Be Kind & Compassionate — to Yourself!

Kindness and compassion are each a salve to heal the wounds of these challenging times. People don’t need judgment; they need love, patience, and understanding as they navigate their difficulties.

Do you practice kindness and compassion that make a difference in others’ lives? If you’ve learned not to judge others, have you learned not to judge yourself? As you overcome your difficulties, are you gentle with yourself, even if others are not? Do you follow your own path, or are others influencing the road you travel?

 

When we’re in the middle of intense, challenging, and difficult times, it becomes even more urgent than usual for us to have compassion for ourselves. It’s a time to be gentle, tender, kind, and loving toward our frazzled, stressed, stretched, or feeling-stuck selves.

 

Remembering that we each have our own rhythm and style to process crises, challenges, and impasses is essential. It isn’t okay to use anyone else’s way as a standard to measure our “progress.” It’s important to remember that what looks like detours, avoidance, and running away may actually be taking just the time we need to get to the next place.

 

When change is accelerating, and everything is moving very quickly, it always helps to try living in the thinnest slice of now we can find. And, pulling the covers over our heads and feeling sorry for ourselves actually can be an incredibly relieving, helpful respite: it’s one sure way of taking a rest before we go back into the fray.

 

Be gentle with yourself today and every day, and consider this advice from American entrepreneur Jim Rohn to help you move forward with kindness and compassion for yourself:

 

·      Don’t wish things were easier; wish for better ways to 

        handle them. 

·      Don’t wish for fewer problems; wish for more skills. 

·      Don’t wish for fewer challenges; wish for greater 

        wisdom.

 

And always remember, you deserve all the love, kindness, and compassion in the world—including your own.