Self-Compassion

As human beings, we all have a desire to love and be loved. This is basic to being human and is our deepest emotional need. In order to love others, and to fully accept the love of others, we must first love ourselves. This isn’t the same as being arrogant or self-righteous, which is our ego talking, but instead is about understanding who we really are beneath all the labels and beliefs, feeling our connection to everything around us, and experiencing ourselves as Love itself.

Diet culture has many definitions and nuances. In sum, it’s a set of beliefs that glorifies a so-called “perfect” body size and vilifies people who don’t reflect it.

Incorporating a new routine into our days can feel daunting at first. We may be struck with inspiration to build a healthier life and set unrealistic goals to try to get there overnight. Building routines and rituals that nourish us, our goals, and our desires does take time and consistency, but it doesn’t need to feel difficult. If you’ve been trying to stick to new habits and enhance your daily routine, here are some ways to make it an easier and more enjoyable process.

While self-compassion seems like a basic human right, many people find it challenging to bring compassion to themselves when things get tough.

Let’s face it, although many of us strive to be the healthiest, best version of ourselves, sometimes our hectic lives can make us feel like this is not within our reach. Many of us succumb to the demands that our everyday lives bring and leave our health and well-being to the last second. However, our health should be molded into a part of our lifestyle.

A great professional goal is to love what you do and feel invigorated by doing it. I, personally, am constantly evolving my career so it meets (or comes close to) these objectives daily. There were times in my life, however, when this goal was definitely out of reach. During my medical training I experienced several episodes of burnout, with fatigue, disenchantment, and an intermittently despairing mood. This caused me to embark upon a multi-year mission to heal myself and transform my career into something I could genuinely love and successfully manage without losing my balance.

You possess innate resilience.

For many of us, our 20s can be an era of utter confusion. Pressure from all angles of life including uncertainty towards our career path, unbalanced relationships, and financial struggles appear to be thrown at us faster than a 90-mph baseball pitch. It’s as though the world is grabbing us by the shoulders and shaking us to say, “wake up, your life is about to begin.”

The world we live in requires, almost demands, a lot of us. Our time and energy, our hearts, minds, and bodies, are all given certain expectations, limitations, and confines to operate within. The demands of the external world can leave us distant and disconnected from the parts of ourselves that are able to choose; to choose how we spend our time, where our energy goes, and choose all the ways we serve our hearts, minds, and bodies in the best ways possible. When we’re being pulled in so many directions all at once focusing on the cultivation of resilience can be challenging; ironically, this exact challenge is what helps to strengthen our resilience.