I am participating in Niki’s, The Richness of a Simple Life, seven week Kindness Challenge.  What follow is Niki’s reflection to follow for week one:

Kindness Challenge: Week 1 Focus- Self kindness
MAY 9, 2016 ~ NIKI
Attention all 2016 Kindness Challenge Participants!

“Have you ever heard of the saying that “you have to love yourself before others can love you“? You have to love and accept yourself for who you are before you can expect for someone else to do so. Part of loving yourself is being kind to yourself.
Do you ever find yourself being nicer to others than you are to yourself? Do you think things that if said out loud would make you cringe? Are you too hard on yourself? Too critical? Are your expectations too high? This week the focus is on being kind and gentle with yourself so that you can extend that kindness towards others. How can you treat others the way you want to be treated if you don’t treat yourself that way?”

When I signed on for this challenge I didn’t expect it to start out this way.  I signed on because I had become so saddened by the meanness of the rhetoric I was hearing all around me from every forum imaginable.  But kindness to myself?  Surely I had reached an age of maturity when I didn’t beat myself up over shortcoming anymore?

Well, this week taught me I could throw that smug observation out the window.  I have had to face an uncomfortable fact about myself this week.  This fact totally shocked me.  It has rocked my whole idea of who I am and what I am capable of dealing with in my life.  My initial reaction to this news was denial.  But there didn’t seem to be any way to keep denying the situation so I moved on to a very, very reluctant acceptance.  My next instinct was to beat myself up.  I started down that road and then remembered the advise from this challenge.

If someone else told me this story, I would be kind to them.  I would support them.  I would tell them their expectations for taking care of everyone’s problems and not ending up with a problem of your own was unrealistic.

So, I decided to be a friend to myself.

So thank you NiKi for this challenge.  It is funny how the teacher comes when the student is ready.