heartbreaking, or untrustworthy. 

Whether you find yourself in the breaking-down-phase when everything’s falling apart, the in-between-phase when you can’t see through the fog, or the stretching-your-edges-and-moving-to-the-next-phase phase… they’re powerful. 

They’re also simple. Most somatic practices are. It’s so simple and profoundly effective to speak the language of your nervous system and give it the safety, support, and comfort it deeply needs. 

With a little practice, I hope you find them as healing as I did. They soothed my anxiety, fear, and activation, but also, they were the medicine that taught me self-love and containment. They taught me to trust in my ability to hold myself through really hard things, and that increased my self worth tenfold. 

Each of these practices have similar (but different) effects. The most important thing is that you choose one that feels right for you and your nervous system. 

1// The Somatic Hug

This exercise is to give yourself the touch and/or the hug that either, 1) wasn’t or isn’t available from another, or 2) didn’t or doesn’t feel safe to receive from another. This technique helps to soothe and nurture the younger parts of you that are longing for connection, empathy, witnessing, or love. 

These internal younger “parts” of you aren’t aware of space and time, therefore, they can receive this comfort as a *co-regulating experience that they don’t currently have access to, or didn’t have access to in the past. 

*Co-regulation is when our nervous system becomes regulated because of the presence of another being's nervous system. This can occur with nature, pets, people, or internally with ourselves, as demonstrated here: one part of you is helping to regulate another part of you. 

How: Place your left hand underneath your right armpit. Place your right hand on top of your upper left arm/shoulder. 

Options: Close your eyes. Sway from side to side. Make gentle humming sounds (lie you’re quietly rocking a baby to sleep). Do this for as long as you need to. 

Pause and notice: Get curious, notice what happens as you do this. Do you spontaneously take a deeper breath? Do you feel warmth, tingling, loosening? Pause and notice if anything feels different. 

2// Self Containment

This exercise is similar to the Somatic Hug, but this gesture sometimes resonates better for certain people. It also includes words that you can say to yourself (or your internal parts that need soothing). I’ve found talking to my internal parts so helpful. 

How: Place one hand on your chest, and one hand on your belly. Say out loud or internally, “I’m here. I’m listening. I’m not going anywhere. I will breathe with you as long as you need me to”. 

Options: Close your eyes. Sway from side to side. Say something along the lines of, “what do you need? What do you have to say?”. Begin the practice of getting curious about what your internal parts need. They’re often seeking attention, validation, and a healthy relationship as much as you are. 

Pause and notice: are you breathing differently? Has anything shifted? If you were to rate your activation/trigger on a scale from 1-10, has it gone down? Just notice. 

3// Self Touch

Self touch can be very soothing. It helps to take you out of spiraling thoughts, and is supportive for your nervous system. The priority with self touch is safety and consent. Even though it may not be a sexual touch, some bodies may not feel fully safe with any touch at all. In this case, I’d suggest working with a somatic practitioner to learn how to practice this slowly (titrated). 

How: There are many ways you can touch yourself! And part of the practice is exploring what feels right and good for your body. I’d suggest starting from your head, and moving downwards. 

Steps:

Begin by scratching or gently massaging your scalp. 

Run your fingertips over your face/facial muscles, applying gentle pressure if it feels good. 

Try placing one hand on your forehead, and one cupping the back of your head. 

Notice what that’s like. 

Then, moving downward, wrap your hands around the back of your neck as if you're cradling your neck/shoulders. 

Press your fingertips over your collar bones and the centre of your chest. 

Cross your arms at your front and begin to massage each shoulder with your opposite hand, moving slowly down your upper arms, forearms, etc. 

Try wrapping your arms around your torso, touching that back of your shoulders with opposite hands. 

Explore what it’s like to place your hands on your lower belly (on your womb, if you have one), maybe rubbing your hands in a circular clockwise motion. 

Continue down, massage your legs until you reach your feet. 

Spend extra time on your feet and toes. 

Options: This whole practice can be done without clothes and with the use of a natural massage oil (such as almond oil, sesame oil, or coconut oil). This is an Ayurvedic technique called Abhyanga. It has many health benefits, but is also known to restore stability, balance, and relaxation. Here’s an article that explains the benefits of this practice. https://chopra.com/articles/the-benefits-of-ayurveda-self-massage-abhyanga

Pause and notice: does anything feel different?  

4// Pleasure Practice

This has become one of my favorite and most healing practices. You might be thinking, duh, it’s pleasure. But actually, pleasure was almost impossible for me to access a year ago after being stuck in fight/flight/freeze for several years. 

Pleasure (along with curiosity, creativity, connection, and play) is one of the first things to go when we’re in survival mode, because our nervous system will turn off what it doesn’t need for survival and direct all our energy toward staying alive. Reintroducing pleasure is a powerful way to bring ourselves OUT of fight/flight because it signals to our systems that our survival is no longer threatened. 

How: There are MANY ways to do a pleasure practice. I could write a whole article on this topic. But for now, we’ll keep it very simple. Think of 3-5 things that bring a sense of sweetness to your life. These things could be big things like gardening, reading, or dancing. Or, they could be very small things like the smell of strawberries, the taste of coffee, or the feeling of hot water running over your back in the shower. 

The invitation is to practice 1) adding more of the “big'' good-feeling things into your day, and 2) noticing the “small” things throughout your day. What happens is you begin to orient your attention and awareness to the things in your life that feel good, which soothes your nervous system and tells it it’s safe and can regulate. 

Just remember, it’s a practice! And most of us are wired to look for challenges or negative things. Practice looking for the good-feeling things, and notice in the moment what impact that has on your state and your nervous system. This practice alone can be life-altering; the more you practice, the more you saturate yourself with pleasure and rewire your nervous system. 

5// Nature

Take some time to be alone in nature. Sit under a tree. Go to a trail. Walk through a forest. Begin the practice of developing a relationship with nature. Not only do we all come from lineages that existed with nature for thousands of years, but it’s been proven that nature has the ability to regulate our emotions and nervous system. 

I have found the more time I spend in nature, the more I remember myself as a part of it, and that has taken some weight out of the difficulties and uncertainties. Life challenges feel less like a random, out-of-control human experience, and more like there is a larger intelligence I am a part of and can trust. 

There’s so much that could be said about this, but building a relationship with nature is done with practice and experiencing it firsthand (although one day I’ll offer a retreat as an immersive experience). 

I’d love to hear from you. Let me know in the comments if any of these practices resonate, and please reach out and tell me if you try one or two!

Love you, 

Jillian

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My weekly recommendations:

Playlist: Listen to a playlist I made called Devotion, perfect for meditation or self-soothing.

YouTube: Listen to a grounding meditation available on my YouTube channel. I add new meditations or practices every week. Subscribe if you’d like to follow along!

Tarot: I’ve been teaching myself Tarot and Astrology as tools to support self inquiry and, well, magick. The card I pulled this morning for this article is the Two of Wands: this card says the possibilities are limitless. The world is in your hands. You can go as big as you want, and in any direction you choose. This card is from the

Thank you so much for being here. If this article spoke to you or inspired you in any way, I encourage you to share it as a way to help this work get to the people who may benefit from it. xo