Self-healing type

It has never been an exclusive talent for those who are naturally emotionally stable, nor does it require you to force yourself to get rid of all the shackles of negative emotions. It is a survival tool that ordinary people can master after deliberate practice to take the initiative of emotional repair back from the outside world.

When I was doing community psychological support two years ago, I met a girl who was doing e-commerce planning. In the early years, her plan was rejected by the client. She had to drag her best friend to complain at the barbecue stall until early in the morning. She drank half a box of cold beer to suppress her anger. The next day, her eyes were swollen and she changed her plan. Last month, the big promotion plan she worked on for three days was completely rejected by her clients. On her way to get off work, she stopped by and bought a cup of hot milk tea with double taro paste. She squatted on the overpass and blew in the evening breeze for 15 minutes. When she got home, she cooked herself a bowl of tomato and egg noodles sprinkled with green onions. She fell asleep after watching two episodes of a nutritious comedy variety show. She got up on time the next day and completed the entire case. Even her colleagues didn't notice that she had just collapsed the day before.

In the psychology community, there have always been two parallel views on the underlying logic of self-healing. There is no absolute right or wrong, but it only suits different groups of people. The school of psychoanalysis is more inclined to look back and make up for it, believing that the essence of self-healing is "nurturing the inner child" - how much emotional support you lacked in childhood, make up for yourself now. I met a visitor before. Whenever she cried when she was wronged when she was a child, her parents scolded her, "What's the point of crying? You're too squeamish." When she grew up, she suppressed her breast nodules and dared not express her emotions in public. Later, she tried to write a small note to her 10-year-old self every time she felt wronged, saying, "You can cry, I am with you now, no one will scold you." After persisting for half a year, her whole body relaxed more than a little.

Another way of thinking is simpler, coming from the school of positive psychology. There is no need to go over old childhood memories. The core is to "establish an exclusive emotional positive feedback loop." To put it bluntly, you don’t need to do so many profound things. Just do more of whatever feels good to you at the moment. If you do too much, your body will automatically form a conditioned reflex. The next time your mood breaks down, you don’t need to use your brain to adjust. Doing this can quickly bring you back to a stable state. When I give suggestions to clients, I usually don't force them to use a certain method. I always let them try it first and use whichever one feels more comfortable.

I have been through a lot of self-healing pitfalls in the past two years. I followed online tutorials to practice mindfulness. After sitting there for 10 minutes, my mind raced faster than a product manager rushing to meet a deadline. The more I sat there, the more annoyed I became.； I forced myself to run to relieve my emotions. After running for two kilometers, I was out of breath. My bad mood only made me suffer from leg pain. Later, by accident, I found a way that suits me: shoe shine. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I dig out all the white shoes and leather shoes piled up at home and rub them with shoe polish until every fold is shiny. After ten or twenty minutes, the mess in my heart is smoothed out.

Don’t be bound by standardized templates online.

The 2023 National Mental Health Survey of the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences mentioned that 68% of respondents aged 18-35 have their own little self-healing habits, and more than 70% of them are "useless little things" in the eyes of others: pinching bubble wrap for half an hour, folding the socks in the drawer by color, squatting downstairs to feed stray cats for 10 minutes, or even sitting there in a daze reading cat emoticons for half an hour. As long as it works for you, it is the best method.

Of course, some people complain that the so-called self-healing is "Ah Q spirit" and is an escape from problems. This statement actually confuses the boundary between "emotional buffering" and "escaping reality" - Ah Q didn't dare to fight back after being beaten, so he could only curse in his heart, "Son beats me", and turned around whether he should be beaten or not. ； But self-healing means that after you are beaten, you first find a place to wipe the blood and stop the pain, and then go back and think about how to avoid being beaten next time, or even how to regain your place. I have seen too many people change plans and negotiate with others with a lot of grievances. In the end, things get worse and worse, and emotions accumulate. On the contrary, it is much more efficient to spend 10 minutes to slow down.

Oh, by the way, there is no need to force yourself to "heal yourself all the time." If you really can't handle something, you should talk to friends to complain, or seek psychological counseling. Self-healing does not allow you to live like an isolated island, it just gives you one more choice. You don't have to stand there and wait for others to help you every time you have an emotional breakdown.

After all, self-healing is not a high-level psychological concept. It is just that you build a small nest for yourself. When it is thundering, raining and windy outside, you can get in and take a rest, eat hot food, wait until the rain stops, then go out with an umbrella and continue to live your life.