Self-Kindness and Compassion

Self-kindness is the quality of being nice and good to yourself. It means treating yourself with the same kindness you would treat your best friends or a family member.

For this post, we are mainly focusing on how you can be kind to yourself. One important aspect of self-kindness that can sometimes go unnoticed is "forgiveness." In order to move forward, one must forgive. It's a classic example: let's say someone did something you deeply disliked. One route is to hold a grudge, however, this grudge won't change what already happened, it will only cause you more and more daily anger until you explode. Even though this situation was not particularly caused by you, you must forgive in order to move forward, water bottles filled with lead will inevitably sink. You must also learn how to forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for getting mad. Forgive yourself for calling out names. Forgive and move on. Within every disappointment comes a new lesson for the future.

Schools in the US are very grade and success oriented. This can cause an immense amount of stress on all kinds of students. Some students will inevitably deal with pressure better than others. However, many students who excel at a superior level can sometimes create resentment towards themselves if they commit any kind of mistake. Even the smallest mistakes can set them off and lead them to believe that they are not good enough. Some students need to hear that mistakes are the way we learn and that everything is okay. Others need to hear that even though this mistake wasn't the end of the world, they should be more careful so it does not happen again.

Don't penalize yourself for every little error you make in life. If you do, you'll spend the majority of your life being sad and holding grudges against yourself. It will cause extra stress, extra anxiety, extra anger, etc. Why would someone want to live like this?

You don't! You want to be happy as much as possible, and this includes forgiving yourself and learning along the way. Sometimes we don't even know if we did something wrong and our brain is already manipulating us to believe that we did. Try not to think about your mistake until you see it in front of you. It could be something, or perhaps it's nothing. You won't know until the right time, so until then, don't go through your nightmares twice. Let it happen first.

Forgive, and learn.