#start-and-ramble

obvious first question, are you relaxed?? its kind of hard to be a relaxing presence when youre all keyed up, and i also think there is meaningful overlap in the skillsets. heres a couple out of idk, lots, of ways to strengthen emotional containment:

identifying emotions and arousal level. personal example, i have a few words and physical sensations in particular that are signs i need a moment to tease out what im feeling, bc they are p associated with me having stronger and more negative feelings than what is registering for me, which not only has caused me to think i was more prepared to deal with a stressful situation than i was, but also not being aware of the full scope of the problem for me impacts picking the appropriate solution

practicing grounding activities. i am once again bleating from my soapbox but practice is key, rlly helpful to have a selection of ones you know really well and know when they work for you, and practicing them when youre already relaxed to start. eg. for me, sensory-based grounding activities work really well when im avoiding something im afraid of, but if im really activated focusing on physical sensations often makes it worse and i need more cognitive distractions like my beloved animal alphabet, and breathwork basically taps out as soon as im feeling anything more intense than scatterbrained. i have practiced the sensory ones a lot less tho, and its harder to remember to reach for them when i need them.

setting aside blocks of time to address negative emotions. some people do containment visualizations, i can usually partition my headspace into “me that deals with the problem” and “me that performs daily functioning” but am not sure how to operationalize that in a way that is distinct from repression (and sometimes i still mix those up tbh). i did really well with this when my mom got breast cancer and did really poorly with it a subsequent breast cancer scare, and yeah. makes a difference

but its important to not tell yourself, or others, that things will be ok when they will not (or like, i suppose there are probably cases where it is justifiable to make that call but i dont expect most people reading this to be operating on those margins and i kinda hope i dont have to either), and so its a little broader than self efficacy in the strict sense but:

developing problem solving skills as well as skills that will solve problems. im pretty solution oriented by default, but i definitely have the hardest time relaxing, or being relaxing, when i have really inadequate information about a problem and a lot of uncertainty about how to improve that.

knowing your limitations and what problems you arent equipped to handle. i have a lot of capacity for hearing about most traumatic things that have happened to people i care about, but otoh i have to carefully manage my exposure to topics around suicidal ideation.

and there is definitely a lot of privilege in my ability to say so, but at this point in my life i feel pretty confident that i can not only get through but handle most of the problems that chance my way (or i create, to keep it spicy ✨) reasonably well, and i have the power to make a lot things go okay.

but i really dislike empty platitudes or baseless nreassurance, so im less likely to say “everything will be okay” and more likely to say “we can take a moment to decide our next steps” or “i think we can figure this out.”

yeah social skillsssssss do matter. is it not enough to feel warmly and accepting of other people, we must also express it?????

i sometimes hit a wall on my ability to do tonal inflections and facial expressions and body language that arent stiff and deadpan, and in my experience this has maybe the starkest impact on how stressful situations go (again, this is ime but it has been regardless of how autistic-coded the person im trying to support is). i absolutely think its worth workshopping til you get a feel for phrasings that feel both compassionate and also ring true to you if you arent the type this comes naturally to.

theres going to be a lot of variation in peoples preferences, but imo you can get a lot of mileage out of, like, ease and warmth. and humor! stressful times are not the time to develop your comedic timing but if youre already comfortable joking around with the stressed person, it can bring a lot of normalcy back into the situation. whimsical, silly, and surreal are usually good notes, exaggerated melodrama is a bit more hit or miss, pls nothing mean or judgemental (why would you?? and yet,)

i cant help but feel this is related to the idea of whitespace, or rather, my idea of whitespace. im used to thinking about balancing negative space in a drawing context, but i also use it as mental shorthand for like, leaving following distance in your life? carving out moments to gather your thoughts on a busy day, or time to plan and review, or unplanned time for spontaineous fun or spontaneous problems, or seasons of rest and recovery, or just, reaping good things!!! (i however appear to be incapable of applying this to leaving for events early… yet!) i used to bring exactly however much protein bar/trail mix/etc i needed for a day hike, to avoid excess weight and Be Efficient. and back when T and i were dating, they would just throw a whole ass bag of chocolate chip cookies in their pack, and get sick from like eating too many gummy bears or whatever. clown behavior!! but one time, T offered a girl resting at a waterfall, and there was a moment of like automatic polite refusal body language before like, delight registered, and we all ate cookies and it unlocked something in my brain and the point - if there is one - is that sure there are hikes (and situations) where optimization matters but most of the time it doesnt, or doesnt nearly as much as generosity and fun and room to not give a fuck