I was scrolling through instagram and was shocked. I could not believe what I was reading. My eyes swelled, my throat choked up, and my nose started sniffling. I couldn’t believe it.
There was another person on instagram who was struggling with the same things as me.
She had written about feeling attacked after posting a video on her story. How the lies of not being “enough” were attacking her heart. The pressure to be a certain size was attacking her mind. And how she didn’t look a certain way was attacking her soul. She wrote how she felt discouraged and beaten down, not knowing if there would be an end to never feeling better about herself.
As I continued reading her post, I kept thinking in my head, “She is thinking the same things that I think about myself. I’m not alone. What I’m feeling isn’t crazy - I’m not crazy!”
I was definitely not crazy. And so, typing out a comment that I hoped would encourage and uplift, I exited out of insta and continued on with my night.
Cut to a few days later and I was in the exact same position again. I had just spent the past four hours writing content for our Wedding Planning Book and wanted to celebrate by posting an encouraging insta story to all my other entrepreneurs who might need a little motivation that afternoon. After playing the story back over and over I kept thinking of how horrible I sounded, how my skin looked gross and how my cheeks kept bulging out.
“No one cares about what I have to say. No one even likes listening to me.” I kept thinking to myself. But for whatever mysterious reason I ended up hitting post and stared at my phone, waiting for it to blow up, catch on fire or self destruct at any moment.
It’s probably not a surprise to any of you that nothing happened to my phone. In fact, I received so many positive and encouraging comments and messages from people who I hadn’t talked to in ages. The fact that people were taking time out of their day to message me was the most humbling thing in the world.
There’s the age old saying of “treat others the way you want to be treated” but if I’m honest, I don’t treat myself kindly. And as I sat that night reflecting on my day and how nice people were to me, I realized that I treat other people wayyyyyy better than I treat myself. Whether that means resting, taking time to go to the doctors, or even just saying positive things about myself, I tend to beat myself up more than I lift myself up.
If I treated myself the way that I treat other people, I’d probably like - and even love - myself more. We should be kind to our bodies and kind in our thoughts and practice self love and self compassion, especially when we are having a hard day. We are more motivated by positive reinforcement than negative consequences.
So the next time you’re feeling like beating yourself up, try and practice some self compassion and reward yourself for what you’re doing well. I promise to try it myself and let you know how it works out as long as you do the same. :)
Xoxo
Kara