Let’s Talk About Emotional Aftercare
I’d like to take a few minutes to address something that may happen for some visitors from time to time. If anything you see or read here – or anywhere else for that matter – makes you feel triggered or stuck in your thoughts, I’d like to offer a few suggestions for some self-administered emotional aftercare that may help to find your balance again.
You are going to be ok.
Before we go further, I want you to know that your feelings are valid. You shouldn’t bury, ignore, or hide them out of shame.
The first thing I’d like to ask is that you relax your body. One tool I use to accomplish this is to clench my hands into fists and then release the tension and shake it out. Same with my feet. Relax your shoulders, maybe stretch your neck.
While you are relaxing your body, take a few slow, deep breaths. When you feel your heartrate slow a bit, or you feel slightly more at ease, rest your hand on your chest and say “Even though I am emotionally triggered at this moment, I am safe and I am going to be ok.”
Continue to breathe deeply as you continue with the following suggestions:
Feel what you feel.
If something triggers a feeling in you, acknowledge it. Emotions provide information that can teach us quite a bit about ourselves, but only if we pay attention. If you just close the website (or turn off the television, put down the book, etc.), you miss the opportunity to feel what you feel and without that, you may never understand why those feelings are coming up for you. If you take the time to sit with those feelings though, you just might be able to avoid being similarly triggered in the future.
Ask questions.
What am I feeling about this?
What (specifically) triggered these feelings?
Is it possible that something about this trigger might remind me of something else in my life/past?
Talk about it.
If you don’t find the answers you need after you’ve followed these steps, let’s talk about it. Find me on Mastodon and Telegram.