Four Principles of Being Kind to Yourself

I often find myself telling others to "be kind to yourself".

It's not an empty phrase. In fact, being kind to ourselves is a powerful practice, but what does being kind to yourself actually mean? The practical steps look different for everyone but the principles are the same:

1. Prioritise your own needs.

It can be too easy to look after the needs of everyone else around us at the expense of our own. We fall into the routine of thinking we will do that thing for ourselves right after we finish doing this thing for someone else. By that time, we've run out of time and/or energy and so our own needs get put on the back burner for another day. We continue to deplete our reserves and wonder why we start to resent the needs and demands of others.

We need to realise that prioritising our own needs actually means we have more in the tank to be able to give to others. It's a win win situation for everyone. You get what you need and then have more energy to give others what they need.

It's also important to remember that we shouldn't rely on others around us to meet our needs or to prioritise our needs. For one, we may end up waiting forever and two, it's not their job. We need to take responsibility for that.

Practical examples of prioritising your needs might be:

taking time out for yourself - we all need time to relax and reset ourselves;
doing things you love and bring you joy;
doing "the work" if you have emotional baggage you can't put down. It's not always possible to do this ourselves and may need professional input from a counsellor or therapist;
saying no; and
setting and maintaining boundaries.

2. Acknowledge that you are doing the best you can with the resources you have

How often do you find yourself lamenting that you wish you had been better at [fill in the blank]? We regret not being a better parent, partner, son/daughter, colleague. We wish we had made better decisions. Let me tell you, there is literally no point in beating yourself up for not living up to some self imposed, or even someone else’s imposed, standard.

We don't fall short on purpose and our decisions and actions are based on our physical and emotional capacity. They are based on what we knew at the time.

Yes, it’s good to strive to improve ourselves and make better decisions but only if we are actively increasing our emotional resources (see 1st point above).

3. Don’t believe everything you think.

We are very good at making negative assumptions about what other people are thinking or saying about us. The truth is that others think about us far less than we think they do. That look someone gave you or the amount of time it took someone to reply to your message even though you know they saw it hours ago, hardly ever means what we think it does.

Our thoughts are too often programmed to have a negative bias towards ourselves and so we read far more into situations than we should.

4. Speak to yourself as if you were speaking to someone you love.

We are our own harshest critic and that negative inner dialogue can be so damaging to our mental health. The crazy thing is is that it is entirely self inflicted. We all have a choice about how we speak to ourselves if we just take the time to be consciously aware of it.

So next time you hear that harsh voice in your head, ask yourself how you speak to a good friend or loved one when they’re struggling, sick or they've made a mistake? With love, kindness, compassion, empathy, understanding and encouragement.

Imagine if you spoke those words to yourself each day?

So, please be kind to yourself, always.