Compassion

How compassionate are you with yourself? Do you regularly criticise yourself? Would you openly criticise a friend they way you do with yourself?

We often talk about wanting greater self esteem, but what about the compassion we can feel for ourselves? Many of us will willing say that we are compassionate with other people, and yet we never think about being kinder to ourselves. We constantly criticise ourselves, compare ourselves to others, and often feel we are not good enough.

What happens if you share these thoughts with friends or relations? Hopefully you find people who are compassionate and will share your sorrows. This often makes us feel a bit better, but we can easily get into the habit of expecting others to continually make us feel better. And then if we keep on moaning for too long, those friends or relatives get fed up with hearing the same old same old.

Imagine for a moment that you are talking to yourself but in a kind way. As if you are having a two way conversation. Be compassionate when talking to yourself, even if you have to pretend to be. We can be kind and considerate to ourselves, and then notice the difference. Learn to stop beating yourself up too much. It never works, it only makes you feel worse than ever. Have a go at doing something different for a change. Set up a no such thing as failure option in your mind. If you get something wrong, stop criticising and start being kinder to yourself. If you keep telling yourself off, you get more of the same behaviours.

You can learn to laugh at yourself more often, stop taking yourself so seriously for a change. Go on, have a go and see how good it feels.