Be Gentle With Yourself

Desiderata blog 10

“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.”

Oh boy! This one touches my heart. How lovely, equalizing, inclusive, and universal is this message?

Being gentle with yourself is a simple concept, l know, but how often do we forget to live it. How often do you or I extend kindness to others but remain harsh with ourselves? Self forgiveness is a practice more rare than I imagine would be best for this universe. 

What's your self-talk? What do you say to and about yourself day in and day out? Are you reminding yourself that you're a good person who occasionally does bad stuff? Or, when you fail to live up to ridiculous standards, do you berate yourself as a "bad person?" Consider the difference between those two very different ways of talking about yourself.

Change is possible, in fact I'm going to change something right now. I'm going to shift my self-talk from "Wow, I screwed that up!" to "I did the best I could with the information I had at the time." 

You have a right to be on this planet, so while you're here, have some more self compassion and make changes happen. 

If you make ONE CHANGE TODAY to your self-talk, what will it be?