How to be gentle to yourself

I thought my coming out post marked the end of my blogging affairs, and I thought wrong. Throughout the process, I discovered endings are beginnings in disguise. After all, life is infinite. In other words, reality symbolizes the endless loop of consciousness, expansion, and the unfathomable galaxies light years ahead. I digress, but Homo Sapiens aren’t the only intelligent species in the multiverse. How can we stop monkeying around on ourselves, especially when we need love the most? So, yeah, how to be gentle to yourself?

Well, that is a long story short. I am still scripting that personal narrative myself. One of the best lessons I’ve learned on my journey is the power of openness. I’d argue that openness is the powerhouse fueling all transformation and growth. Without this virtue, we’d find ourselves stuck in a cycle of a fixed mindset, impoverished beliefs, and blockages on the soul. We must be open to all the ways we can elevate and improve. To clarify, I am aware I must talk the walk and walk the talk — there is no substantive value in preaching and not practicing in the meanwhile. Because of this, I am more than happy to admit I don’t know all the answers. I am an eternal student who started from square one concerning self-care.

First and foremost, I love you. I love all of you. I might not know you guys, but I know you all deserve to feel and be loved. Also, who is a worse inner critic than ourselves? Don’t we all deserve some slack and sympathy?

Thus, this article delineates how to be gentle to yourself in seven ways:

• Accept How You Feel
• Put Yourself First
• Nurture Your Health
• Understand Your Worth
• Allow Yourself to Rest
• Embrace Your Humanity
• Release Your Inhibitions

Accept How You Feel

Essentially, it doesn’t matter whether your account of a story is accurate or not — if it feels true to you, that’s all that matters. If you ever felt invalidated by family, peers, or society, know you are self-validated. If you ever needed an ally to support your cause for inalienable human rights, understand the value of self-alliance. In other words, neither hide nor run away from how you feel. Embrace the feeling and allow it to drive you to a journey of greatness.

Believe it or not, your emotions attribute to your Chi, or life force energy. Your emotions manifest your reality. Your feelings make or break the quality of your circumstances. That said, this doesn’t mean squandering in the corner and succumbing to nihilistic pastures. Quite the contrary, accepting how you feel is all about self-ownership. Own your feelings!!!

One of the first steps to being gentle with ourselves is to stop lying to ourselves. Now is the time to break free from all paradigms that no longer serve our utmost alignment. Sure, you might feel like air when going with the flow of your emotions. Perhaps you might lose yourself in the process. How grounded are you going to feel when you allow yourself to go with the flow? How well will you know and find yourself when you let your emotions flow through every crevice of your being?

When you release all the baggage on your shoulders, you will recognize the importance of soothing the tension. Indeed, why keep waiting to exhale when you can exhale and be gentle?

How to be gentle to yourself: Put Yourself First!

Of course, you cannot help anyone when you haven’t helped yourself. I hope this is an incentive to anyone with the desire to make the world a better, more open, and equitable place. People will trample over and abuse you as much as you allow them to – we both know that you can do bad all by yourself. So, why not do good? Why not capitalize on the healthy variant of narcissism? Why not value your health and wellbeing and practice this lifestyle for all eyes to witness and hold in high esteem? Do you have anything to lose by making yourself the MVP, the number one priority over your life?

After all, no one deserves the goods of your karma more than you. Don’t forget to treat yourself in your victories. Don’t forget to trick your mind into thinking positively about your tragedies. Love on yourself as though you have nobody else to fill the void.

In my experience, this allows you to not only love yourself more but everyone else you encounter. If it makes you feel any better, nice guys don’t finish last. Essentially, everybody’s a nice guy. No one could be nice for the sake of being nice. The foundation of niceness is rooted in self-interest. Whenever you sow any seed of compassion, expect the returns to compound.

You deserve it!!

Nurture Your Health

Nurturing your health is one of the most vital steps concerning how to be gentle to yourself. Neglecting your wellbeing results in diminished health returns and decreased life satisfaction. Also, health exists on more wavelengths than physicality. All health attributes — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, social, etc. — need a Gardner to provide an adequate amount of sunshine and rain. Of course, you are that Gardner with all the seeds necessary to grow a garden of wealth.

Yes, if you are a Gardner, then the garden is a reflection of your health. Again, it is okay to make mistakes. You are human and learn from experience. So, the skill of learning from mistakes will take you far in life. Treat this as trial and error.

If you see some attribute of your life does not help you, try to transmute or eradicate it. Don’t keep weeds in your garden. Eliminate the source of your garden’s malaise and obliterate it from the face of your vegetation.

Purify your temple of all toxins and flush them down the drain. Capitalize and exponentialize on what makes you feel best.

How to be gentle to yourself: Understand Your Worth

If you suspect that any beliefs concerning your worth limit you, believe the hype — they are not just subconscious rumors. Nonetheless, these are limiting beliefs or success blockers that convince you to think less of yourself. This mindset zaps the energy from your health and squishes you into a series of unfavorable situations. Then, you begin to believe you somehow deserve this maltreatment, or karma is too queen bee for your tastes.

For example, it can feel like people are attacking me for coming out. This experience made me question whether I should have come out in the first place. To some extent, I believed my religious upbringing justified my persecution. I know there is nothing wrong with loving who you are, but the lackluster support caused me to second guess my worth and value to society.

Then again, coming out represents one of the most liberating things I can do for myself. Protecting myself doesn’t concern being in the closet — this concerns setting myself free and flying like an eagle in the wide-open. That was hell; this is heaven. Sure, coming out is neither a bed of roses nor peaches and cream, but it represents an integral cause to my humanity.

That said, knowing your worth is different from understanding your worth. Matter of factly, unlearning all your toxic ideologies is necessary to understand your worth and treat yourself accordingly. Is there anyone who can treat us better than ourselves?

Allow Yourself to Rest

Don’t work yourself into a coma. I understand capitalism ingrains deep into this philosophy, but the value of human life supersedes monetary benefit. After all, what is wealth if one is not content with their health on the same note? Health is wealth. Again, this is why knowing how you feel is a powerhouse to manifest a life beyond your wildest dreams.

My philosophy is to speed up is to slow down. In other words, if you want to be more productive, you must take a breather. This process increases meditating and sleeping. Also, you retain information better if you allow yourself to rest and catch up.

Pay attention to how you feel during the day and act accordingly. When you push yourself one thousand miles per hour, you will burn out — this happened to me around midterms. Then again, resting does not equate to quitting. You are human, and humans need sustenance to recharge their batteries. Why lessen your performance when you can give your all?

You could be the equivalent of Gatorade or Powerade, only bigger and better than you can imagine. So, remember that even the most successful, overachieving, and workaholic people on the planet need rest. You are not an exception to this rule.

You rule the world as an exceptional contributor to the human race.

How to be gentle to yourself: Embrace Your Humanity

You are not perfect. You are bound to make mistakes — that’s awesome! I am not going to say your imperfections are okay. Your flaws make you the incredible, talented, and nuanced person you are today. Without the sins of the past woven into your DNA, you couldn’t be the spectrum of humanity. I guarantee you what makes you different makes you more valid.

If only the world didn’t treat people differently for being different — everyone? If only the world treated people differently for not being different — no one? Still, your differences are needed for the world to keep evolving, progressing, and levitating to higher ground. We all need unique, novel, and different perspectives to inspire us to access all levels of our humanity.

Allow your setbacks, tragedies, and misfortunes as a reason to strike gold. Let your pain and suffering motivate you to tap into your passions and convictions. Feel your way through your labyrinth of emotions and accept the process — it is not good, bad, nor ugly. Indeed, you must love yourself by embracing the context of where you are and who you are. Depending on your mindset, the only direction is up.

Your destiny is not to be perfect, unscathed, and without bumps in the road — this is your essence! Your journey is akin to a spiritual entity having a human experience. In human form, one must experience and master the freeing art of being human.

Release Your Inhibitions

You didn’t make it this far into the light only to run back to the cave. Yes, the light is blinding. Yes, it is easier to see objects in the dark when that’s all you’ve known your entire life (Allegory of the Cave). When you step into the light, the blinding effect will recede and collapse into nonexistence. Then, you will see. You will see how the darkness blinded you into thinking the light was darkness and vice versa. Be grateful for how much progress you’ve made. Please know you deserve freedom.

Everything you’ve experienced was not in vain. All your experiences shaped you into the courageous, robust, emotionally intelligent soldier you are now. Isn’t there a time and place for everything in the 3rd dimension — what about the 4th and 5th?

Why hold on to something that no longer serves you? Why be a hoarder for clothes that could be sold on eBay or donated to your local charity? Is it ever a crime to release your inhibitions?

Could you imagine a life in which you don’t have to try to manifest what you deserve? You are the conduit for all you need. You are free to be whoever you want and do whatever you please. Why not throw the anchor off the boat and steer the wheel?

How to be gentle to yourself? Aren’t you the captain?

Don’t you deserve a break and the opportunity to feast off the legacy of your hard work and efforts? Why not express gratitude for all you have, understanding this will bring more of the same frequency of laurels, wealth, and prosperity?

At last, why not share your talents with the world and stop punishing yourself by playing small — Go Big, Not Home?!!

How to be gentle to yourself: why am I worthy of treating myself the VERY best?