Be Kind To Yourself

by Barbara Mencer 

Do you ever criticize yourself? 

If not, you can stop reading now.

Still with me?  Yeah, I'm guessing I didn't lose a soul, because we all do it.  We're all hard on ourselves, at least occasionally.

STOP IT!  First of all, it doesn't do you any good to beat yourself up.  Sure, you can analyze where you came up short of expectations and how you could do better.  That's fine.  But talking trash to yourself never is.

I know we've touched on this broad theme before, but I want to take a different slant on it in this newsletter.

Do me a favor and do absolutely nothing for five seconds.

Back now?  Okay, so what did you do in those five seconds?

Nothing?  Hardly.

Your heart beat five to six times, pumping about a gallon of blood.  You drew oxygen into your lungs and exhaled carbon dioxide.  Your eyes brought in a picture of the world surrounding you.  Your ears heard the sounds around you.  Your sensory/nervous system processed dozens of signals.  Your digestive system was busy turning food into you.  Your immune system was working to keep you healthy.  Your endocrine system was dispatching dozens of hormonal messengers to various parts of your body to signal them to start or stop operations.  Your brain was coordinating a few thousand life-sustaining activities.  Countless numbers of critical physical processes were ongoing.  Your hair was even growing.

And that's just a fraction of what goes on at any given moment of your life. And some of us have been in continuous operation for over 50 years now! 

If you really understood all that was going on beyond your conscious control, you'd be awestruck.  You have a miraculous "team" working for you 24/7/365.

Let's just focus on the heart for a second.  Do you know that the heart beats somewhere between 80,000 to 100,000 beats a day, pumping something like 2,000 gallons of blood every day of your life for as long as you live.  That's 2-3 billion beats and 50-65 million gallons over the course of 70-90 years!  Incredible.

And yet, where's our focus?  On the wonder of it all?  No.

We concentrate on what isn't working in our world.  We come down on ourselves for not being perfect ... for having that piece of cake when we'd sworn off carbs, for procrastinating around getting that important job done, for making a bad life decision ... as if it should always be easy to get things "right."  Personally, I kick myself for not reaching my fitness goals, which admittedly are pretty lofty. 

It can get ridiculous.  For some of us, failing to knock enough things off our to-do list in a day makes us losers.

Whoa ... STOP IT!  You're a smashing success story just by virtue of being here ... just by being.  And that's before you ever do anything with your miraculous mind and body.

You have a mind that computer engineers can only dream of replicating.  Even the dumbest among us possesses a blindingly brilliant thought-processing machine.

More importantly, you have hands to reach out with and arms able to enfold.  You have a voice to speak words of love and eyes to communicate what no words ever could.

You can smile.  You can hug.  You can comfort.  You can connect.  You can serve.  You can spread love and joy.  And I'll bet you do all of these things. 

Ever give yourself credit?

Being carelessly, mindlessly, and often harshly critical of such a beautifully designed creation with such immense capabilities just because we have a few shortcomings strikes me as completely absurd.

Maybe it's time for all of us, myself very much included, to do a whole lot more appreciating and a lot less self-flagellation.

To help you in reforming your behavior so that you go easier on yourself, see if this helps.  It's kind of a golden rule for being good to yourself.

Don't criticize yourself any more harshly than you would criticize a friend.

Think about it.  Would you say the things you say to yourself to someone you liked ... to someone you were close to?  Would you berate them?  No way.  You'd do your best to build them up and make them feel good about themselves.

Well, you aren't closer to any one else than you are to yourself and the fantastic mind/body "team" that supports you every second of every day.

Don't abuse them.

Appreciate them.  Marvel at them.  Love on them.

Be kind to yourself.  After all, you, in all your splendor, are pretty darn amazing.

Best Regards,

Barbara