Above all else.

October 7, 2020 | Motherhood

How would your world shift if you were as kind to yourself as you are to others? Not the entire world, per say, but your own personal environment. Your work, your home, your family… you? Like many women I know, I have challenged myself in my 30s to only surround myself with good, kind people. I left my “dream job” in the dust due in large part to toxic, unkind, unhappy people. I have taken to heart the concept that you are the sum of the people you spend the most time with, yet just recently noticed how vital the ME factor is in that equation. During a timely lesson in self-discovery, I was introduced to Goddess Cards, and the card drawn for me revealed Kuan Yin. Goddess cards are a completely new concept to me, but the theory behind Kuan Yin had me spiraling in its relevance to my being. Kuan Yin’s message was this: “Gentleness is the strength behind true power, and it comes from feeding yourself with nourishing words, thoughts, deeds, intentions, and all forms of food…Transform harshness into gentleness by refusing to see anything but the shining light that is within each person and situation. This intention begins with your relationship with yourself. Be very gentle with yourself in all ways. Be happy, be kind, be sweet, but most of all, be true to who you are”. My father taught me at a very young age to, above all else, be kind. These were his departing words whenever my brother and I left the house. Even as an educator himself, the first question he asked my teachers was always “but is she kind?”. There is so much wisdom in the concept of being kind, and I have tried my best to lead my life by this virtue. I have built a career on being gentle with others; hearing them, helping them, empathizing with them. Kindness, positivity, being caring and calm – these are all qualities that I pride myself on. There is one person, however, who I have almost constantly been unkind to: me.

Somehow it never dawned on me just how imperative it would be to implement my father’s advice inward. In my words, my thoughts, in what I feed my body and soul. My husband has always been discouraged by my lack of self-esteem; I put on a confident front, but in my own head there has always been so much self-doubt and hurtful dialogue. And so I started thinking about all the other women in my life. The mothers, sisters, friends, daughters, colleagues, and students I talk with regularly. How many of the women I value so much, and often view as “perfect” definitions of some of the prior statements, are also unkind to themselves? What type of internal damage are we doing by not being as gentle with ourselves as we are with others? How much are we unknowingly passing down to our children, not even by the way we speak to them, but by the way we speak to and about ourselves? How many times does my four year old internalize my saying “no I don’t, I don’t even have any makeup on” when my husband says “you look beautiful”. How many times will it take my saying this for him to begin affiliating true beauty with makeup? Or with his mother not loving herself? At what point will my dialogue and internal struggles become his own body image truths?

Our own (mental and physical) health, especially as busy wives and mothers, seem too often parked on the back burner and packed full of constraints like time and money. I don’t have time to workout. What if I’m on a run when the kids wake up and my husband doesn’t hear them? We do not have the money for a gym membership, let alone a personal trainer (more on this in my next post). A kale-based smoothie is great, but it is going to be easier, cheaper, and quicker for me to just eat a bowl of cereal or make a bagel. The needs of others are constantly being put above our own, and the modern mother has completely blurred the lines between self-maintenance and self-care. When did simply taking a 10-minute shower ALONE become one of my forms of self-care? Yikes. Regardless of the stories we tell ourselves as it relates to our constantly competing priorities, one thing you can do today to make your world a better place is take responsibility for how you treat and talk to yourself. This takes no time and costs $0, but is often one of the most difficult to accomplish. Give yourself Grace. Every single day. Wake up with a thankful heart, and take time to appreciate you, just as God made you. Your shape, your flaws, the things you have somehow grown to hate. Cancel those thoughts. Fuel your body by being gentle with yourself. Think positively and with fondness of the shape, the hair, the skin that God has given you (and maybe also throw in some greens and extra water).

My abs may never re-emerge, but I look in the mirror every morning and (out loud) thank God for the extra skin that now exists because it aided in the growth of two precious humans. I used to despise my thicker legs, but I now try to look at them in admiration for how strong they are to carry two boys (totaling almost 60lbs) up and down the stairs every morning and evening. Shift your perspective - try it for a week, a day, an hour - and I guarantee you will begin to see the change. Not just in your personal perspective and attitude, but in the vibration of those around you. Your kids, your husband, neighbors, friends or colleagues; they will take notice and adapt to your raising of the bar accordingly. And then, you may slowly begin to see, in fact, that the entire world can be altered, become a more beautiful place for our children, just by how we speak to ourselves.