“You wouldn’t be friends with someone who didn’t believe in you, so why should you treat yourself badly?”
I’m at a point in my life where my perspective on the world is shifting. I understand that I can either look at the world negatively, victimizing myself when something goes wrong, or I can look at the world positively, understanding that things may go wrong, but knowing that I can deal with it. It’s not easy; most days I wake up with so much love for the world and for those around me, but there are times when I feel really low or feel as if I don’t have “the right attitude.” My first thought is, “No Maria, don’t think this way, you shouldn’t be feeling this way,” but honestly, all that does is make me feel worse. It makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong when I’m not.
Let’s say your friend is going through a tough time, their outlook on life may be really bad, and while you may not understand exactly what they’re going through, you know that they’re fixating on the bad things rather than focusing on the good. If you told them, “Stop thinking like that! You need to do better! You can’t think this,” you would be completely denying their emotions rather than trying to help them realize why they feel the way they do. Yet in my experience, we sometimes treat ourselves the way we would never want to be treated; we deny our emotions and feel shame in difficult situations.
You know yourself best. Whenever I start falling into old habits of overthinking, fear, sadness, etc., I try to talk myself out of that hole of despair I tend to dig. I remind myself that it’s safe to feel whatever it is that I’m feeling. I feel so much compassion and love for myself because the difficult times I have gone through have shaped the way I react to situations. I believe that having a strong relationship with yourself is one of the most important things you can get out of life. You have to live with yourself from the moment you’re born to the moment you die, so why not have compassion? You wouldn’t spend time with someone who made you feel bad, so why do that to yourself? Showing yourself compassion can be easier said than done, but it starts with wanting to change and being aware of the moments when you feel like your whole world is ending and there’s no hope. There is!