Be Kind to Yourself

Happy Self-Love Sunday everyone!

I hope you are doing well, I hope you’re being patient with yourself as you navigate this journey called life.

This Self-Love Sunday I want to start with two rounds of affirmations, you ready?

The first round includes affirmations that are inherently true, the second round includes affirmations that may not feel true in your current position but are truths you are deserving of, sound confusing enough? Great, let’s get started.

First Round

1. I am worthy of kindness
2. I am worthy of patience
3. This journey may be difficult but I can always be kind and gentle with myself

Second Round

1. I am kind to myself
2. I allow myself to make mistakes and learn from them
3. I know that beating myself up for my imperfections is not beneficial to my growth

This Self-Love Sunday, I want to share a message that has been really important to me as I near the end of another year, in summary, this message highlights the shift in how I talk to myself, forgive myself and allow myself to make mistakes.

Today, I’m asking you to do exactly what I’m learning to do. I’m asking you to be kind to yourself.

Have you ever looked back at an experience and thought, “wow, how could I not see that?”, “how could I let them hurt me like that?”, “why did I do that?”, or any variation of those questions?

When we find ourselves attaching shame to past mistakes, we are unfairly judging our past by the knowledge we now have in the present. I’ve had to learn the importance of viewing my past experience through a lens of kindness because it allows me reassurance that I’ve experienced and learned enough to never make the same mistakes again while not beating myself up for making the mistakes in the first place.

Each day we are given the opportunity to live, learn and grow. One cannot learn and grow without living and sometimes in the living, we make mistakes. We aren’t perfect and in the moments when we find ourselves in the midst of a mess, created by our own mistakes, we must be kind to ourselves. Beating yourself up for having flaws, making mistakes and being imperfect will never create a healthy relationship with yourself. The purpose of my self-entitled Self-Love journey is creating a healthy relationship with myself so learning to be kind with myself is definitely a necessary part of the journey.

Another important aspect of being kind with yourself is acceptance. As we near the end of another year, it can be easy to compare your 2020 to someone else’s. As the triumphant posts roll in, it may be easy to scroll through social media trying to determine whether your accomplishments measure up or not; I admonish you to avoid this feeling. If we were all meant to experience life on the same timeline, the world would lack individuality. You are only ever obligated to compare today’s version of you to who you were yesterday, last week, last year, etc. Your growth is, simply put, YOURS. It’s been a year full of chaos, sorrow and loss but you are here and that in itself, is and will forever be a victory.

I had to learn the hard way that the negativity I allowed to dictate my experience was holding me back from seeing my own worth. For some reason, I was convinced that the constant borating of my inner critic during my daily life was normal and that it was healthy. It took me years to learn that “you aren’t good enough”, “you don’t deserve this” and other negative and nasty thoughts weren’t true. I was my biggest bully and learning to be kind to myself was harder than I thought it would be, and trust me, I’m still not as kind as I would like to be. But transitioning from being my biggest critic to my biggest cheerleader, no matter how slow the transition has been, has allowed me to see the world through a whole new lens.

Honestly, the journey towards being kind to myself started with the following:

1. First, through assistance from my therapist, I identified the problem. Two year ago I realized that I was constantly telling myself lies about my worth.
2. Once I identified the lies, I determined opposing truths to combat these lies. Example: If I found myself thinking “I’m not good enough” I would respond with “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” or “I am good enough”. Sound simple? Essentially this process is doing the ground work for rewiring the way you think. I liked to visualize this process as laying new tracks for your “train of thought”. Now, this process doesn’t lead you to healthier thoughts overnight but it should become a daily practice if you find yourself being negative and unkind to yourself.
3. Once I began speaking and thinking about myself with a kinder voice, I had to also begin viewing my actions, mistakes included, through a lens of kindness as well. I had to forgive myself for making mistakes that hurt me and I had to forgive others in that same way.

The beautiful thing about kindness is that once it exists within you, it radiates to those around you. Once you are kind to yourself, it becomes far easier to be kind to others.

On the first Sunday of the month, I shared my desire to establish a new habit each week for the month of December and last Sunday I didn’t share the new habit I established so this week I will be sharing two.

As a reminder, the first habit of December was daily meditation from The Importance of Self-Love

The next two habits are,

1. Moving my body in some way, each day. This could mean stretching, yoga, going for a run, being intentional and aware as I walk my dog, or simply working out

2. Create a routine and stick with it. For me that looks like getting dressed like I have somewhere to go. If you’re like me and wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt has become your norm, maybe challenge yourself to put real clothes on (clothes that make you feel good). During quarantine, I found myself gravitating to the few pair of sweatpants I had each day but deciding to intentionally get dressed and look good has made me feel a million times better each day.

Happy Self-Love Sunday everyone! Please be kind to yourself, you deserve it.