Kindness Challenge Week 2: Self-Compassion

The second week of the Kindness Challenge, created by Niki of The Richness of a Simple Life, is about Self-Compassion. It’s about being kind to yourself and the assignment of this second week is especially perfect for people who forget to treat themselves right and/or tend to put other peoples need first:

Week 2 Theme | Self-Compassion

Having compassion for others entails sympathy or empathy for their discomfort and suffering. This week we’re going to work on showing ourselves compassion. For some of us that might mean not being so hard on ourselves, not holding ourselves up to standards of perfection, or easing up on the negative self-talk. Many struggle with being their own worst critic, this week we are going to strive to be warm, understanding, and encouraging with ourselves.

If compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

-Jack Kornfield

The purpose of the first three weeks of this challenge is to evaluate the kindness we show ourselves. I know this might be uncomfortable for some, but if we make the effort to really dig into these aspects of kindness, we’ll reap the benefits of cultivating a better relationship with ourselves.

Read more about this week’s challenge, including a useful exercise HERE.

My input:

Being kind to yourself? Showing myself compassion? What the **** ? Is this some kind of hippie stuff*, some idea from a flower child*, or do Niki and other similar minded people including me belong to another planet?

Nope. We’ve been through rough times in our lives and learned the importance of being kind to yourself. Creating space, taking the time, to be able to treat yourself with compassion. It isn’t about being selfish or forgetting about the needs of others. It is all about creating a meaningful life for yourself, feeling good about yourself and as an outcome (besides many other enrichments); being able to bring the very best of all of you into any type of relationship you have or would like to have.

Does that mean you have to ignore your limitations and always have to approach life positively? Of course not! Being kind to yourself, being compassionate towards yourself is also about giving yourself time to grieve, to be angry, to cry and just spill your guts every now and then.

However, it has been proven that devoting a few minutes to peaceful reflection each day is beneficial for both body and soul.

Self-compassion is one of the primary conditions
for all healing processes ~ Mia Leijssen

Is it a too big of a step for you? Or does it still sounds like vague blablabla ?

Simplify.

Take a bath, read a book, listen to music, cook your favorite meal. Taking care of another Beautiful Soul is maybe your way of being kind to yourself. At the same time, allowing yourself to retreat for just 15 minutes, even if you can manage this only once a week, is also a way to be compassionate towards yourself.

Above all:  don’t be too harsh towards yourself 😉

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Missed my input for week 1? You can read it HERE.
* There is nothing wrong with being a hippie or a flower child, but for me personally life is about the positive AND the negative 😉