SO MUCH ROOM FOR KINDNESS

 

With so much going on many of us need to be kinder to ourselves.  For many kindness to others comes naturally.  We're parents, teachers, health-care workers, pastors, good neighbors, volunteers, caring spouses.  Our days are not relaxing or self-centered.  Firefighters, power-line workers, doctors and nurses are all trained to work 24/7 for the good of the community. They choose that job.

Then why aren't we kinder to ourselves?  We might feel that kindness to ourself makes us weak or self-indulgent. But studies show that's not so.  Studies show that self-compassion and inner strength are linked.  

Especially when we feel inadequate or insecure or are in emotional or physical pain, it's important to be tender with ourselves.  I might feel inadequate to affect the changes the world needs, offering only lamentation and prayer for Ukraine, for school shootings, for the girls and women who need abortion health care.  I might feel insecure about something personal:  for me my gait--which is no longer an arm-swinging stride--makes me self conscious; or becoming older, which equals less relevance. 

Someone else might feel insecure about their education, or underemployment or job loss; or their children's achievements or their own. Look at what we've learned about how social media affects self-esteem.  Or a trauma has left us in emotional pain.  So many reasons to need gentleness.  At the extreme are people with suicidal ideation. Hardly ever sure that they want to die, but certain that they don't want to continue living in such pain, emotional or physical. 

How do we get rid of the feelings that we aren't enough or that we are alone in the world? Certainly conventional therapies and medications.  But other tools too.  Mindfulness helps us make friends with ourselves.  In pottery class I made a tile decorated with a little acorn and the saying, "Nothing is missing; you are already whole."  Any hands-on skill  is a way to show ourselves kindness.  Anything where we disappear into what we are doing.  

Self-compassion doesn't mean turning away from what hurts.  It means turning toward it and asking ourselves, "What, dear friend, do you need in this moment?"  It's warm, and yet both gentle and fierce--the way we protect a child, or pet, or the vulnerable--anyone who needs us to stand up for them.  

I love the idea of softening toward ourselves.  We should sleep that way, in an embrace that shows love.  My husband sleeps like that, yes hugging me, but also hugging himself when I turn to my other side.  I tease him, but he wakes renewed.  

Let's never loose these ways of healing.  Earlier today I published a post written out of pessimism. I'm accepting that emotion.  What do I need when I feel that way?  What do you?  This post was sitting, waiting to be completed.  It lifts my soul to think how we can both face whatever we have to and show ourselves kindness at the same time.  In that way we remember how to be kind to others as well.         In love, Nina Naomi