The Self Kindness Meaning

The self-kindness meaning we often tend to forget or overlook. Sure, we’ve heard about it at least once or twice before… but are we really showing ourselves kindness?

As we talked about self-care last week, you might recognize that self-care and self-kindness flow hand in hand. Think about it, when you care for yourself, don’t you show yourself kindness too? But they are not the same thing.

But we often don’t show ourselves kindness. We tend to show everyone around us kindness and understanding but are pretty harsh on ourselves.

Step One… Understanding Kindness Meaning

Oftentimes when we don’t understand the kindness meaning, we tend to lack self-compassion. And sometimes we lack it all, because people didn’t show us much of real kindness throughout our life, so how are we supposed to know how to be kind to ourselves? We simply picked up what was shared with us and carried it on.

There are moments in life where we fail. There are moments, where things don’t go the way we thought, or wanted to. Here is my question for you: How do you react, and respond during those times? Are you able to accept it as it is, and move on? Or are you beating yourself up for a while about it?

So here is what’s really important… when you make mistakes, or when you fail, you have to show yourself kindness, and understanding. When you do that, you learn from it, and that’s what mistakes are for. They are learning curves for us to do better as we go forward. But if you keep focusing the frame on the mistake, you can’t grow from it. We have to switch the focus from harsh judgement, to simply accepting the mistake, doing better going forward, and showing ourselves kindness.

Taking Care of Yourself with Self Kindness

It’s time to care about yourself. And you can’t care about yourself without the kindness meaning in your life. Self-kindness helps happiness. Believe it or not, it also helps with physical health. Think about it, when you don’t show yourself the needed kindness, you get caught in stress, and stress affects your body in a negative way.

Accept yourself. There is no perfection in humanity, so don’t continue running after it, thinking that you will be the first human being that can be perfect 😊. Too many of us have tried it before. And too many have failed, because it is not possible. Also, think about it… The most successful people in history are the ones that failed and showed themselves kindness and understanding.

The Kindness meaning is to treat yourself as you would treat your best friend when they’re going through a rough time.

A while back we talked about values. The values we set usually guide us through what we allow, and what we don’t allow. The problem is, sometimes when we don’t have our own values set, we end up criticizing ourselves in a harsh way, because we judge ourselves by someone else’s values. We simply accept the values that were taught to us growing up.

What do You Say to Yourself in the Mirror?

How do you see yourself at this point? Be honest with yourself… When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? How do you feel? Do you know why you feel the way you do about yourself? Have you tried to dig for the roots of those emotions before? Keep in mind the kindness meaning and start showing it to yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror.

Self-kindness is not selfish. Whoever told you that it is, is wrong about it.

So how do we tackle this, and show ourselves more kindness going forward?

The moments when you feel inadequate, or not enough, show yourself compassion… because you are enough! Be understanding towards yourself, even when you fail. Don’t allow self-criticism to overtake you. Don’t deny your feelings and accept your thoughts just as they are.

Forgive yourself. The people in your trustworthy circle value you for you… for who you are… not for the actions you took. Start seeing yourself through those glasses as well. What happened, happened. You can’t go back and change it, so don’t try to.

Starting to be Kind to Yourself Daily

Write it somewhere where you see it on a daily basis, to be kind to yourself. Mine is on my bathroom mirror 😉.

Try to catch yourself when the negative thoughts are starting to creep in because you made a mistake, or something didn’t go the way you thought it would. And speak the positive thoughts out loud instead. It’ll take some time to change the habit, because keep in mind, this is the way how it has been for a long time. If you’re angry, don’t beat yourself up for being angry… instead, tell yourself that it is okay for you to be angry. You are a human being. You’ve been created with emotions, so allow yourself to have emotions.

Another way to show yourself self-kindness is to no longer tie your happiness to outside voices and opinions. Try to let go of those validations you’ve been looking for so long for. Recognize your struggles, and then find a way to treat yourself with kindness to deal with those struggles.

The self-kindness meaning says it: Be kind to yourself. We just hardly ever take the time to just stop and think about how we can do that. What is it we need to do in order to be kind to ourselves? It has been proven through several research that self-kindness has reduced anxiety and depression in people.

The Benefits Coming from Self Kindness

When you start practicing self-kindness, it helps you build stronger, better, and deeper friendships, that will go through the storms of life together.

So what are some things we can do this week to start putting the self-kindness meaning into action? Try to catch yourself when you’re harsh on yourself, and journal it. Put it down on paper. Write down when you judged yourself, or when you talked a little harsh to yourself about some action you took. In the mid-week, or end-week, look at those moments, compare them, and see if you discover a pattern in them. Have those harsh judgments helped you in any way? And what are you afraid of if you start to shift them?

Also, another part of showing yourself self-kindness is listening to yourself, and your needs throughout the day. Address your needs. Do you need to talk to a friend about some things? Do you need a break from your busy life, and need to recharge for a bit?

Don’t Forget, the Change Takes Time

As mentioned many times before… it takes time. Don’t get frustrated if things don’t change as quickly as you want it to. Be patient with yourself, that’s a way to show yourself kindness as well. And that is completely okay to take your time 😊. But let’s start somewhere, and see where it goes this week. With that said, we are ending this week… Keep in mind, you are worth it! You are going around on a daily basis showing kindness to the people around you, don’t forget to include yourself in it.