Being kind to ourselves

When we read this quote by the 14th Dalai Lama, our first thoughts may go to being kind to others. My question for you is, “Are you also being kind to yourself?”. Kindness is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “The quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate”.

I used to think being kind to myself was a selfish, indulgent act. A way of letting myself off the hook and a sure way to become a slouch. But as I practiced kindness, I realized that when I am kind to myself, I enhance the connection with myself and with others. It’s a powerfully generous act that helps me move forward in the direction I want to go.

From what I’m hearing, many of us are feeling like we’re not doing enough during this pandemic. We haven’t been productive enough, or giving enough, or risking our lives enough, or exercising enough. Worse, we haven’t made progress towards a significant breakthrough like Isaac Newton did during the quarantine for Bubonic plague in 1665 when he discovered the law of gravity.

We can show kindness to ourselves by intentionally attending to our feelings of stress or inadequacy. One way to do this* is to pause and notice where this feeling is in our body. Then place a hand on that area and bring a soothing voice to signal safety to our nervous system. For example, if we feel stress in our abdominal area, we can place one hand over this area, or we can say a comforting statement to ourselves, like we would to a young child, “It’s okay. You’re doing the best you can”. These actions activate the parasympathetic nervous system and calm is aroused. From this place of calm, we can determine how best to move forward. Another benefit is that those around us will pick up on the calm and begin to feel it too.

In addition to attending to your feelings, here are some acts of kindness to give yourself:

• Remind yourself that staying indoors to protect others is one of the greatest acts of kindness you can do right now. 
• Ask yourself what you need: Do you need to self-sooth with your favorite comfort food or do you need to say “yes” to a nutritious meal?
• Do you need a new routine to get more done or do you need to remind yourself that survival is good enough?
• What non-essential virtual meeting can you say “no” to this week?
• Do you or a loved-one have a Birthday coming up? Take the day off!
• Do you have a planned vacation, don’t cancel! Take a “staycation”.
• If you are close to completing a project or a task, ask, “Is it good enough?” When it’s good enough, press Send. The extra time or effort it will take to make it perfect might not be available to you now.
• Give yourself the grace of imperfection.

By being kind to ourselves, we are taking care of ourselves AND those around us. The friendly, generous, and considerate attitude will spread- the kind of emotional contagion worth spreading.

*This method is described by Kristin Neff, Ph. D who has researched and published extensively in the area of self-compassion. I described a method of attending to challenging emotions in a previous post.