“Believe me, no one hates me more than I do,” I found myself screaming during an argument with my husband.
He hadn’t told me he hated me at all. I was projecting how I’d been feeling about myself at the time.
My ADHD and hyperfocus had sent our life into utter chaos—again. There were mountains everywhere—laundry, dishes, and toys.
“Can’t you just be balanced and consistent for once? Your life is a mess. You think you can be a writer? You fail at everything.”
I didn’t know if I hated myself more for dropping the ball or for the cruel words I’d been pummeling myself with all week.
Though I’ve made significant progress in my healing journey, there are still days when my inner self and I shift from being friends to mortal enemies.
The reality is that I’m still learning how to be kind to myself, and I will probably be working on it for the rest of my life.
Sometimes I default to bullying myself as a form of motivation—even though it isn’t helpful in the slightest.
My body thinks it’s a cactus because I become so focused on everything else that I treat water like an afterthought—not a life-sustaining liquid.
Then there’s bedtime—or rather my lack of one. Some nights I’m in bed by midnight, but most of the time my head hits the pillow after 1 a.m.
Self-kindness is learning to tend to my needs after years of self-criticism and neglect.
If you also struggle to treat yourself with kindness, you’ve come to the right place. This post will explore what self-kindness truly looks like and how it plays a role in the kindness we extend outward to our children, friends, family, and wider community.
Curiosity Before Judgment
Self-kindness starts with curiosity toward ourselves.
Have you ever had a day where you just felt on edge for seemingly no reason? Maybe you were quick to snap at others or just didn’t have the patience for much of anything.
In those moments, you might ask yourself, “What’s wrong with me?”
The problem is that this question is self-blaming. It excludes the possibility that your nervous system might be having a natural reaction to your current circumstances.
Perhaps you’ve been like a frog in a pot of water that’s been gradually heated to a boil.
For example, you thought you were coping just fine with your work responsibilities, but it turns out you’ve just been ignoring the strain this entire time.
You’ve reached your limit emotionally, so you no longer have the patience or capacity for anyone else.
It may not be a question of what’s wrong with you. There may be a problem with your environment.
Curiosity looks like pausing to ask yourself:
What am I feeling at this moment, and why?
What do I need most right now?
Gentle questions like these invite self-reflection without judgment.
Maybe you’re dealing with a lot of anxiety and could benefit from some time off. Maybe you need to set clear boundaries at work. In some cases, the solution may be to find a new job completely.
What matters is taking an active interest in our emotional needs and doing our best to address them. We can regain our capacity to show kindness to others when our nervous system no longer views everything—and everyone—as a threat.
Caring for the Body to Support the Nervous System
Our nervous system doesn’t just respond to our emotional needs. Neglecting our physical needs can also send it into fight-or-flight mode. Being kind to our bodies can help us maintain a calmer baseline and give us the emotional bandwidth to show kindness to others.
Here are a few gentle ways to be kind to your body:
- Make sure you’re getting the right amount of water each day. A large cross-sectional study of adults found a correlation between lower water intake and increased risk of depression and anxiety. Contrary to popular belief, however, you may or may not need sixty-four ounces of water every day. Optimal water consumption depends on a number of factors—age, sex, weight, activity level, and environment. Experts recommend responding to your body’s thirst cues and monitoring the color of your urine—light yellow typically indicates adequate hydration.
- Eat nutrient-dense foods. A study published in 2017 suggests that a healthy diet may help improve depression symptoms. Nutrient-dense foods provide our brain with the materials needed to function properly. Whole foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes contain vitamins that play a role in the production of mood-regulating neurotransmitters. Healthy fats like olive oil and proteins like nuts, meat, and eggs support the brain’s infrastructure. Dairy products may reduce the risk of vitamin D deficiency—often associated with mood disorders.
- Aim for 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night.
- Incorporate movement into your daily routine. I discuss in-depth how sleep and movement support your nervous system in Why Inner Peace Feels So Hard Right Now: And What the Nervous System Has to Do With It.
- Spend a few minutes out in the sun (with proper skin protection). Research suggests that natural sunlight activates serotonin-related neural circuits that overlap with pathways also involved in mood regulation. Sunlight exposure also improves sleep quality by suppressing melatonin production during the day, which helps to regulate the circadian rhythm.
We often think of the aesthetic benefits of these habits but pay less attention to the impact they can have on emotional regulation. This can be a powerful motivator in tending to these needs—especially for those of us with mental health struggles.
Which areas could use more of your time and effort? I definitely need to tend to hydration and sleep.
If you feel intimidated, take a deep breath. We don’t need to overhaul our lives overnight—one healthy habit can give us the momentum needed to build a healthy lifestyle.
Honesty as a Form of Self-Kindness
Taking care of ourselves physically and emotionally requires honesty with ourselves and others. This can help us avoid becoming overextended.
Maybe you’ve had a rough week at work. You’ve been so exhausted all week that you’ve had very little energy for laundry and dishes. Now there are mountains waiting for you to tackle.
No worries! You have a whole weekend to rest and catch up on everything.
On Friday, though, your friend reaches out to see if you want to go to the movies the next day.
You really need the whole day to rest and catch up with your housework, but you don’t want to disappoint them.
You reassure yourself that you still have Sunday, but the time spent with your friend is dimmed by the things you feel you need to do instead.
When you get home, you feel too tired to do anything else, so you plan to spend the evening resting before tackling your chores the next day—until your phone rings.
A family member needs help moving out of their apartment tomorrow. You agree—telling yourself that it can’t possibly take the entire day and there’ll still be time to catch up.
Except it did take the entire day.
It’s now Sunday night, and you’re feeling even more exhausted than you were on Friday.
Instead of feeling fulfilled and connected, you feel resentment over the time and energy you devoted to others.
Feeling resentful isn’t a moral failure. It’s a symptom of self-erasure.
How might honesty have helped in this situation?
Being honest with yourself would’ve meant acknowledging that you just didn’t have the time or energy to socialize and help others that weekend. Another area of consideration would’ve been time allocation. Planning fallacy is a term used in psychology to describe the human tendency to underestimate how long it takes to complete a task.
Given this tendency, honesty would’ve also meant setting realistic expectations for the amount of time needed for resting and cleaning.
Still, it’s not enough to be honest with ourselves about our capacity. We need to communicate honestly with others as well.
“I would love to go to the movies with you, but I can’t this weekend. What’s your schedule look like next week?”
“I can’t commit to helping on Sunday, but I’ll let you know if things change.”
It can be really difficult to disappoint others, but kindness starts with treating yourself with care and consideration.
When we ignore our own needs just to avoid disappointing others, we may be people-pleasing—which can be a form of self-erasure, not authentic kindness.
Self-kindness isn’t selfish. It’s the foundation for the kindness we display toward others.
Next Steps for Your Self-Discovery Journey
If you’d like to explore these ideas more personally, these resources may help.
Download your free Kindness Reflection Toolkit, designed to help you explore this month’s theme at your own pace.
Gentle Ways to Apply This:
- Pause and name what you’re feeling. Reflect on what may be influencing those emotions, and consider what you need most in the moment. This free printable, Daily Self-Kindness Check-In, encourages you to respond to your emotional needs with kindness.
- Choose one small area of physical care, and set a realistic goal. Use this free gentle worksheet, The Gentle Body Care Goal Builder, to help you approach your goal with kindness instead of pressure.
- Reflect on moments when you’ve felt overextended, resentful, or exhausted. This free Honesty as a Form of Self-Kindness printable helps you explore how honesty with yourself (and others) can protect your capacity for connection.
Lead with Self-Kindness
Self-kindness supports our capacity to connect with others. Tuning into our emotional and physical needs with honesty helps us avoid overextending ourselves and gives us the bandwidth to be authentically generous with others.
Kindness built on self-erasure isn’t sustainable. If we want to make our corner of the world better by building up others, it’s best to lead with self-kindness.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If this post resonates with you, please share it with anyone who needs to be reminded that self-kindness isn’t selfish.
What does self-kindness look like for you?
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Keep it kind, respectful, and focused on self-love and growth—let’s make this a safe, uplifting space. 🌿