Relationships are a time suck. They take work, intentionality, and consistency. Getting close to someone isn’t orchestrating the perfect hangout where you’re able to wonderfully bond in an efficient and predictable way. They’re an investment: a fulfilling, grounding, and sustaining investment. Similarly, it takes time to tune into our own needs and care well for ourselves. The goal isn’t to pack your schedule, but rather to introduce blips of intentionality in caring for yourself so you’re able to be more present in the day-to-day and expand your capacity to really show up for others.
Our Innate Need for Care
Care and nurturance take different forms depending on the season of life, but they act as a baseline need throughout our lives. Over time, this nurturance takes a form of both inward and outward expression: grounded self-nurturance coupled with giving and receiving care in relationships. Attachment theory lays the foundation for what it means to develop relationally with others: it asks how we relate to those we’re in close relationships with and how different environments, experiences, and relationships shape these dynamics (Ainsworth, 1989). To learn more about childhood attachment relationships, we’d ask how someone experienced their caregivers relationally, who they could turn to when they were upset, how they experienced safety, and how their emotions were cared for (George et al., 1985). If we shift these questions slightly and consider similar ideas inner-personally we come to: how do you think about your relationship with yourself; how you feel towards different emotions that show up in yourself; how you respond to your own emotional needs?
Humans have an innate need to be safe, seen, soothed, and secure (Siegel & Bryson, 2021). We need to experience physical and emotional safety, be attuned to and feel understood, and learn to make sense of and cope with hard things (Siegel & Bryson, 2021). These pieces come together to create feelings of security; a secure base develops when relationships are reliable, predictable, and nurturing (Mind Your Brain, Inc., 2021). As we seek to meet attachment needs in the context of attuned, nurturing relationships, we can also consider how we are attuning to and nurturing ourselves from a place of internalized security.
The Practical
Your next step is simple: get curious and tune in. Increase your capacity to direct your attention, attune to your needs, and move with intention (Siegel & Drulis, 2023). If you were to check-in right now, what would you notice?Start by pausing and taking a breath.
How does your body feel? Mentally scan your body and notice what’s already there. Are there places of tension? Softness? Buzzing? Where’s it showing up?
Are there any images popping into your mind?
What emotions are you feeling?
Any thoughts or thought patterns swirling around?
Is there anything you want to do at this moment? This could be taking an extra moment to rest, getting up to stretch, releasing some of the tension, wrapping yourself in a blanket, decreasing stimulation, etc. (Thompson, 2022).
As we build comfort with checking in, that last part can also shift into what you need, rooted in these ideas of being seen, soothed, safe, and secure. Perhaps you’ve been in a situation where you’ve been stressed to your wits end, you don’t want anyone to do anything about it, you just want to tell someone about those feelings and vent. Sometimes, we need that for ourselves: just listen without jumping into problem-solving. This pausing and listening creates the mental space to be able to intentionally choose what comes next as opposed to simply reacting. Notice if you need anything after the check-in. Notice if you have a specific intention as you reengage in the present (maybe it’s to increase patience, curiosity, or presence). You can use this as a tool to rhythmically and regularly ground yourself and check in with your needs.
Then, beyond the moment-to-moment check-ins, I want you to also consider what some of those bigger steps of self-nurturance could look like. Does it mean nurturing some of those longings that you had in childhood – whether that’s finally visiting a certain place or recreating memories of joy that live in a specific meal or tradition? Does it mean changing some of the ways that you’re talking to yourself? What about allowing more space for gentleness, grace, and empathy for the emotions showing up? Again holding that comparison between relationships with others and relationships with ourselves – authentic relationships expect imperfections. Relationships are hard and imperfection will exist alongside care, love, and grace.
As you take these first steps in expanding nurturance, also consider whether it would be helpful to talk to someone about making sense of all of these different pieces. Similarly to how we’re not meant to do life alone, you don’t have to do your healing journey alone. If you’re interested in meeting with a therapist to explore more of what it means to nurture parts of yourself, reach out to us today and we’d love to talk more.
Kristen Reid, MSW, Supervisee in Social Work
References
Ainsworth, M. S. (1989). Attachments beyond infancy. American Psychologist, 44(4), 709–716. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066x.44.4.709
George, C., Kaplan, N., & Main, M. (1985). The Adult Attachment Interview. Unpublished manuscript, University of California at Berkeley.
Mind Your Brain, Inc. (2021). How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired. Dr. Dan Siegel: Inspire to Rewire. https://drdansiegel.com/the-power-of-showing-up-handouts/
Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2021). The Power of Showing Up. Mind Your Brain, Inc.
Siegel, D. J., & Drulis, C. (2023). An interpersonal neurobiology perspective on the mind and mental health: personal, public, and planetary well-being. Annals of general psychiatry, 22(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12991-023-00434-5
Thompson, C. (2022). Breath exercise. Curt Thompson MD. https://curtthompsonmd.com/reflections/breath-exercise/
