This was overlooked for many years as being important to mental health. It’s the most important aspect of kindness. Many have heard recommendation to secure the plane’s emergency oxygen mask to yourself first, BEFORE putting it on your children or someone else. Why? How can we be of help to our loved ones when we are passed out? We must care for ourselves to be the best version of ourselves for those that depend on us. Being kind to ourselves is so important, but also the trickiest. Being kind to ourselves is all–encompassing…
Be well rested – go to bed early, get quality sleep and you will be healthy, happy and more kind the next day. How grumpy are when you’ve had a terrible sleep, or stayed up way too late watching TV or playing video games, or worse yet trolling social media?
Eat well – we always feel our best when we eat healthy foods. How do you feel after fast food, pop and junk food? Not good. We are being unkind to ourselves by feeding it junk food, but it then effects how we continue to act – towards others and ourselves.
Get outside – we spoke of this in a previous ReWired topic. Connecting with nature is great for our brain and body. We will always feel better after a brisk walk in the sun, or casual stroll along the ocean.
Positive Self-Talk – most of the self–talk that goes through our head is self–critical – I am so stupid, so slow, so weak, so big, so small, so tired, so lazy, so unmotivated, so ugly, so confused, so lonely. If we can somehow change the narrative in our head, it can dramatically change how we look, feel and perform in everyday life. The most useful thing you will ever learn about your mood is that we have 99% control over it. How we react to situations is up to us. We can wallow in misery, or quickly move past it and see the positive whenever possible. Never let others determine our mood! We have control over this, and when we allow others to determine how we feel, we lose control of our life – we are at the mercy of other people, the news, the radio, current events etc. We can listen to the news, hear about terrible things, but we have the control to determine how we react and how it affects us
– Written by Kumar Bandyo