“Kindness is not just about how you treat others; it’s rooted in how you treat yourself.” ~ Londro Rinzler
The purpose of today’s blog is to discuss being kind to yourself.
Yesterday I was talking to someone wise..
I was discussing how I was feeling my loss(es) acutely.
That I was berating myself for some of the decisions that I had made following the death of my father.
When he died, I also ended up in the same hospital myself for an emergency operation.
At that time I was experiencing chronic anxiety and complicated grief emotions.
I made the decision to sell my house and the business that I had at the time.
I felt lost and broken.
My son left home at the same time.
I invested some of that money in business coaches that came to nothing.
I made terrible mistakes..
That was the line I was taking yesterday – The wise friend said to me, “Could you be kind to yourself? Could you see that you were doing the best you could with the thinking you had at the time?“.. I paused…
Then they said, “The highest form of courage is the courage to be kind to yourself” which really floored me.
I wasn’t being KIND to myself.
Everything that I teach my own clients points to this very premise and I wasn’t doing it for myself.
How about if I looked at it differently?
Maybe it wasn’t a mistake to trust someone with my money in trying to change my future.
Maybe it was only a mistake because I THOUGHT it was..
I began to look at my decisions with fresh new thinking.
I began to see that I could have compassion and love for the ‘me’ of 3 1/2 years ago who was so grief-stricken she didn’t know her arse from her elbow.
What if the decisions I made were neutral?
What if it was my ‘thinking’ around my decisions that was causing my suffering?
As I began to look deeper into the truth of that, I began to forgive myself.
I knew something deeper – we can suffer if we think thoughts that cause us to suffer, or we can forgive ourselves for decisions which may have at the time seemed like the ‘right path’, but later on, look like a dreadful decision.
Forgiveness is offering kindness to ourselves.
Forgiveness frees up the anxiety in our worried minds and allows us to move on.
And, it takes courage to be kinder to ourselves because that premise is unfamiliar.
It feels like the ‘easier option’ to punish ourselves than to accept your WHOLE SELF (flaws included).
Stop counting and focusing on all your mistakes, and instead, focus on all the love you have, all the accomplishments you have achieved, all the smiles you have been the reason for.
Pema Chödrön has done a lot of work around the topic of Maitri – loving-kindness towards oneself.
If you are interested in exploring this topic further I highly recommend any of her books on the subject.
“Holding on to beliefs limits our experience of life. That doesn’t mean that beliefs or ideas or thinking are a problem; the stubborn attitude of having to have things be a particular way, grasping on to our beliefs and thoughts, all these cause the problems.” ~ Awakening Loving-Kindness
If you would like to have a chat with me about how you can start offering yourself kindness, please just hit this link.
If you feel like you are struggling with anxiety, alcohol, food, or constant negative thoughts about your body, please use the same link ^^ or comment below and I would love to connect with you.
You are enough, 
Love, Charli x
