There are some things you can learn only from a 4 years old child. It seems like it’s a universal habit, slapping on the back of a child’s hand when they make a mistake… on purpose.
When you’re 4 years old, you have many benefits, but responsibility for your actions as well.
You get to have toys without paying for them in labor (some have that benefit in adulthood, but let’s ignore them for a moment); you get to eat (hopefully) warm and tasty food that has just been prepared, sometimes especially for you; you get to wear nice and new clothes, and maybe get your own room.

So there are many benefit for being 4 years old in our modern world. But there’s that responsibility for your actions, which I mentioned as well. That responsibility is for the actions you learn NOT to do; how not to behave when there are guests around; how not to drink your juice; how not to curse, not to put your shoes on the couch, not to drag the dog by its tail.

When you’re 4 years old it seems that your life span around “that looks good, I want it!” and “oh oh! Here comes the slap…”.

Now, that slap on the back of a child’s hand… I wonder how much time ago could we track it.

Did they slap children’s backhand 200 years ago?

You split your milk all over the carpet – slap. You raise your voice and shout a new curse you learned – slap. You hit a guest on the head with your foot-length Fire truck (painful) – slap. You clean your oily hands with the dog – slap. You clean the dog with the couch… and so on.

That slap has some deeper meaning, as you probably guessed from that thorough introduction. That slap remains with us as we grow up. Only that instead of mommy or daddy, we slap ourselves. Our slaps are more painful, more acute and faster than those we so gracefully got when we were 4 years old. Our slaps are emotional slaps for mistakes we know we did “on purpose”.

“God, I’m an idiot”. Ever said that to yourself? Can you recall why? Well, hold that thought right there.

“I always do that… I never learn”. Sounds familiar? Hold that one too.

“People will always take advantage of me. I’m too nice… I always aim to please someone else but myself…” – Getting heavier, ha? Hold on, it’s not the end of it…

“I feel the same as I did when I was 12. Will I never change???” – ahhh, the ultimate slap.

Now, here’s the thing – slapping yourself, whether you do that using the phrases above (no, I don’t take credit for making them up) or create your very own masochistic thought patterns – it never ends. That’s a nasty fight/flight reaction on your own actions. You realize you did not act the way you “should”, meaning – in your own best interest, and you slap yourself as a reaction to that newly introduced incongruity.

Unfortunately, it never ends. Our Ego will always be there, observing and kicking in when it is mostly inappropriate. On the other side, positive one this time, it makes us humans. Humans are imperfect – so deduct the conclusion.

What you can do is to teach yourself a new fight strategy to handle those situations. It takes time to learn and even more time to make it practical and habitual, but it is worth it. Just the saving of self resentment and self slapping to a time when you really do need to slap yourself… and that time you’d have enough for quite a handful slap.

The strategy goes like this:

You will make a conscious mistake soon, don’t worry, so you’ll have at least one (cough) chance to practice. I coughed because you’re going to have lots of them, but I wanted to be sarcastic for a moment… isn’t it great when you can explain in writing what you wouldn’t say out loud? Ok, never mind… let’s continue.

You’d make a mistake soon, which you will know is “idiotic” or could have been done more gracefully. You’ll be about a second before slapping yourself for your recent actions. That’s when you take the new root:

First, you stop all movement. Most likely you’ll be moving somewhere, doing something, acting on something, because slapping yourself requires energy. So you stop it all. You make a “thinking face”, so that people around you won’t think you’re mental or psychotic, and you take the second step (coming right up).

The second step is letting the slap happen. Don’t raise your eyebrows on me! (slap yourself now for doing that). You let it happen in your mind because you know you’re going to do something about it… you let it happen first, and deal with it second.

After you got the slap, immediately ask yourself, “Since I’m still alive even after being a ____(“feel” the blank)____, what will I do next time?”. Now comes the crucial point – don’t slap yourself again. It’s easy to get addicted to slapping, being all emotionally masochist, but just don’t. Immediately after you ask yourself that question, think about the best scenario of the next time.

Now comes the fun part. Use submodalities to increase your motivation to that new scenario. Do not modify the slap theme, just the best scenario one. The reason is that you want your mind to habitually move from slap to joy… if you’re going to be a masochist, you might as well enjoy it without the after-effects of the slapping.

Several things will happen after you practice this strategy. First, you may find yourself enjoying your conscious mistakes, and being light hearted about them. That’s a good sign of maturity, by the way, but we can all use some more. Second, you will notice that other people react differently to you, even while you’re making a mistake. Since you’re not making a big deal out of it, they treat it themselves as a minor thing that has no meaning, and forget all about it…

And isn’t that the advice you get from people when you slap yourself in front of them? “just forget all about it, it’s nothing…”.