When times are as tough as they have been lately, I recommend coming back to the very simple lessons we probably learned in kindergarten. BE KIND. A variation of this message might include TREAT OTHERS the way YOU'D LIKE TO BE TREATED.
Being kind to yourself, first and foremost is enormously important. You live in your own head all of the time. This is especially problematic nowadays. When you are stressed--or in the waiting stages of something to happen (When will Covid be over? When will the election be decided?) you are less likely to practice the virtues of kindness and patience that you need the most. It's ironic and unhelpful.
All is not lost. By being aware of the fact that you are NOT being kind to yourself through negative self talk, criticism, etc., you have the power to shift. You have the control to move away from those thoughts by dismissing them. You have the awareness that negativity will not help you, and so you turn that negativity inside out and talk to yourself the way a favorite person from your life would talk to you.
My French teacher, Madame Jeannine Holman, from Paris, was this person for me. She always managed to make the world ok when I was being too hard on myself. She died ten years ago, but I have saved years of her letters. In her French handwriting, even at the end of her life--in her shaky handwriting, she managed to make the world a better place for me. So, it is she I often think of when I need that boost. When I want to be reminded that I am ok--and I will be ok. Her decency and kindness are an example to me. Somehow, the world seems more manageable just thinking of her.
It is the simplest of things that cannot be bought that we hang onto right now. We need the virtue of kindness, turned inward first, and then displayed outward to the world to make it through decently.
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