Be kind to yourself

be kind to yourself, 

I realized how harsh and self-destructive I was when I was asked to say out loud what crosses my mind. I had to imagine myself speaking to a child and I broke down. It's so easy to fall into a cycle of abuse towards ourselves as if growing old stops us from feeling compassion for ourselves. We act as if we can handle everything because we're supposed to. We're supposed to set goals as high as possible and berate ourselves if we can't reach them. 

We're supposed to follow a path because others have done it because that's "how it's supposed to be" and we don't listen to ourselves or our own needs. Someone told me that we were our worst bullies, and it is true. we speak so effortlessly horrible words that either were spoken to us by someone else, or we created based on expectations we couldn't meet. 

In the long run, we forget that we're no less deserving of kindness. We're no less deserving of being treated right, even by ourselves, especially by ourselves. In the long run, we forget to cut ourselves some slack and to stop and breathe. We don't meet our needs. So, we have to rekindle our connection with ourselves. We have to make sure we meet our needs. We have to make sure we listen to ourselves again and give ourselves the grace of failure and growth. 

it's probably word salad because I can't seem to find my words today, but I hope that at least some of it could reach out to someone out there 🙂