Be Gentle With Yourself
Being gentle with yourself is often easier said than done. We haven’t been given a handbook of how to live in this imperfect world. Each and every one of us are still learning how to navigate our way through life.
We know logically that the world is imperfect but that doesn’t stop us from chasing perfection. Let it be in our relationships, careers or family life - we often feel it could always be a little bit better if we tried a little harder. But trying a little harder often means we end up being very hard on ourselves, setting unrealistic expectations that we’re unable to consistently meet.
We all make mistakes, but we’ve all got very good at hiding them from each other. We do this because life's unpredictabilities expose us for being who we are - imperfect. The feelings that it brings up make us believe we’re the only ones in the world who ever got anything wrong. These feelings isolate us from everyone in that moment, so we make an internal promise to work harder and get better at hiding things in the hopes that we never feel that way again.
It’s clear that our purpose in life isn’t solely to be hard on ourselves or, on the other end of the spectrum, to be emotionless. Instead, it’s about learning to be more patient and gentle with ourselves in a world where we have never been taught to be.
How To Be Gentle With Yourself
When we choose to be gentle with ourselves it’s amazing how, little by little, our lives begin to change. It often means we’re giving ourselves permission to be imperfect, to be human and to stop pushing ourselves to live up to certain standards that were given to us by others.
It takes personal development and learning to take time for ourselves when we think we shouldn’t but we feel we should. Listening to our emotions and body more instead of pushing through - especially in those times when we have very little left to give.
Sometimes, being more gentle with yourself ends up putting you in a position of being a little harder and more realistic with others. Instead of doing what people expect you to do, or trying to be the person they expect you to be, we finally learn to say ‘no’ and be gentle and proud of ourselves for saying it.
We often don’t realise how much we’ve neglected ourselves until our own body is completely burned out and won’t let us continue our same old patterns. We need to be gentle with ourselves and learn to listen to our own bodies so that they don't have to take extreme measures to get our attention. If your body is tired or sore, rest and be gentle with it.
We can find that being gentle with ourselves will lead to a lot more personal growth in life we experienced when we were being hard on ourselves. When we’re constantly pushing ahead and driving toward goal after goal, it can strain our mental health and make it increasingly difficult to slow down to see how far we’ve truly come.
Being gentle with yourself is often a different way of living from the way you’ve been brought up. To change our ways of being self-critical and perfectionistic, we need to question and show ourselves that these old behaviours and patterns are no longer serving us. Only then can we begin to give ourselves permission to move forward.
Summary
Remember to be patient, no one in this world is perfect. We’re all making ongoing changes in our day-to-day lives, often in the hopes of more fully understanding ourselves. Encourage yourself to say ‘no’ to things that you feel obligated to do and say ‘yes’ to things that make you feel good about yourself. Be gentle with yourself and allow yourself to slow down in every area of your life, allowing yourself whatever time is needed.
It’s only when we give ourselves a chance to breathe that we can acknowledge and celebrate the people and the accomplishments we have in our lives in this present moment. When you do this, you’ll see that being gentle with yourself will show you how far you’ve come.
Gareth Michael