8 ways to be kind to yourself
La perle (1894) | William Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905)
Are you kind to yourself?
Do you talk with yourself as you would a dear friend? Have you ever intentionally treated yourself with love and kindness? Would you treat a stranger, a friend, a child like you treat yourself?
If you answered no to any of these three questions, then it’s long overdue to learn how to be kind to yourself.
You will become so much happier, healthier, and more fulfilled with your life! And all it takes is a little dash of kindness every day.
You are worthy of love
If you didn’t grow up listening to a kind voice with a kind touch, you wouldn’t have learned how to cultivate a kind inner voice, which in turn would determine how you treated yourself and even others.
Or a lot of times, we’re taught to be kind to others, but not ourselves. Know that you are just as important, it’s time to shift that inner narrative.
If that’s the case, these may be difficult to incorporate, they may hit a tender spot inside you as you realize you are worthy of love or maybe are giving love to yourself in that way for the first time.
Know that part of healing is to acknowledge the emotions that come and allow them to be.
You are worthy of love.
Let that conviction and belief wash over you, down into the core of your being.
You are worthy. And release all beliefs that tell you otherwise.
8 ways to give yourself kindness
Compliment yourself
“You” Compliments
Complimenting is a fun, joyful practice. Be as genuine and eager as when you compliment your friends. And make sure you feel that uplifting, smiling energy when you do compliment yourself.
In the beginning, it may be easier to start out saying “you” which makes it feel like a 3rd person and not so personal.
Ex: If you’re trying out an outfit in the mirror and it looks amazing. You could say, “ Damn girl, you look amazing. That color really compliments your skin tone and hugs your figure nicely.“For Insecurities” compliments
If you have a certain insecurity, it’s a nice gentle way to introduce positive thoughts and love to the negative belief. It doesn’t need to complicated, short, and simple works just as well.
Ex: You're insecure about your legs and are trying on bottoms. “Wow, those pants are great, your legs look aammaaazzziiiinnnnnggggg!”“I” Compliments
As you get more comfortable and frequent with complimenting yourself, change the pronoun from “you” to “I”. It will feel more personal and intimate.
We’ve spent a lifetime conditioning our vocabulary to “you” meaning someone else, not me, the other person, and “I” meaning myself, not them, just me. Whether you notice that consciously or not, your subconscious will pick up the difference.
Ex: “ I did an amazing job today getting everything done that I wanted to finish.” (Creating a sense of accomplishment and trust in your ability to follow through and complete what you say you will.)I am strong, I made it through this emotionally exhausting day.
I am an awesome friend.
I make a positive difference.
I am a ray of sunshine to those around me.
I have a great sense of humor.
Forgive yourself
Self-compassion & empathy
Compassion for yourself is just as important as for anyone else. The more compassionate you are with yourself, the more you will also be for others.
We make mistakes. We are human. Don’t tear yourself down over something that you did, something you didn’t live up to if you’ve failed.
Have empathy and understanding for yourself. You are on a journey of self-growth, don’t beat yourself up over something. That implies feelings of guilt and shame, perhaps anger, or feelings coming from wounds of unworthiness and failure.
The inner critic
It’s also worth exploring if that is even your voice, that “inner critic” that speaks up within you, bullys you, and puts you down.
Could it possibly be the echoes of a voice from your childhood, of someone you grew up with, of someone else who has spoken to you in that way?
Try and identify who those people might be. How they would speak to you and what emotions that would bring up inside you when they did.
If you can identify certain repeating issues, you’ll know to identify that voice as separate from you. Once we recognize it, we can begin to sit down with it, empathize with that voice, give it love, and forgive those that taught us to think this way. They were once children too, who were taught to think that way, and caught in that cycle of abuse.
We are aware of it, we can break free from it.
How to forgiveAccept your mistake. You’re human. No-one is perfect, mistakes happen.
If you feel guilt and shame, that’s okay. Allow yourself to feel them. You are not a bad person, you made a mistake.
Make amends if this involves others, express your remorse and apologize if you need to. Find the courage to do so.
Learn how you can grow from this, how you can be a better person. What may have caused this sort of behavior? And why do you feel guilty? What do you have to do to ensure you don’t make this same mistake again? What do you need to work on within yourself?
Reminder
You are worthy of love. Give yourself compassion, empathy, understanding, and forgiveness. You are growing and learning. You are worthy of it.
Follow your joy
This is simply this: allow yourself to do the things that give you joy.
Don’t worry about judgement from others, just focus on yourself, and following what makes your heart and soul sing.
If you enjoy dancing in the rain, making pottery, writing code, working on cars, whatever it is, go and do it. Don’t allow the opinions, stereotypes, and judgement of others to stop you.
All that matters is that it gives you joy. You don’t need to explain yourself to anyone either, okay?
What if nothing gives me joy?
If you feel this way, you should look into whether you may be suffering from depression or mental illness. Depression sucks the joy and color out of life, until everything, including us, feel so lifeless.
If you know you aren’t depressed, but nothing seems to be sparking something within you, then go and explore! Be adventurous and try out a new thing, you just may surprise yourself.
We all have it, something that our being just adores. It feels so natural and in the rhythm and flow of ourselves. So just keep trying new things. And maybe you’ll discover that your joy and passion is to explore and try out new things, foods, and adventures.
Be yourself
Ah, so easy to say, but so damn hard to do sometimes. Wow, be yourself? Hah, this one is something I am personally working on as well, so I’m with you on this.
How do we be ourselves? Aren’t I myself exactly as I am?
Well no, not really. We are all conditioned to be and act a certain way that is acceptable and easy to manage, to please others. From tired parents yelling at us to be quiet, to teachers trying to teach, or us molding ourselves to be more pleasing and to be accepted by those around us. We turn into someone not quite us.
Self-inquiry & de-conditioning
Ask yourself: am I expressing myself in the ways I want to? Do I dress, look, speak, act in the ways I wish to? Do I do the things that I wish to do?
Several types of conditioning here can hold down your authentic self-expression. From religion, to cultural, national, familial, communal.
Work through them. Your self-expression matters. Be how YOU want to be. We are all divine, allow it to shine through. Your soul wants to be seen in that way, don’t hold it down in the clutches of fear.
Believe in yourself
Why it’s so important
Believe in your dreams, in all that you want to accomplish. That little feeling inside that says. “ One day, I want to do this, be this, go there.” Believe in it.
If you don’t believe in yourself, once you hit a hurdle, a challenge, a delay, a lack of motivation, you’re going to be discouraged, and that will exuberate your lack of self-belief.
That usual negative voice will speak up again, reinforcing itself, bring forth it’s negative feelings telling you; you’re not good enough, you’ll never achieve your dreams, it’s just a fairy-tale fantasy and you need to grow up.
And guess what, you’ll probably believe it. It’s hard not to when you’re feeling down and might not have a support system to fall back on.
But we want to get back up again from those ashes, try again, and soar. Because this time, you’ll know not to believe in that voice.
Tell yourself, “I believe in myself. I believe in my dreams. I believe in the Universe to support me.”
Even if it seems tough and you might not 100% believe in it in the beginning, keep reminding yourself, listen to affirmations, leave little reminders around, and you’ll notice your thoughts patterns and beliefs shifting too.
When no one believes in you
You know, sometimes, in the beginning, it is discouraging. Especially if no-one believes in you, people are telling you to be realistic, or that it’s not real life. “Maybe you should do “this” instead, it’s not as risky.
And with all that self-compassion we’ve been focusing on you can give them some compassion. Know that they might have given up on their dreams and settled for less. They weren’t able to take a leap of faith and believe in themselves. Maybe their intentions aren’t bad, they wish you well and are giving you what they believe is good advice.
And if their intentions are bad, even more motivation to not care what they think and let go of that toxicity
Building your self-belief
On the journey of following your dreams, when you take that leap of faith, all of those comments and lack of support are all helping you build your own belief in yourself.
There will never be a sturdier foundation than your own (besides the Universe, Oneness, Divine, Source, whatever you call it! )
When your support team isn’t around to encourage you and believe in you, it’ll be just fine because you believe in yourself, and you won’t need the external validation, even if it’s nice.
Soul Tribe
That being said, having a supportive group of people around is amazing to have. If no-one in your circle is with you, go and find other groups of people more aligned to your thinking that will be there for you to cheer you on, and you for them as well.
But it’s important to have that self-belief in yourself first so you don’t fall into codependent relationships where you are seeking that outside of yourself.
Don’t compare yourself to others
There will only ever be one of you. You have a light, an energy, a personality, a voice, an expression that combines to be uniquely yours.
Don’t undervalue yourself feeling like you need to become more like others. If you’re actively working on the qualities we’ve gone over so far of:
complimenting yourself
following your joy
forgiving yourself
being yourself
and believing in yourself
your self-confidence should improve. The more comfortable you are as yourself, the less you’ll want to be like others. This, of course, takes time, so make sure to stick to it, even if you fall off here and there.
If you find yourself caught in a comparison mindset that’s hard to get out of, know that it’s the voice of your inner critic. You need to allow the inner critic to speak. Give it a name, so it’ll be easier to differentiate in your thoughts. And listen to it.
Often, we try to suppress that voice, but it only builds up and up until it has to come out. Listen to it, talk to and empathize with it, forgive it, and teach it a new dialogue/perspective/belief.
I’ve written this post with a free printable guide for healing our inner critic if you’re interested.
Reward yourself
Acknowledge accomplishments!
Write them down! All of your accomplishments! Notice it and let yourself feel good about the progress that you are making.
Write them in a notebook, pin them on your corkboard, or put your list in a specific binder, but write. them. down!
I complimented a stranger and put a smile on their face
I helped my neighbor shovel their snowy driveway
I started a blog!
If you only ever see all the “bad” parts of yourself, this is going to put it into perspective and help you get into the habit of noticing all the little wins of positivity and progress that need your acknowledgement too.
It’s going to build your confidence and self-appreciation, especially if your mental health is low.
Why & when to reward
And then reward yourself! Your efforts deserve positive recognition, it’s very healthy to take time out to celebrate.
You can reward yourself in your personal life when you do acts of love for yourself or others. Like when you’ve done something nice for someone else, or that you finally cleaned out your closet and reorganized everything!
As well as for any work/business projects you may have. Writing an article, hitting a sales goal, or even making it through a bad day of retail without breaking down crying. (Even if it’s not a “goal” that’s met, when you're struggling and feel like giving up, you should still reward yourself for making it through and soldiering on!)
And it doesn’t need to be when you hit a big milestone like completing something. Rewarding yourself for the smaller ones will help keep you motivated as well, and give you that boost you need to uplift your energy.
For example, you’re writing a book. Once you finish, you need to throw yourself a celebration for all that hard work! But reward yourself for every chapter that you complete too. If you hit writer's block, reward yourself when you overcome that! It was a challenge you made it through, that deserves recognition.
Reward system
You can also create a reward system for yourself if it feels like something you’d be interested in. A reward system is a system you’ve set in place to reward yourself for something.
For example, you may only give yourself something once you’ve hit a goal. You reward yourself by eating that delicious cake after you’ve finished your homework.
I’d only recommend this if your mental health is in a good place. To where this feels like a reward and a good way to treat yourself, and not as a punishment.
Put yourself first
The selfish label
Ahhh, selfishness…. the first word that toxic, unconscious people will throw at you when you set boundaries or prioritize yourself.
I remember a time when, especially after I already knew all of this and was practicing self-care/love and putting my needs first, that I met somebody who had such a good way of using my empathy against me and subtly shaming me for not being so “spiritually elevated” that I was self-less.
And it took me a minute to notice that.
It can be so easy to be manipulated if you’ve learned to be a people pleaser, are a sensitive person to other people’s feelings, and you care about being a good person. Someone who’s particularly clever with manipulation will twist it around so you feel bad.
Feel bad about prioritizing your health; mental, emotional & physical. As if caring for yourself is … bad?
Well, it’s not.
You’ve been warned, there’s always at least one person around like this.
You matter
Caring for yourself is necessary. Your emotional needs and health is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
Your emotional needs are a necessity!
It may take some time to build up that inner belief that you’re not selfish for caring about yourself. That you matter enough to put yourself first.
As crazy as that may sound, some of us have been raised and taught to feel that way. By family and society.
Just keep reminding yourself that your needs are important. It’s important to take care of yourself. And that you need to come first.
Not in a selfish way, where you don’t care about other people. But in a way where you understand that you cannot give back, help others, and fill their cups when you need to fill your own cup and help yourself first.
A well cannot give water to others when it is empty.
Stop being a martyr
It’s so beautiful that you want to do good in the world and to give love and healing, but that doesn’t mean that you need to neglect yourself to do that.
You don’t need to be a martyr.
We can help others after we’ve taken care of ourselves. Then when we do go out to help, it’ll be even stronger and more impactful because we are fulfilled already. No part of us feels a lack, so we’ll have more energy to put back out.
Boundaries
Remember, the world is full of takers. Other people will gladly take from you and never give back if you let them.
Prioritizing yourself means having those boundaries in place where you can say no when you mean no, not people please, and have enough self-worth built up to believe that you deserve yourself.
Honor your divinity enough to put yourself first.
Quick Recap
Compliment yourself
Forgive yourself
Follow your joy
Be yourself
Believe in yourself
Don’t compare yourself to others
Reward yourself
Put yourself first
Self-kindness is the most important kindness
As we give love to and heal ourselves, we are also healing all those who we surround ourselves with, just by the presence of our energy.
And our positive energy ripples out to all those we meet in ways we may never fully realize.
Just as an angry stranger may sour your day, another may uplift it. Choose what you will be.
The more our baseline energy is positive and loving by being kind to ourselves, the more we can give that to others.
And it all starts with you. Your love for yourself and your self-kindness.
I hope you find what your soul called for here from this article to apply to your own life. Let me know what you’re working on. I am working on noticing all of my accomplishments and celebrating them.