In a conversation recently, someone mentioned a concept they had learned about taking on the practice of not treating ourselves or others violently. Many of us are familiar with exploring the choice not to harm others, but it can sometimes be more challenging to apply the same choices to ourselves. In fact, when I work with people in therapy, self-acceptance is often much more difficult to experience than acceptance of others.

And so, what would it mean to treat ourselves non-violently? It would involve things like refusing to indulge in self-criticism, to have a commitment to stop the negative and self-attacking internal dialogue that so many people have going on in their heads throughout the day. It would also involve stopping self-destructive behaviors, such as not taking care of ourselves – not eating properly, drinking too much, or any of the myriad activities that we use to numb ourselves. To practice non-violence with ourselves asks us to engage in self-care, self-forgiveness, and kindness toward our necessary and inescapable frailties and inelegant ways of being.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to make a commitment to treat yourself non-violently. Each time you find yourself thinking critical or shaming thoughts about yourself, stop and let those thoughts go. Notice what happens when you replace them with thoughts about what’s going right in your world, what you’re doing that you can feel good about, even if it’s something you would consider very small and possibly insignificant.

As you do the experiment, notice what happens in your everyday experience of yourself and others when you pay attention to those moments when you respond to yourself and others with violence of any kind. And then, as you catch those moments and refuse to treat yourself or others in that way, notice what shifts in your internal experience of yourself and the world.
As with all experiments, there’s no right way to do this one. There’s just an opportunity to discover that being non-violent with yourself automatically translates into a more non-violent stance in the world in general. And, refusing to be violent with yourself on any level spontaneously leads to a greater sense of well-being and ease of being you in your world.