1. Recognizing my lack of kindness

If you know me, you know why this is an article I would choose to write for myself. I have a lot of difficulty with kindness—not to others, but to myself. I struggle with an ill brain, one that emphasizes the negative more than the positive whenever possible. Lately, I’ve been recognizing how I’ve been treating myself when I’m low. 

I berate myself. I feel bad, and then I get angry for feeling bad. How dare you, I tell myself—was all the work you put in for nothing? Then, I get even angrier for being angry; I’ve done so much to try and heal and I know healing is not linear nor does it mean I’ll never feel low. Why can’t I let myself acknowledge how I feel and heal properly?

Anyways—this isn’t very nice to go through. If I’m trying to heal, it’s something I definitely should work on. Let’s get started.

2. Setting goals

To learn to be kinder to myself, I need to picture what a kinder Sabine would actually look like. How would she treat herself? How would she react to things? 

This is something I’ve learned to do in private therapy as well as group Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, but I haven’t really put it in practice until now. I’ve realized that it’s not enough to just think about who you want to be. You have to define the qualities of your goal state. After all, it’s easy to forget that image and forget to take the steps you need to to grow. Then, that image becomes unattainable and you never actually reach it. 

So, a kinder me…

Here’s the thing. While planning this article I realized that I don’t really have an accurate perception of how I treat myself, as I make excuses for all of my behaviour. In my head, treating myself the way I do is justified and it’s taken a long time to come to the point where I can recognize that and work beyond it. 

So, instead of struggling to come up with a kinder self on my own, I asked my friends for goals they think I should set for myself based on what they’ve noticed. Here’s generally what they came up with:

A kinder me would:

1. Speak up for herself when she needs to (i.e. when her feelings are hurt or she doesn’t want to do something)
2. Not guilt herself into doing things she doesn’t want to do
3. Accept her feelings, whether or not she enjoys or agrees with them
4. Treat herself with the same worry and care she offers to others
5. Listen to herself more attentively and trust herself
6. Even out her high expectations of herself with her low expectations of others

3. Smart steps!

It’s not enough to just have the goals—at this point, they’re easier said than done. Goals like this are too big to do in one go. In reality, these goals are the final step of many smaller goals. They’re the end of a longer journey. So, we need to take our goals and break them down into smaller steps. Most of these will be related to each other. There are steps that I can take for multiple goals, since a lot of them involve listening to myself and trusting myself. 

I made some mind maps to help visualize the steps. They aren’t perfect, but they’re progress.

4. Assessing my progress

I don’t think I’ll ever be done healing, but I know there will be times when I’m better. I’ve realized, lately, that these times are the moments when I need to work the hardest. I need to take advantage of the energy I have and the better mood to keep myself from falling back under. If I do fall again (no one is always happy), the work I’ve done will make it easier to crawl back out. 

I know the steps and all seem kind of weird, but these are not necessarily for you to follow. If you have similar aspirations to me and think these will more or less work for you, that’s great! If not, don’t worry about it.

While maybe I’m not much kinder to myself yet, I do have a better idea of where to start being kinder to myself and what I have to work on. I also have begun to realize where my head goes wrong in being kind to myself, i.e. making excuses for my poor self-treatment. By starting this process, I’m already a little bit better.