100 Days of Kindness (to yourself!)

What would it mean to be really kind to yourself? As kind as you would be to the most precious person in your life?

Everyday I talk to people and they are trying SO VERY HARD to do something right. I can relate because that's my life too. I'm trying to do the right thing, be a good person, be creative, achieve, show people I care. Despite all this trying, at times I feel disconnected and as if I have forgotten all the reasons why I do things. It's exhausting and makes me just want to stop.

After years of striving and trying I realized that all the self improvement paths I took were leading  nowhere. There is no improved, better version of me to get to. I could just stop all of it and I would be perfectly fine as is. But that surfaces a different question--if I'm not "improving"was there any point to the things I was so hell bent on achieving. Why do any of it?

This thought came up recently when I released a long held goal in favor of pursuing activities that treat my body with greater respect and (yes) kindness. But what about other goals? How do I know when to keep going forward and when to let go?

So dear reader I thought I would take 100 days to explore what kindness to myself means and share the results with you. I will journal on this and share my learnings along the way. Additionally I will be having conversations with other coaches and experts on human development (still searching for a better word for this--one that doesn't imply we are canisters of film) for their take on self kindness--I expect we will be challenging each other on what that means and what it looks like in practice. Should be exciting!

All I know is that in our hard driving culture, self kindness many times comes in a distant 7th place as it is overshadowed by our need to show up for others, to drive towards our goals or attain any of the internal/external achievements that we often use to define who we are.

It seems we look at ourselves as unruly creatures to be subdued and broken when I suspect our best selves can be coaxed out--whispered to and sweetly met. As I learn to better live these things myself I want to share it all WITH YOU!!

Also dear reader, as I work these questions over I invite you to run your own kindness experiment and share your findings here or on FaceBook. I think there is a great deal we can all learn from this experiment and I'm looking forward to the adventure and playing with you all.

love,
sasha