By: Katie Veraldi
When thinking about this blog post on self-kindness, I reflected on the many different things I have heard about this subject from clients, my friends, and even my own views of it.
Often, we view this as an ultimate goal to achieve and that we must do things to get to feel this way. By doing that though, sometimes it can make us unkind to ourselves. Sometimes self-kindness can be more simple than our minds may make it seem, it may be something that we can accept as not always occurring every day and maybe it is something that we can aspire to while also not judging ourselves if sometimes it feels like we have missed the mark. When we are truly practicing self-kindness we see that just being present can be a form of radical self-kindness.
Many people have studied self-kindness, self-compassion, and self-esteem.
There is a workbook called Mindful Self Compassion by Kristin Neff, PhD, and Christoper Germer, PhD and it states in the book, “Learning to embrace yourself and your imperfections gives you the resilience needed to thrive.” This can be seen as going ahead in some senses to practice kindness and compassion even in times when it feels like you shouldn’t or that lack of kindness would be a fitting punishment. If we can learn to keep holding space for kindness to ourselves and push back against that harsh self-talk we see how we can open up more kindness not just for ourselves but others too.
Actually doing acts of kindness can be so unique to who you are.
For example, an act of kindness towards myself is going on a mindful walk with my dog out in nature and just being present where I am. An act of kindness towards others I show is by being of service such as helping a friend out with a move or a ride to the airport. A key to practicing kindness for yourself and others is that it is not done out of guilt or feeling like you need to prove your kindness but it is done because you have the space to be able to help someone or yourself out. As you explore kindness for yourself and others I hope that you are able to remain open and creative to seeing all the ways you can practice kindness shows up in your life and accept it without judgment.
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