Remedies for Bad Feelings
self soothing tips when you are feeling too much, inadequate, heartbroken, and humiliation.
Sometimes we can’t escape how we feel, but how can we move through painful feelings? Suggestions for coping and suffering.
Feeling Too Much
When it seems like your wants and needs are too intense for interpersonal relationships
Dance it out in your bedroom or go for a run
Draw/ paint a self portrait
Read anything by Sandra Cisneros and Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Get dressed fabulous and make the route to coffee your runway
Smell lavender, drink ashwagandha
Gua-sha your face as your say nice things to yourself in the mirror
Accept not everyone has a hand strong enough to hold you
Find a new saint, goddess, or historical figure to relate to and research
Feeling Inadequate
When you feel not good enough and affirmations do not work
Have a piece of dark chocolate
Text a friend who questions your reality to untangle esteem from abilities
Give others compliments (consider writing everything you wish someone would say to you into a letter and leave it in the park for someone else to find)
Go outside, take your shoes off, put your feet on a tree
Make yourself into a video game character, what would your superpower be? What weapon would you have? What journey would you be found on? What trials would you encounter and what rewards?
Herbs for serotonin (confidence neurochemical) St.Johns Worst, Ginseng, Holy Basil
Read Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Undrowned or anything about biology/ nature
Hug yourself and say “ I am here”
Feeling Heartbroken
When your chest is burning with broken glass
Sit with it- don’t take drugs, don't drink, don't numb yourself
Scream into a pillow and sing out loud
Berrinche (have a temper tantrum: lay down on your back and hit your fists and stomp your feet into the floor shake out that pain like a child)
Buy yourself rose ( rosehip, rosemary) tea and drink lemon water
Tell all of your close friends, be held don’t force positivity
Make saffron rice and eat fruit and yogurt
Write the letter, send it if you must
Take a mini vacation
Feeling Humiliated
When you feel shame or do not want to be seen or want to escape from the world
Watch reality television
Put on your grandma/grandpa’s sweater
Read Virginia Woolf, Ada Limón, Maggie Nelson, Pablo Neruda, Tracy Smith, or Fred Moten
Go flower picking or swimming (wash it away)
Listen to Hannah Montana Nobody’s Perfect and anything by Drake
Lemon balm, willow, or agrimony tea; burn pine
Sweat it out with your inner child and teenage angst
Do a full skin care routine