When thinking of change my body tenses up and almost immediately stops in its tracks. It’s not that I hate change, one of my strengths is actually adaptability, I find that I thrive in new environments internally at least. There is also a difference of finding yourself being subjected to change and the action of change for yourself. Now a days, we see that there are always things that we need to be changing—our weight, diet, consumption of products, our mentality, etc. When thinking of all these changes that need to we think of the to-do lists and instructions that come along with each of these tasks. I feel there is a step that is missing from all of these instructions. The act of being kind to yourself.

We are so busy on seeing change and needing to see the end result that through each step we find that we attack ourselves. Our most common phrases are “I’m not working hard enough,” “I’m still fat,” “I’m never going to be able to do this” and so on. We fill our minds with insults and criticisms through our process and that is a major backslide for the end result. I spend too much of my days self-deprecating because I could be doing more or I’m still sitting on my couch instead of being proactive. Yes, I am trying to motivate myself but if I continue to beat myself down for standing still or not seeing my own progress I may change weight or make a move but my mentality will be stuck there. My mind will always go back to insulting myself and putting down who I am. If my body is moving but my mind is still stuck where it was then I basically haven’t moved at all. I might as well be moving backwards.

When we allow ourselves to be kind to ourselves with words of encouragement or even the simple act of not saying something like “I’m failing” and allowing silence to take over then you are allowing progress mentally. This step is also a huge leap because if you’re constantly telling yourself you can’t do something or are beating yourself towards the floor you’re not actually going to be able to make any change. A way to picture it is this: the things you say to yourself, would you say that to someone you love? If someone you loved was trying to make a change and you used the words “failure” or anything opposite of encouragement that you use for yourself, would you expect them to make any progress?

The Act of speaking kindly to yourself is a step towards being able to see real progress for your whole self. When talking to ourselves there should practice of talking to our bodies and minds as something we love and not just something we inhabit.