Healing & Recovery Lifestyle Mind

How to be Kind to Yourself – Put Yourself First

Today has a sprinkle of FML in it. (Fuck My Life).

Just a sprinkle, and actually with it I have a bit of gratitude because it is raw and honest and I can now authentically share it on this post with you.

You know that feeling where you don’t want to do something, but you do it anyway because you don’t want to let another person down? Yup.

I sit here in my lady bug robe. and I have my right eye bothering me with a newly formed inner lower lid bacterial infection, and I feel bloated and tired. It feels really good to be honest with you as to the state that I am in. It feels phenomenal actually that I don’t need to sit here and pretend to be perfect.

I still love my life,  this will still be a great day – but the typical morning luster has seemingly drastically diminished from its usual high vibrational-ness.

Uncool.

I use my feelings/mood and the overall state of health as my compass.

This is a clear indication to me that something has thrown me off my kilter recently.

Whenever I get like this it is a clear reminder of how I need to be kinder to my own needs, and I need to be aware of what it is I do need.

How then, did I get myself into this state?

And then it has dawned on me that I had not been kind to myself with the choices that I had bad this past weekend- I put others needs ahead of my own and now I was paying for it. Long story short, I stretched myself way too thin, something that I am sure that many of you are familiar with too.

My intuition told me on Thursday that I needed to create boundaries and take it easy- lay low.

But I did not want to let others down with the prior commitments that we had made with each other and so, well, now here we are.

A lesson learned- and this lesson comes as a reminder again and again lately and today I think I have finally learned it, again.

I am only human.

Knowing how to be kind to yourself and actually following through with it can be two totally separate situations.

So even though I still need to remember to take my own advice at times, let me at least share with you what I know on this topic.

How to be Kind to Yourself

Quit trying to please others.

Just stop. There is no point to try to make everyone happy. And you have the right to change your mind. Granted, this is probably not a very good option for major events (I am not saying that effort should not be made) but if you are really not feeling like doing something then listen to YOURSELF and don’t do it.

Say nice things to yourself.

I have worked on this and have noticed a major shift with this- not beating myself up. This situation is a prime example of being kind to myself even after my original choice was to not be kind to myself – make sense?

What is perfection anyway?

The bar will continuously get higher and higher. I look at my blog posts and sometimes question them- are they good enough? Are they too short? Then I realilze that I don’t personally like to read 2000+ word posts, and I like things to be short, sweet and to the point so why would I write such long posts all the time. Short posts are okay…

Allow yourself adequate rest and downtime to do “nothing”.

It is okay to not always be productive. I cringe when I type this even because it is something that I still need to work on. We will all die so lets enjoy this life a bit. You may find in fact, that in a space of “doing nothing” much clarity and creativity will come to you.

The difference between old me and me 2.0 is that these days do not have the level of effect that they used to. I am still happy, I still love my life – just FML for today.

I am much more of an observer with what is happening- and it has shown me where I need to “clean up my act” so to speak.

THANK YOU.

I look forward to getting back on track tomorrow. We all have our ups and downs in days so this is nothing to get bent out of shape about really, but I am hoping that it brought forward a bit of insight that you might find useful for yourself too…

How do you interpret your FML days?

Do you have anything to add to my ways to be kind to yourself?

 

5 thoughts on “How to be Kind to Yourself – Put Yourself First”

  1. Andrea, let me first start off by saying that I really enjoyed reading this content. I sometimes grapple with the idea of self love and find myself trying to utilize some of the same techniques you have written about above. If we could all give ourselves a good dose of self-love and understanding on a daily basis, the world would be a much more vibrant place of being.

  2. This article has got me thinking.
    I’m always exhausted but more often then not it is due to taking care of others responsibilities. I find myself so scared of disappointing people that I overload myself with chores and as result run myself down.

    Maybe it’s time to take a step back and have a me day.

  3. I totally agree with you that we have to understand and love ourselves first before we can love others. Personally, I am not a people pleaser as I have control of my own mind and body. If someone does not like what I have to say, personally I don’t care as I am an individual just like they are. We live this life to enjoy it as you have mentioned. We live and we learn and gain experience. I am working to understand myself and inner being. I want to awaken and remember myself as what I am currently living an abnormal, external ordinary being existence established by me myself. The food of impressions should be in our true consciousness which is our subconscious. I believe in our normal being existence, which is our subconscious, we will be able to work on oneself and perceive our true purpose in this grand universe.

    Sam

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