Areas › Your body › Touch and bodywork
Tap the fleshy outside edge of your hand and say something like: even though I feel this, I accept myself completely. Three times, in whatever words are actually true for you.
The shape of the sentence is the point. It names the problem and refuses to make your worth conditional on solving it, which is the exact opposite of how shame talks. If the standard wording feels like a lie in your mouth, change it. Even though I feel this, I am willing to be kind to myself works fine, and a phrase you half believe beats one you are only reciting.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'A kind word and forgiveness is better than a charitable deed followed by hurtful [words]' (Quran 2:263). What you say alongside the act decides what the act does, and that includes what you say to yourself.
۞قَوۡلࣱ مَّعۡرُوفࣱ وَمَغۡفِرَةٌ خَيۡرࣱ مِّن صَدَقَةࣲ يَتۡبَعُهَآ أَذࣰ ىۗ وَٱللَّهُ غَنِيٌّ حَلِيمࣱ
A kind word and forgiveness is better than a charitable deed followed by hurtful [words]: God is self-sufficient, forbearing
Qur’an 2:263read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A theoretical model and research review of affectionate touch argues that its benefits come mainly from what it signals: safety, and someone available if you need them. In this practice you are supplying both the touch and the message yourself. The review was about touch between people, so self applied touch with a spoken phrase goes beyond what it tested.
Jakubiak, B.; Feeney, B. (2016). Affectionate Touch to Promote Relational, Psychological, and Physical Well-Being in Adulthood: A Theoretical Model and Review of the Research. Personality and Social Psychology Review doi
Review of affectionate touch effects.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Saying the trouble and your own acceptance in one breath stops the two being set against each other.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Most of us hold a whole day around the eyes without knowing it. Scrunch them shut, open them wide, then rest your fingertips lightly over them for a few breaths.
Deep change tends to follow self acceptance rather than the other way round. Waiting until you have fixed the thing before you are allowed to be kind to yourself usually keeps the thing exactly where it is.
If several medications have failed, ask whether anyone else in the family had the same experience. A pattern of non response runs in some families.