Your Sleepy Hedgehog Probably Needs a Hug

By Amy Berrafato, LMFT, CST

How’s your heart, dear friend?

The current news cycle seems to be one horrific event after another, and it has me wondering more and more about the collective trauma to, well, the heart and soul of humanity. Yes, we are incredibly resilient beings, and always will be. And, let’s take a beat and honor our feelings amidst the chaos.

In her brilliant book Come As You Are, Emily Nagoski offers a concept called “maintaining our emotional center of gravity” in order to soothe our fight, flight, or freeze response to stress. To do this, she explains, you can “own your feelings, listen to them, and respond without being reactive; take your emotions seriously without taking them personally.”

This process of staying over your own emotional center of gravity is simplified in Nagoski’s “sleepy hedgehog” model of emotion management:

If you find a sleepy hedgehog in the chair you were about to sit in, you can:

  • Give it a name 

  • Sit peacefully with it in your lap

  • Figure out what it needs

  • Tell a loved one about the need, so you can collaborate to help the hedgehog

This is a helpful way to tend to your inner kid with some acknowledgement and self-compassion. As adults, we can easily pretend like everything is fine, but the kid within doesn’t actually know they are ok until we show them—through kindness, patience, and understanding. Or perhaps just a hug.

We are here for you, no matter what your sleepy hedgehog is up to.

Amy Freier