Week Seven: Meeting Yourself with Kindness

One of the major developments in my relationship with myself over the years has been a growing capacity to be kind to myself. I think this has emerged spontaneously as I’ve healed the shame that I carried with me much of my life. Now, whenever I have difficulty in a situation, or feel self-conscious, I’m more likely to be gentle and kind with myself than I am to go into a “shame script”. Learning to give myself the same consideration I give others didn’t come automatically, though. It was something I learned from having friends who taught me that I was worth care.

So, my question for you this week is, do you offer yourself the same kindness and care that you offer to others? Who or what in the world do you care most about? What person, being, or situation brings out kindness in you? Do you know that you deserve as much kindness and care as anyone or anything else? What kind of mixed feelings arise when you think about offering yourself gentleness, attention to how you feel, responsiveness to your own needs?

There’s the old saying that if you can’t love yourself you can’t really love anyone else. I also think that if you can’t be kind to yourself, it’s hard to be genuinely kind to others. And so, for the experiment this week, I’d like to offer the following. As you move through each day, pay attention to opportunities to acknowledge your needs, and those times when you can offer yourself kindness and care. It may be something as simple as giving yourself a pat on the shoulder, literally or figuratively, during a difficult moment or when you move through a challenge. It may be a more active response, as when you allow yourself to take a nap when you’re tired, eat when you’re hungry, sit down and just daydream when you need a moment of quiet, have a good cry when something upsets you, talk to a friend when you need support, have a good laugh when you need or want one.

Specifically, create an intention at the beginning of each day this week that you’ll take every opportunity to treat yourself with kindness and care during the day. Holding the thought of being kind to yourself creates a mind set that helps support following through with the possibility of treating yourself as gently as you treat others you care about.

As with every other experiment, there’s no right answer to achieve or discover. There’s an opportunity to find out how it feels to be kind to yourself, what mixed feelings come up when you create an intention to be kind to yourself, and what you learn along the way. That’s all . . . just an invitation to an adventure in kindness.

Whenever you discover that you have reasons why you think you don’t deserve kindness and care in a given situation, ask yourself if you would have the same response if someone you love were in a similar situation. If not, then it’s useful to challenge why you believe you don’t deserve the same response you would give someone else. Play with what happens if you act as if you deserve to receive kindness and care. Notice how your thinking and actions toward yourself change when you follow through with acting as if it were perfectly reasonable for you to be kind to yourself. Remember, in these experiments there are no right answers, just invitations to exploration and discovery . . .

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