Self–Kindness

When I started thinking about what to write here concerning Self-Kindness I realized that for me it’s one of those concepts I think I understand until I try to describe it. It’s often characterized as “Be as kind to yourself as you are to others.” But what does that actually entail? …

I’ve written a lot here about doing acts of Kindness for others, for example:

• for family and friends—send a handwritten note or letter, a joke, a book, an inspirational quote, an interesting article, flowers, or a gift; help with a household chore; or offer to pick up groceries.
• for people you don’t know—smile and say hi, hold the door open for them, let someone jump ahead of you in the supermarket checkout line, or let a driver merge into your lane.

But not many of those acts of Kindness apply to Self. Yes, I can buy myself flowers or a book but I already open doors for myself, and get my own groceries. So what actually are acts of Self-Kindness?

As usual, I started by looking for a definition of kindness. I came across several but I like the one from the online Collier Dictionary: the quality of being gentle, caring, and helpful.

Using that definition, I wondered: Is it Self-Kindness for me to eat spinach because it involves caring for my body? Is it Self-Kindness to binge on Ben & Jerry’s Cherries Garcia because it’s helpful by providing some emotional solace in times of upset? Both could be seen as self-caring and helpful by some people, but maybe not by others. I also thought of some other examples of what might be acts of Self-Kindness for me currently:

• Getting restaurant takeout or delivery of heat-and-eat meals—I haven’t cooked a single meal during Steve’s rapid health decline, his death, and now grieving. Is it expensive? Somewhat. But for now, it’s worth it to me.
• Using mostly paper plates, bowls, and cups, as well as disposable flatware—Not great for the environment? Well much of it is compostable but still, generating more trash makes me cringe. However for now, this takes the household chore of washing dishes off my shoulders as I deal with grieving and being exhausted. It’s the best I can do right now.

Both of these have been helpful and a way of caring for myself. Thus, by the above definition, they are acts of Self-Kindness.

So maybe the key to determining what are acts of Self-Kindness is this: It depends on what is caring and helpful for you in any given situation. Maybe Self-Kindness is whatever you say it is—for you. Maybe even mundane everyday tasks we do are actually acts of Self-Kindness because they help us feel comfortable, content, healthy, safe, etc.

But I also think there’s a line where an act of Self-Kindness slides into unkindness—eating one pint of Cherries Garcia may feel good but eating three pints in one sitting crosses the line into being unhealthy. I think that line is also determined by each person for any given situation.

Interestingly, I find that these distinctions help me view previously onerous or annoying tasks differently. So “I must do this” becomes “I’m doing this to be kind to myself, to take care of myself.”

This also removes some of the sting from perfectionism for me: If I’m doing something for myself as an act of Self-Kindness versus, for example, to meet some cultural norm—like being a good little “Suzy Homemaker” and keeping my house in perfect order—then as Brenè Brown says: Good enough is good enough.

Like many of the blog posts I write here, writing this post has been a process of learning for me. If the above distinctions aren’t relevant to you, thanks for reading anyway. But who knows, maybe they’ll come up for you in the future. But I suggest that you (and I) start to observe what may be acts of Self-Kindness—and maybe start to do more.

And now some Self-Kindness for me: to continue watching the Netflix series A Discovery of Witches which is a helpful distraction as well as great fun—unless I keep binge-watching until 3:00 a.m. and screw up my sleep.🤪

P.S. I didn’t discuss the “gentle” part of the kindness definition in this post. I think being gentle with ourselves in general is a good idea—although again, I’m not exactly sure what that means. But it definitely applies when dealing with that pesky Inner Self Critic as discussed in my last post. Being gentle with them is definitely an act of Self-Kindness.

BTW—Throughout my blog posts here you’ll notice that I often capitalize certain words that I deem important (like Compassion, Path, Self, and Kindness). I also sometimes use sentence fragments and dangling participles. And, horror of horrors, I start some sentences with “And.” The professional editor in me knows that all of that is “wrong.” But I did it all “right” for 40 years in my career. So now it’s actually a freeing act of Self-Kindness to let that perfectionism go. To me now, the whole point is communication, not the rules. I hope this doesn’t offend your editorial sensibilities.