5 Reasons to be Kinder to Yourself
“The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.”― Tara Brach
Last week I wrote about a decision that pulled me out of a physical and emotional downward spiral.
The decision to stop fighting myself and try being kind instead.
As I watched my health rapidly fall apart my initial response was to resist it. I got frustrated and angry.
All that anger had nowhere to go. I was directing it at myself. The more upset I got about my situation, the worse my condition seemed to get.
And then, I saw a pattern.
All that anxiety and pressure that I felt to perform at my job was coming from me. It felt like that same drive was crushing the life out of me. The more dissatisfied I was with my situation the more I fought and struggled with myself. It was like a war inside me, and the harder I fought, the more damage I caused.
So then I tried something crazy…
I tried accepting my situation.
What would happen if I just stopped fighting and said yes to what is?
I said yes to my failing body, yes to feeling afraid and desperate, yes to being flawed.
And gradually I found myself letting go of my death-grip on life.
I stopped trying to force myself to be better.
I found myself appreciating what I had.
And everything started to change.
Acceptance = Kindness
Acceptance is not the same thing as resignation. Acceptance is acknowledging where you are and all the possible factors that contribute to the situation without judgement.
Acceptance does not preclude taking action to change a situation. In fact it makes any action much more effective because it frees you up from all the layers of emotional baggage that keep you stuck.
Resignation on the other hand, is based on the idea that there is an inevitable outcome that I am powerless to affect. In reality, this is very rarely the case.
Resisting where you are is an act of violence towards yourself.
Resignation is giving up on yourself.
Accepting where you are is the kindest thing you can do for yourself. It empowers you to make fresh choices and move forward.
It goes against conventional wisdom to accept what makes us uncomfortable. I try to remind myself every day to release that stranglehold on how I think things should be. Every day my mind comes up with compelling reasons to resist the crap out of something.
So as a reminder to myself, I have made a list of five reasons why choosing kindness over conflict is the most practical thing to do, in any situation:
1. It will give you more control of your life
Blame is a way of avoiding acceptance. It’s a way of saying “This person or thing is entirely responsible for this situation, and therefore I am off the hook”
If you care about something, it has everything to do with you. You always have a choice how you respond to a set of circumstances and there is always something you can do to affect an outcome. But in order to act you must first accept the situation as it is.
Blame is a cop out. And we do it to ourselves all the time. Every time you label yourself as wrong or stupid you are blaming. You are leaving no space for learning and accepting responsibility for the situation. You are strengthening a belief that you are in some way deficient and therefore powerless to change your situation.
What would happen if you responded to failure with curiosity instead of giving yourself a hard time?
2. It will make you a kinder person
What kind of language do you use when you talk to yourself?
Is it the kind of thing you would say to other people?
A lot of us think it’s okay to say horrible things to ourselves as long as we’re nice to other people.
If you aren’t willing to accept the situation you default to judging and blaming. This can often be directed at others as well as yourself. You are piling your toxic emotional waste on top of an already difficult situation.
I have noticed that the more patience and appreciation I show to myself, the more I have for other people.
3. It will help you grow
Criticism holds you in place — Freezing an unwanted behaviour which repeats over and over again.
Of all the things that you criticise yourself most for, I bet the biggest ones are for a mistake you have seemingly made a million times.
A rational response might be “of course! That’s why I get so angry at myself, because I should know better”
What if consistently giving yourself a hard time for that mistake is actually the cause of the problem rather than the solution?
What would happen, if instead of berating yourself, you allow yourself to feel the emotions that are coming up?
I have found that anger towards myself is often covering up some other feelings which I have buried for a long time.
You may find fear or sadness or shame.
The key to learning from your mistakes is to understand their underlying cause so that you can make more conscious, better informed decisions in the future.
When you allow a feeling to arise without judgement, you allow the emotional charge to release. These emotions might seem silly or illogical and that’s because they are often patterns that were established when we were children with a limited understanding of the world.
By accepting our unwanted behaviours and emotions, we create opportunities to learn and grow from them.
4. It will help you live authentically
By accepting yourself as you are, you are also allowing yourself to be more honest.
Showing kindness to yourself reduces the need to seek approval from others because you already have it.
How many times have you said or done something you didn’t fully believe in to get acknowledgement from someone else?
I’ve done it loads of times and it sucks.
Whenever we act out of alignment with our values it is because we are hiding our true feelings. We aren’t trusting our inner compass.
What would happen if you trusted your intuition instead of doing what you think you’re supposed to do?
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”― Carl Jung
5. It might just make you happy
Acceptance feels good and we all need it. It’s why we all want to look good and why those likes on social media give you that warm, fuzzy feeling in your belly.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that stuff — it’s natural. But what if the true source of acceptance is right where you are now?
Forget the idea that you have to be any more that what you already are. To be human is to be imperfect and make mistakes.
“There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.” — Tara Brach
You’re awesome! Accept it!