Gentleness
Our relationship with ourselves is directly reflected onto every area in the rest of our lives. You may have heard the expression, “Treat others how you want to be treated.” The expression may be rewritten, “Treat yourself, how you would want another to treat you.”
A good relationship with the self all comes back to one word - gentleness. American society teaches us to go nonstop, meet expectations, workout 7 days a week and never take a break. We are taught to be robots functioning at optimal level.
My opinion is that the human experience is much more spiritual and profound than the life of a robot. We have feelings, deep experiences, individual purposes, and most importantly, we are all made of love.
It has been a long journey learning this. I am one who used to reject her feelings and listen to what society told me instead. So what if I was exhausted? I’d only been to the gym twice this week, I needed to get my ass there and into shape, i used to tell myself.
I now know that what I really needed was some rest, and a less busy schedule that allowed for that rest, as well as whatever exercise felt right to my body.
Gentleness comes in many forms. It is individualistic and very personal. Being gentle requires looking into ourselves, and being honest and completely nonjudgmental about what our bodies, minds, spirits, and souls want. Reject society. Reject judgment. Do NOT reject yourself.
If your soul calls out for a midnight hookup, feed your soul. If you are craving ice cream, feed your body. If your spirit needs kindness, to feel loved, write down a list of things that you love about yourself. The key is to LISTEN, and to not let the fear of following your heart keep you from finding the love you’ve been searching for.
To be gentle sounds like quite a simple lesson, but SO many struggle with this. SO many are hurting because they reject themselves and their feelings. Every ounce of healing begins with ourselves. Beauty shines from the inside out, and the most beautiful thing a person can be is gentle with themselves.
Embracing Right Now
Have you ever taken a deep breath and found that the week was over? If you’re like me (how I used to be), you probably never took time for that deep breath. Instead, someone interrupted your spinning thoughts, which were trying to plan out your entire month, and said, “Can you believe it’s already Friday?”
I’ll get to the point. We spend so much time rushing to finish a million different tasks, while simultaneously planning out when we’re going to complete the other million tasks that we have to do. We force ourselves to work really hard and fast so that we can accomplish all of the things that we supposedly ‘need’ to. Yet, this leaves little time, if any, for actually living and enjoying life.
I recently discovered that my life is not defined by how many million tasks that I can complete in the fastest amount of time. Unless these tasks involve doing something that I’m passionate about, I’m probably just mindlessly wasting away my time. I used to do this while cleaning, eating food and watching TV. I was either not mentally present while doing these things or they weren’t adding real value to my life. Yet, I continued to do them the same way, always rushing.
Whenever I would eat a meal, I would always be also trying to study for a test or to finish up some last minute homework. This usually resulted in some oatmeal missing my mouth and landing on some important paper to my added frustration. Anyways, even in class while the professor was teaching my mind would be planning out the rest of the day and how I was going to most efficiently finish all of my tasks. Then, when I had a second to unwind I would throw myself in front of the television and call that happiness. It was actually so I didn’t have to try and find something else to do because I had forgotten how to truly relax. I was like a robot, mindlessly completing my work and always striving to be the most effective. Sure, my checklist of things to do had a lot of checks on it, but I also wasn’t taking any time to live and enjoy my life.
My case may be a little on the extreme side, but I am not alone. We all want to be successful. So, we rush and rush and rush to complete all of our tasks most efficiently until we finally get a vacation. Then, we spend that vacation rushing to catch up on work, while trying to get a tan and before we know it, we’re back in the rush.
I am not criticizing anyone here. Trust me. For so many years, this has been my life. I am a planner. I literally used to have entire weeks planned out to the minute in advance. That’s not an exaggeration.
What I am trying to do is offer advice and expose this habit for the mindless time sucker that it is. When we rush through the day, we don’t really enjoy the gift that it is. It is so important to be mindful of everything that we do in a day, even something as simple as drinking a cup of tea. We should be aware of every sip, savoring the sweetness while appreciating the fact that we’re alive. Instead of doing this, we pour that tea into a to-go cup on our rush to work and sip it mindlessly until we bring our lips to the cover and no liquid comes out.
To sum up this entire post in one sentence: Stop thinking about the 24 million things that you have to do and focus on the one thing that you’re doing right now.
Acknowledge how you feel right now. Remember that you’re alive and living right now. Thinking about tomorrow just wastes away today. It’s a nasty process that steals our precious time until our lives are defined by the checklist of tasks that we’ve completed. So here’s a question: At the end of your life would you rather have accomplished a great amount of tasks, but not have been present enough for them to enjoy them or have accomplished less, but really enjoyed the moments of your life?
If you would rather have enjoyed the moment of your life, then you’re with me and you probably want to make some changes. I may have stopped planning out my day, but I am still a planner. I love STEPS, game plans, all of that. So here is a plan (or a few steps) that we can take to stop rushing, rushing, rushing and start enjoying.
1. Breathe (seriously)
I know this one is annoying and may seem unhelpful because we see it all the time in cheesy movies and our friends say it to us as a joke when they think we need to calm down, BUT it really works. Taking ten mindful breaths while actually counting to ten, even if it doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything, can really help to bring us back to the present moment.
2. Look around you
Become mindful of the task that you’re doing right now. Notice the world around you. Are you outside on a sunny beach? In line at the local coffee shop? What is happening right now in your life? What smells and sounds do you notice? Stop thinking about other things and just live in the present moment. Worrying or overthinking doesn’t help any situations. Give your complete focus to whatever it is that you’re doing right now and just enjoy this moment because you won’t ever get it back.
3. What’s important?
Ask yourself this question every day. What’s important to you? Do you really care if you don’t answer all of your emails today? Find out what matters to you and make that you’re priority every day. For me, writing is important. I need to find time to do it every day even if that means putting off other tasks. I want to enjoy my day, which means I am always going to make time for what makes me most happy.
4. Reflect
At the end of the day ask yourself, how was my day? Try to find at least one thing that made today meaningful. Did you help someone in some way? Did you have a lot of fun doing something? Did you make time to do something that brings you joy? Did you have a great conversation with someone? If you can’t find one thing that made your day meaningful, you probably need to go back to step number three and ask yourself what’s important to me? The more that you reflect and apply this knowledge, the more significance and meaning that you will bring into each and every one of your days.
“It is not the length of life, but the depth.”
Love Yourself Like you Love Your Significant Other
We tell our BF’s & GF’s that we love them all the time. We compliment their outfits, their bodies and their amazing personality traits on a daily basis. No wonder we feel so good about ourselves when we’re in a relationship! It’s easy when someone is constantly reminding us of our greatness. So why don’t we be that person who always tells us how fantastic that we are?
A lot of us may already love ourselves, but that is not enough. To really feel good about ourselves, we have to show that love and be good to ourselves. We should be our biggest supporters. When we give ourselves love and compliments all of the time, we don’t need to keep searching for it from other people. When we love ourselves, we don’t let how other people feel about us shape how we feel about ourselves.
I realized today through a conversation I was having with my mother while she was trying to leave, (thanks mom), that I am too hard on myself. Sadly, I am constantly pushing myself to do better and telling myself that what I have already done is not enough. No wonder I want a relationship! I want relief from myself. I don’t want to deal with the constant pressure that I put on myself. I just want to be free, happy and feel loved. I’m hoping other people are reading this and thinking that they do the same thing. Really, I think most of us can learn from this to treat ourselves a little better.
Would we tell our best friends that their 3.9 was ok and that they should do better? Would we tell our friends that running 3 miles was alright and that they should run 5 next time? Would we tell our acquaintances that they could stand to lose some weight? I don’t think so. I think often, we can be our worst enemies.
So here’s some great action steps that I will be taking in the following weeks and you should to, to show love to ourselves
- APPRECIATE:
The same way that a friend would tell you good job and give you a hug if you accomplished something, tell yourself that you did a great job. Reward yourself after a workout. Instead of thinking negatively that you should have worked out longer (which I sometimes am guilty of) applaud yourself for working out just like anyone else would. Acknowledge any of your accomplishments, no matter how small. If you make a good dinner, appreciate your great cooking skills. Watch how big of a difference this will make.
- BE AWARE:
I started to be more aware of my thoughts today and I realized just how negative I can be towards myself. Just being aware of my thoughts is helping me to control and change them to more kind ones.
3. COMPLIMENT JOURNAL:
This one my mom gets credit for (even though I have heard of it before) After our long conversation, she told me to write down things that I love about myself every day. To make it more specific, I am aiming to write down three compliments to myself every day. Even though it seems like such a simple thing, I really think that it’s going to make a big difference. My mother also said to elaborate on the compliments. Don’t just write ‘I’m smart’. Give detail. REALLY compliment yourself.
I can’t wait to see the amazing results. Post your comments letting me know if this post helped you at all and I will keep you posted on how it helps me. It is much easier to spread light and love to others when we feel love for ourselves*
“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
Say Hi
I went on a four-mile walk in Beverly, MA to the beach the other day to clear my mind. I wanted to have some good self-reflection and come back feeling more grounded and with renewed positive energy. Instead though, a pressing idea immerged on my walk that would not leave me alone.
It started with one woman who was pushing her little girl in a black modern stroller. I saw her approach about 30-seconds before we actually passed each other. She was looking down and appeared to not have noticed me yet, but she may have just been pretending not to.
With each step towards her I found myself growing this sense of nervousness. Would I say hi? Would she say hi? Should I look up? My stomach clenched at the stress and uneasiness and I noticed that I was literally holding my breath as she came closer. I was terrified of the social interaction with this clearly harmless stranger pushing a stroller with her daughter in it.
Suddenly realizing how ridiculous this whole thing was, I released my breath and let out a high pitched, “Hello!” when the woman was within hand shaking distance. Somewhat surprised, the woman gave me a smile and said, “Hi”. She then looked back down at the road and proceeded to pass me.
For the remainder of my walk, I could not go back to my self-reflection; I was too bothered by what had occurred. So instead, I experimented with this fear of mine, forcing myself to say hi to every person that passed. Each time I felt a little awkward and nervous, but I also felt this weight gradually lifting off of me. Through facing my fear, I was able to talk and even have short conversations with some interesting people. One of the most important things in my life is connecting with people and if I let this fear of talking to people control me, than my life would be virtually meaningless.
This whole blog post is not merely about my fear and me. I honestly believe that this is a fear that most people have. I was the first one to say hi to all of the people that I passed on my walk. If I hadn’t introduced a conversation, most of them, if not all of them wouldn’t have spoken to me. I really don’t think that this is because they’re antisocial or that they had no interest in talking to me, I believe it is because of this fear.
Acknowledging someone who we pass on the street on our morning walk, or in the hallway on our way to class has become a great source of anxiety for our culture. We hide our eyes by gluing them to our phones or act like our thoughts are immersed on some deep quest for self-discovery, just so we can avoid having a social interaction with the person walking towards us.
The crazy thing is though, we might actually like this person and want to talk to them, but the idea of starting a conversation with them is terrifying. We’re afraid that they might judge us, or not like us or reject us. Here’s a clue: the other person probably feels the same exact way.
Everyone likes a good conversation — introvert or extrovert. Social contact keeps us rooted in the moment and out of our spinning thoughts. We like to feel connected to each other, and cared about, and important. When people make an effort to talk to us, we feel all of these things. Yet, the time period that we’re living in of overindulgence in technology has driven us away from being personal and vulnerable.
We are much more comfortable with detached conversations through mediums such as Facebook, Twitter and texting because we don’t have to put all of ourselves into these connections. It’s a lot easier to be rejected through a computer screen than it is in person. We aren’t as connected with people who we talk to through technology, which is also the biggest problem with this form of communication. News flash: We have more friends than ever and a bigger ability to stay in contact with them, but many of us have never felt so lonely.
I have heard when talking to someone else about this (because I’m really bad at just letting things go) that in other countries, it is actually incredibly rude to walk passed someone without saying hi. Yet in my experience here in America, it is a very common occurrence. We are terrified of each other, unless we can hide behind the comfort of a computer screen.
I personally don’t want to be afraid of other people anymore. I want to communicate and get to know them. It’s time to take off the armor (technology). It’s weighing us down. Let’s be open, and vulnerable and content enough with who we are to start conversations with new people. Fear can be overcome. We just have to be brave enough to face it over and over again, until were not afraid anymore.
(if you don’t want to read the long above post, JUST READ THIS)
So here’s my challenge to you: Practice saying hi to strangers. Try to talk to one new person every day even if it terrifies you. If you do this, you will start to feel freer and you’ll stop being afraid of new people and start embracing them. People will appreciate it. You really never know when a hello will make someone’s day. Words sent in one click across a computer screen do not compare to words spoken from a mouth that has a distinct pitch tone, and volume.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone
—Neale Donald Walsch