Treating yourself fairly 

Have you ever wondered why you cannot treat yourself with the same kindness and compassion that you would treat a dear friend? This is because most of us hold ourselves to a higher and less just standard than we expect of others. Imagine its a Friday night and you arranged to meet a friend for dinner. You know you will be 20 minutes late and its raining. The traffic is bad and you have no phone signal. So you worry your friend will think badly of you and you imagine her waiting in the rain getting cold and wet. These imaginings can lead to all sorts of thoughts: "I am so disorganized, why couldn't I just leave on time?! I am utterly useless, she'll be so angry with me!" You may end up getting to your appointment but over-apologising for your tardiness. Treating yourself with compassion is not about making excuses or letting yourself off the hook every time you do something wrong. Its about holding yourself accountable while acknowledging the messy, complex, picture, that is life.  For example, in the scenario above you may have to acknowledge that the extra 10 minutes of  savouring that cuppa with the chocolate biscuit could have been cut short by a few minutes, is holding yourself accountable while also  acknowledging that you were recently told there will be redundancies made at work and you needed time to process this.  Reframed in  this way still allows you to meet your high standard of being a good friend, while simultaneously acknowledging your own needs. People who lack self-compassion often end up assuming the worst about themselves, believing they are to blame for everything that goes wrong. They take too much accountability, when what is needed is the self-care skills to be able to understand their need for warmth and care.

Accept yourself for who you are

Many of us learn early life lessons about who we should be. We learn to conform, desperate to fit in and be accepted. We may have heard things like a man has to be brave and strong and a woman shy and retiring. These are just some of the implicit messages that our sent to us throughout our lives. However, what if the man in question is sensitive and shy and the woman more of a go-getter. There is nothing to say that either of these two persona's is right or wrong, but it's the messages we are sent that tell us we are lacking in some way. How many of us are truly embraced for our whacky, off-beat and unique selves? The selves that make mistakes frequently, that are often imperfect and flawed.  Think about all the environments where we have to conform (work, education, friends) and how many times you have felt pressure to be something or someone else. When we accept ourselves for who we are we learn to embrace the relief we feel when we no longer have to conform. I once worked with a client with ADHD whose bedroom was a "mess" her mother said. Mum felt the client  should feel ashamed of herself for letting herself  get into this "state". This lack of acceptance  of the client, often led the client to spending hours cleaning and tidying her room, leaving her feeling exhausted and low in mood afterwards. Once the client realised that part of her ADHD meant that her mind and often environments, could at times find it difficult to conform to the concept of "tidiness" she was able to let go of some that internal negativity and accept that she was never going to be a minimalist who loved cleaning. To be truly at peace, she had have to accept and embrace her slightly chaotic mind, while still allowing room to hold herself accountable when things got too bad. Accepting ourselves means loving you, for exactly who you are. Nothing more. Nothing Less.

Taking care of ourselves

You will often hear psychologists talk about "self-care". But what does that actually mean? Self-care means allowing yourself the time and space to gently attend to your needs in helpful and nurturing ways. Self-care is not selfish or overindulgence. Its that simple act of saying to yourself "I matter enough to attend to my needs today". It doesn't have to be a lavish holiday or something from your long bucket list. It can just mean a quiet breather in the day, in between meetings, closing your eyes for a second or two to take a break from visual overload or that cup of tea you quietly drink before moving onto to the next task.  Self-care is a deep act of self-compassion and self-respect  and when we demonstrate it to ourselves it makes others want to show us compassion too.

So the next time you are tempted to be judge, jury and executioner for your mishaps, try a little self-compassion and self-acceptance. You might just find it leads to a happier you. x