Be gentle to yourself.

Source : todoelajo.tumblr.com

Hello. As of now I'm just casually blogging in between studying, because, well... I don't want to overload myself.

Today I'm just going to casually talk/vent about the importance of being gentle to yourself.

You might be thinking, 'what the f is she talking about?' Well, I'm talking about gentleness in both the physical and mental sense.

Here's a textbook definition on what it means to be gentle:

Gentle - to be 'moderate in action, effect, or degree; not strong or violent.'

What does this mean? Well, it took me a long time/effort to truly understand what it means. But I'll try to keep it simple.

To be gentle to yourself means to not be too harsh on yourself, not use unkind words on yourself as some form of twisted motivation, not to use physical violence on yourself when you feel like you did not meet expectations etc.

And you might be thinking - 'Dude that sounds sick. I don't do that often, if at all.' But how sure are you of this?

A lot of us are familiar with the feeling of not being good enough. And this terrible feeling usually comes hand in hand with harsh self-treatment, as well as the erosion of one's self worth.

From seemingly mild thoughts like 'I suck compared to her' to extreme ones like 'No matter how hard I try, I'll never be as good/as pretty/ as smart/ as capable...', all these thoughts are extremely ungentle. Scratch that, they are brutal, unkind words that you should never use on yourself.

And I get it. Sometimes you need that extra push in the form of harshness to get yourself going. But the negative effects of this harsh  motivation is... immense.

For example, If you constantly tell yourself you're not good enough in an attempt to become good enough, what happens when you don't achieve what you want and you end up believing what you told yourself in the first place?

And here's where I bring in the secret recipe - the mental equivalent of comfort food like fish porridge, french fries and crispy fried chicken (for me, heheh.)

Be gentle to yourself. 

Sounds like a tough feat, but really, once you incorporate it into your everyday life, it becomes a lot easier.

EXAMPLES :

Instead of saying...

'I didn't finish my work today. Fuck my life because of my laziness I'm going to lag behind the others.'

Try telling yourself...

'I didn't finish my work today, but that's okay because now that I've acknowledged my mistake/faults, I can work on it and there's always time to be better than I am now.'

For my Chinese friends out there, there's even a succinct, blanket phrase that you can tell yourself gently :

'不要说自己不好，告诉自己明天会更好。'

Translation : Don't say that you're no good, tell yourself that tomorrow will be better.

Sounds better before its literal translation but you get the gist.

For my Japanese friends out there, it may even be much much simpler! Telling yourself the simple 'しょうがない' (shouganai ; it can't be helped) will help to cushion your existing anxieties even just a little and make your life simpler.

You see, instead of eating away at your self-esteem and amplifying your mistakes, being gentle to yourself can help you to -

(a) Acknowledge your mistakes

(b) Redirect yourself to seeking a solution

(c) Preserve your self-esteem, because god damn it we're all humans and sometimes we don't work the way we want ourselves to.

And why am I writing all these? Because ever since I realised this secret recipe of being gentle to yourself, my life became so much easier and more productive.

I'm able to get more work done, all the while feeling significantly less stressed, less boggled down by anxieties, and generally more calm and clear about what I'm doing with my life. 

The feelings of being unloved, inadequate, worthless... They can, and will be washed away by gentle words. Words you don't have to rely on others to hear - Say them for yourself to hear. 

Source : moregeously.tumblr.com

Negativity is like a sea of murky water. If you're in a ship, the only way you can drown is when the sea water gets to you - i.e. when you use harsh words and erode away parts of your ship. But when you're gentle to yourself, you're patching up the broken pieces of yourself. The negativity and darkness will not get to you so easily. 

So I'll leave you with this quote, and hopefully from now on you'll be more gentle to yourself.

'Be careful what you say to yourself, because you are listening.'

That's all from me today, I hope this helps, even just a little ^_^