Healing: Be Gentle with Yourself
A couple weeks ago I went looking for the book that says, “Be gentle with yourself.” I scoured my bookshelves, but nothing stood out. I moved to my nightstand, which always holds a few books, but it wasn’t there, either. Instead, I found it on the shelf under my nightstand, which holds my most recently completed journals. That’s right. It was me. I wrote, “Be gentle with yourself.” (And if you’ve read it in a book that I need to give credit to, please let me know in the comments.) I wrote “Be gentle with yourself” last summer, on July 21, 2022, on the last page of the last entry in that particular journal. It was part of my response to a writing prompt to write a love letter to myself. I wrote “be gentle with yourself” six times in that love letter. What I share below is based on that journal entry.
As you sit here, or as you rise to meet the day, or as you pause during the day, be gentle with yourself. Be gentle. Why? Healing is hard. There may be things you’d rather not deal with. You may feel vulnerable. You may feel shame. Don’t shy away. Keep finding the courage to choose in to your own healing. Yes, it’s hard. That’s why so many of us choose to go around wounded and hurting all the time, which leads to more hurting, because hurt people hurt people. If it were easy, everyone would do it. Healing is hard work, and holy work. It’s being pieced back together like kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold that I wrote about here. So, be gentle with yourself. Bind yourself with care.
Healing costs time. It costs comfort and convenience. Keep going, anyway. Keep choosing in to the work. Finish the path. It’s worth it. You are worth it. Keep choosing in for your own healing and for the healing of the world. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t make it harder than it already is.
I wrote “be gentle with yourself” because healing is hard. It is not the easy path. There is no easy button. And when you’re going through something hard, you appreciate kindness. We receive that kindness from others; sometimes we have to learn how to receive it from ourselves, too. I, for one, have a history of being hard on myself. I’m working on changing that habit to one of being kind to myself instead. Be gentle with yourself, not because you’re an egg that might crack but because you are worthy of such care and gentleness. This is important work, and it benefits from time and care and attention.
What does it mean to be gentle with yourself? To forgive yourself. To allow yourself imperfections. To not push yourself. To allow yourself to take the time you need, to allow yourself to identify and meet your needs, whatever they are. To rest. To give yourself the space you need. To breathe.