Being kind to yourself

[Twixlysausages]

I am someone who has a very full on life, lots of responsibilities, children, work, aging parents, no real support network. I try very hard to be a good mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, employee...I try to keep my home clean and tidy, support my children's talents and interests all the while managing a chronic health condition (have had no flare ups for a while but they always feel like they're around the corner). I also try to look after my appearance, stay slim, wear make up, always aiming to look my best every day. Its who I am.

I do often feel like I have a very, very small margin of wriggle room and it doesnt take much to disruption the apple cart.

All of the rhetoric lately seems to be about nervous system regulation (which is resonating a lot with me) and being kind to yourself. The thought of being kind to myself feels scary.

The people in my life who make the most exceptions for themselves are the people who aren't very nice. The ones who give up and never follow anything through, who dont care if they hurt people's feelings or if their homes are falling down around their ears. They could never be bothered to push through with anything and yet identify with the most flattering adjectives to describe their character when the opposite is actually true. Its not that I am judging them; I am just really scared of patting myself on the back for things that dont deserve self praise. I am worried that if I am kind to myself, I will drop my standards and not be good at the things I value.

I need to be much kinder to myself though. I just think about a close family member who is incredibly kind to herself and I look at her and dont want to be anything like her. I am worried if I am kind to myself I will end up deluded and will be rubbish at everything (and an insufferable person). I feel I will lose accountability.

Does anyone else struggle with this? I feel like I hold myself to a very high account and if I let my standards drop, they will plummet. By the sound of this post it seems that I am very high achieving but I am not. I am just about decent at everything. Lowering my expectation of my self will lower all aspects of me below decent.

Please be kind. Ive been going through a lot lately.

I wouldn’t stew on the philosophy around it all. Simple really…. Take a bit of time for yourself, and feel brighter in every day responsibilities.

Who defines what decent is though. Depending on who you listen to it means anything from eating 20 plants a day, making a chicken last a month, washing towels daily, to giving no fucks about anything. And the world still turns regardless.

What would happen if you eased up on yourself? If you pulled back on constant demands and standards? If you didn’t do every single thing others expect of you? Maybe the people you describe as horrible just aren’t jumping to what others expect of them, and maybe they’re happier for it.

If you feel you need to be kinder to yourself, what do you think you need to stop beating yourself up about? Where can you ease pressure on yourself?

What does being kind to yourself actually look like though? Is it just a buzz phrase for occasionally having a day doing what you want (as per me yesterday as I was quite hungover tbh, and had a rare day of having the house to myself so I did absolutely nothing but watch TV and have a sleep in the afternoon). Today Ive been back to normal, ferrying children around, batch cooking for the week, household chores, dog walking etc etc. But I don’t see yesterday as a big deal and nothing untoward has happened because I did nothing for the day. It’s just normal life from time to time to have the proverbial duvet day or day out doing something you like or whatever floats your boat. I’m not sure when normal life came to be termed being kind to yourself really.

‘Being kind to myself’ these days means

• letting go of the negative thoughts about myself that make everything so much harder. I’m not perfect and that’s ok. If I made a mistake yesterday, I can’t change it. Today is another day.

• It’s also noticing and appreciating when I’m living up to my own values.

• and finally, allowing my opinions and preferences to be heard and taken notice of. It’s all too easy to put everyone else’s needs first out of a sense of obligation or just for an easy life.

This would be my definition too. If someone is struggling with self hatred over past mistakes etc, they need to be kind to themselves and learn from mistakes rather than beating themselves up for example