I had a really weird thought the other day. It was the culmination of a couple of ideas coming together.
I decided to try swimming again for exercise, and I’ve been twice now. I really love swimming. It’s a pain in the butt to change and shower and do all that stuff, but once I’m in the water, I really enjoy myself. So on Tuesday, as I was swimming, I was watching all the little kids having swimming lessons all around me, and I thought about the lengths parents go through to help their kids participate in things they enjoy, like swimming.
And then I asked myself if I would be willing to do that for my (hypothetical) kids, and the answer was yes.
And then I asked myself, “Then why do you resist doing those sorts of things for yourself?”
That got me thinking. A long time ago, a friend told me that her strategy for eliminating negative self talk was to think of her “inner” self as six years old. Would you tell a six year old that she was fat, or ugly, or bad for eating a piece of cake? No, you would not. So why do you say those things to yourself?
Well, what if we treated ourselves the way we would treat our (hypothetical) children all the time? I don’t have kids yet, so I can still be awfully idealistic about all of this (cue hysterical laughter from the moms in the audience), but ideally, I would feed my child healthy foods, I would encourage her to get exercise in fun ways, I would encourage her to follow her passions and do things that make her happy.
I got to thinking about what that could mean for myself. It might mean going to the pool more often because I like it. It might mean finding a choir to join because singing gives me joy. It might just mean taking lots of pleasure in the foods I cook and eat.
But it gave me a new perspective on how to think about what I do for myself.
What do you do to treat yourself kindly?
I work at bath and body works and I have bought a few things. I use them in shower on days that I am feeling down and they lift my spirits.