What being kind to myself taught me

We all want to be better. To ourselves and to the world around us. In this process, we sometimes forget to be kind.

Over the years, I've seen myself being harsh to myself - expecting too much, not celebrating the small wins, and even being critical of all the times when I failed. While this seemed plausible at the time to keep reminding myself that I cannot be mellow with myself and that I need to be tough on occasions. Being tough in life is good; it keeps you grounded in the fact that we need to prepare ourselves for the unexpected but we forget that we need to love ourselves in those moments too.

When we forget to love ourselves, treat ourselves with kindness and compassion, we end up feeling anxious, worried and angry for not being enough. In reality, we ARE enough and we are doing our best to show up and be brave.

These past 6 months have taught me invaluable lessons in being kind to myself when things don't go as planned. Hope you can pick a thing or two for yourself:

1. Talk to yourself like a friend would: On days when I didn't treat myself well, I remembered how my friends or family would talk to me to make me feel better. I say this to myself often - "It always gets better."
2. You can rely on yourself more than you think: I always thought that if I can't be nice to myself, I need to find someone who would be nice to me. Instead, the searching exhausted me and I ended up turning to myself for the comfort.
3. Believe in the reason: For something that isn't working out for you, believe that there is something better in store. It might not be an instant surprise, but time will tell you. Believe.

Growing up does not tell us about how we can comfort ourselves on days when we don't have someone around. But in my experience, being kind is the most loving thing I have ever done to and for myself. It reminds me of the fact that no matter what happens, each one of us has the strength, courage and compassion to get over everything that makes us feel a little less loved towards ourselves. Hold on to that.