Treat yourself with compassion

We can be so hard on ourselves.  We place these exceedingly high expectations on how we are supposed to behave, to think, and to do, and when we fall short of meeting those expectations, we struggle to treat ourselves with the same compassion that we would have for someone whom we love.

It’s funny, but have you ever listened to the way you speak to yourself in your mind?  Would you speak to your best friend in the same way?  I doubt it.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t be your best friend for long.

Now, that’s not to say that you wouldn’t give guidance or advice if you could see someone you love heading in a direction that would harm them.  But it’s about the motives and the way the message is delivered to the other person versus the way we think of ourselves and the way we speak to ourselves about ourselves.

You want to see your loved one do well, to be happy and to be blessed.  Your motives are in their best interests.  Your guidance and advice comes from a place of compassion.

Yet, if we ourselves end up messing up, where does that compassion go?  Instead of feeling any empathy, forgiveness or compassion, we call ourselves all sorts of names, and then continue to replay those messages over and over again in our minds.

If you’ve ever messed up – and if you are a living, breathing human being, you most certainly will have messed up at some point – then show yourself the love, compassion and forgiveness that you would show the person who is nearest and dearest to you.

We know that no-one is perfect. Our family members, our partners, our friends – we know they aren’t perfect.  But we love them anyway.

In the same way, you are not perfect.  But you are loved anyway.

As long as you continue to live and breathe, you will continue to mess up and fail to live up to expectations – your own or of other people.  But those who love you will love you anyway because they love you for who you are, not what you do.

Isn’t it time for you to also love yourself anyway?

Next time you mess up, try to imagine it is your loved one who has messed up, and then treat yourself the way you would treat them.  Speak to yourself the way you would speak to them. And forgive yourself as you would forgive them.  Then simply move on.