Episode 180: 6 Ways to Be Kinder to Yourself (How to Actually Practice Self-Compassion)

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In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how to be kinder to yourself, and I’m going to share with you 6 bulletproof ways to practice self-compassion, starting today.

💖 LOVE YOURSELF, UNCONDITIONALLY - https://coachsimona.com/toolkit

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to The Simplify Your Life Podcast,where we talk about how to create a life you
won’t need an escape from!
I’m Coach Simona, author of the book “111Ways to Simplify Your Life”, and I’m glad
you decided to tune in!
In today’s episode, we’re going to talkabout how to be kinder to yourself, and I’m

(00:20):
going to share with you 6 bulletproof waysto practice self-compassion, starting today.
Now, before we get into my actual tips onhow to be kinder to yourself, let’s spend
a few seconds talking about why we strugglewith self-kindness in the first place.
One of the possible reasons is having a harshinner critical voice, which means we have
intrusive negative thoughts and unhelpfulbeliefs about ourselves.

(00:43):
Our inner critic is the internalized voiceof our parents, primary caretakers, or teachers.
It’s not us.
The problem is the negative narrative we’vecreated about ourselves: the most repetitive
negative thoughts we hear on a daily basisare the ones that form our beliefs.
Which brings me to the second possible reasonfor struggling to be kind to yourself:

(01:04):
Not having a healthy example of self-kindnessgrowing up
If your parents or primary caretakers prided themselves on being “strong”,
notshowing any emotions, keeping their struggles and worries, or being too hard on themselves,
you might have picked up on these behaviors in your developmental years.
If you’ve perceived showing emotions asbeing weak, it might take you some time to

(01:25):
reframe this belief, and learn how to practiceself-compassion, but will talk more about
that later on in this episode.
And the third most common reason for not beingkind to yourself is thinking that being critical
of yourself is helping you grow - This isan interesting one.

There are two ways to incentivize human behavior: you reward the behavior you want to repeat, (01:38):
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and punish the behavior that you’d liketo stop.
Some of us grow up thinking that being hardon yourself pushes you to be excellent, and
achieve more.
The problem is that when you’re punishingyourself every single time you try to be kind
and compassionate to yourself, at some point,self-compassion becomes a completely foreign

(01:59):
behavior to you, and you have no idea howto do it anymore.
Okay, now that we’ve explored the threemain reasons for not being kind to yourself,
let’s get into the 6 ways you can learnto actually practice self-compassion:
Keep the commitments you make to yourself
If you’re not used to being kind to yourself,that’s a clear sign that you’re not prioritizing
your own well-being, so the first step tochanging that is starting small by keeping

(02:24):
the commitments you make to yourself.
For example, instead of committing to writingthe best novel in the world in the next 30
days, commit to writing 100 words per day.
Another example of keeping the commitmentsyou make to yourself is to not be neglectful
when it comes to your basic needs and self-care.
We often focus on pleasing everyone aroundus and spend so much time and energy trying

(02:45):
to figure out their needs, instead of askingourselves one simple question: What do I need?
So, I want you to think of all the times you’veneglected yourself in the past week.
You can even pause this episode and writedown what comes to mind.
Did you promise to spend extra 10 minuteson your skincare routine, but work got in
the way?
Or wanted to cook yourself a delicious mealbut decided to cancel because you thought

(03:07):
you weren’t worth the extra time and effort?
Think about all the times you’ve neglectedyourself and start small.
Commit to 10 minutes for yourself today, whereyou’re going to take care of whatever needs
to be taken care of when it comes to you.
No-guilt tripping, just being kind and respectfultowards your needs and wishes.
Once you start keeping these small, dailycommitments, you’ll begin to trust yourself

(03:31):
more, and that, in turn, will help you bekinder to yourself.
Now, let’s get into my next tip on how tobe kinder to yourself:
Accept your imperfections
We all have flaws and weaknesses.
That’s what makes us human.
As a recovering perfectionist, I know howeasy it can be to start beating yourself up
over every mistake and think that no matterhow much you work on something, it’s never

(03:53):
quite ready to be released.
But the problem with perfectionism is thatit’s robbing you of your individuality.
It’s turning you into this vanilla, cookie-cutter,perfect image of someone that doesn’t really
exist.
This doesn’t mean you can’t work on improvingyourself, becoming more self-aware, and generally
being a better version of yourself.
The important thing is to know that we’realways going to be a “work in progress,”

(04:16):
and your desire for growth shouldn’t stemfrom the fear of not being perfect or good
enough, but your willingness to become a betterhuman being every single day by working on
yourself.
Now let’s get into my third tip on how tobe kinder to yourself, which is to Journal
If you’re new to journaling, let me putyour mind at ease: you don’t need anything
special to get started.
All you need is 10 minutes of uninterruptedtime, a pen, and a piece of paper.

(04:40):
There are many journaling exercises that youcan try, but I’m going to recommend to start

with three simple questions: Question #1 (04:44):
What do I want my relationship
with myself to look like?
Describe the relationship you want to havewith yourself: How would you show up for yourself
differently?
How would you soothe yourself when life getstough?
What will your life look like once you putyourself first and prioritize meeting your
emotional needs?

(05:04):
2. What small step can I take to be kinder tomyself today?
If you had to do just one small thing todayto give yourself some love, what would you
do?

Here are some suggestions to get you inspired: spend 30 minutes doing something just for (05:15):
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yourself; next time you feel like judgingyourself, pause, reflect, and choose a more
loving thought instead; take that long relaxingbath that you've been postponing because you
needed to take care of everyone else first.
3. What do I need to work on when it comes tomy relationship with myself?

(05:35):
Are you being too critical of yourself?
Afraid of making mistakes?
Are you neglecting your needs?
These three journaling questions were directly takenfrom The Self-Love Toolkit, which is my proven step-by-step
framework that will help you learn to love yourself unconditionally.
If you want to get instant access and getyour hands on some exclusive bonuses,
head over to:
www.theselflovetoolkit.com

(05:59):
The fourth way you can practice self-compassion
is to forgive yourself
When you find it hard to be kind to yourself, you often carry a lot of shame, guilt,
andother difficult emotions that you need to let go of first.
So I want you to be honest with yourself andthink about all the negative stories you’ve
been playing in your mind on repeat daily.
Do you feel guilty for being a bad daughter,partner, or mother?

(06:22):
In what ways are you shaming yourself andnot letting yourself succeed?
How can you forgive yourself for past mistakesand realize that we’re all flawed, and that’s
just part of being human?
When you forgive yourself, you’re goingto open up to all the healing that needs to
happen for you to embrace yourselfas you are and love yourself unconditionally.
If you have a lot of resistance when it comesto forgiving yourself,

(06:44):
listen to episode 125 next.
I will leave a link below.
Tip number 5 is to Be patient with yourself
For me, personally, this was the hardest oneto work on.
I was SO impatient with myself and others,to the point of constantly feeling like I
was behind on time, energy, or effort.
I was in this never-ending cycle of running,even though I had no idea why I always felt

(07:07):
so rushed and overwhelmed.
Now I know that it was my belief I neededto be the best at something to be worth anything.
It took me many years to realize that I wasworthy just because I was born.
Your worth is inherent.
You don’t have to rush all the time to proveyourself.
You don’t need to surround yourself withticking clocks just because you feel like

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life is slipping by.
All you need to do is be patient with yourself.
Give yourself that extra 5 minutes to finishyour lunch before running off to the next
task.
Or perhaps spend 1 hour in bed on a lazy Sundaymorning.
By being patient with yourself, you’ll startappreciating life more, and you’ll definitely
improve the relationship you have with yourself.
So, what’s the first step you can take tobe patient with yourself: give yourself more

(07:51):
time than you think you’re going to need.
For example, next time you’re getting readyto go out, start a bit earlier.
Or give yourself a couple of hours more tofinish that project.
That will help you not rush yourself as muchand build a healthier relationship with yourself
that is based on self-respect and trust.
The sixth way you can practice self-compassionis to Accept that all of your emotions are

(08:13):
valid
What do I mean by this?
When you feel sad or angry, you may feel uncomfortableexpressing these emotions or even admitting
that you have them.
So what you can do to start accepting youremotions as valid is sit with them and let
them pass through you.
Instead of trying to run away from them, justsit in a quiet place where you know you won’t
be disturbed for a few minutes and observethem.

See them for what they truly are (08:34):
just sensations pacing through your body.
You don’t need to attach a story to them,you don’t even need to repeat the narrative
over and over again.
That’s just your mind talking to itself.
What you can do instead is breathe throughthem.
Let them come to the surface.
And simply observe what happens.
The key to practicing self-compassion is tolearn to be soft, gentle, and kind towards

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yourself throughout this journey.
And here comes my bonus tip, which is to Haverealistic expectations
If you expect to become kinder to yourselfovernight after years of being mean to yourself,
that is simply not going to happen.
But, if you take 15 minutes every day to workon reframing your negative thoughts, and learning
how to be gentle and kind to yourself, youwill start seeing results very soon.

(09:20):
When you’re struggling with self-kindness,that often means that you’re putting too
much pressure on yourself.
You’re forcing it.
And as a defense mechanism, a big part ofyou is resisting it.
I get it.
It’s hard.
But it doesn’t have to be.
All you need to do is take a few steps inthe right direction every single day.
Thanks so much for tuning in!

(09:41):
If you enjoyed this podcast episode, pleaselike it, subscribe, and I will see you in
the next one.