We're making some improvements behind the scenes. Thank you for your patience while we complete these updates.

Services About Resources Podcast Contact

Episode 19: Why You Are Kinder to Everyone Else Than You Are to Yourself

Season #1

Why You Are Kinder to Everyone Else Than You Are to Yourself 

Have you ever noticed how easily you offer compassion, patience, and encouragement to the people you love, yet when it comes to yourself, your inner voice becomes demanding, critical, and unforgiving?

Maybe you push through exhaustion, minimize your needs, say yes before checking in with yourself, or tell yourself you'll rest later. You give everyone else grace while quietly withholding that same grace from yourself.

If you've ever wondered why it's so much easier to be gentle with everyone else than it is to be gentle with yourself, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I explore what it means to become a safe place for myself. I look at how people-pleasing, overfunctioning, and self-abandonment can disconnect me from my own needs, emotions, boundaries, and inner wisdom. I also explore why self-softness isn't about lowering my standards or avoiding growth, it's about learning to listen to myself with the same compassion I would offer someone I deeply love.

My nervous system is always listening. The way I speak to myself, the way I respond to my needs, and the way I honor my limits all send messages about whether I am safe with myself. And when I begin practicing gentleness, curiosity, and self-compassion, I can slowly create a relationship with myself where softness becomes something I can trust.  

 

Key Takeaways & Highlights

The First Place Softness Begins: I don't have to wait for my circumstances, relationships, work, or responsibilities to change before I allow myself to soften. Softness can begin within my relationship with myself.

Becoming a Safe Place for Myself: I am the person I spend every moment with. Learning to become a safe place for myself means noticing how I speak to myself and whether I am creating safety or adding more pressure.

Self-Softness Isn't Self-Indulgence: Being gentle with myself doesn't mean avoiding growth, lowering my standards, or pretending difficult things don't exist. It means allowing myself to move through those things with compassion.

Recognizing Self-Abandonment: I may be so accustomed to checking in with everyone else that I forget to check in with myself. Saying yes automatically, ignoring exhaustion, or explaining away my feelings can slowly disconnect me from what I actually need.

Listening to My Inner Wisdom: When I become curious about my emotions, needs, limits, and desires, I create enough safety to hear the wisdom already within me.

My Nervous System Is Listening: Every time I criticize myself, rush myself, ignore my needs, or tell myself I should be able to handle more, my body receives a message. Every time I pause, breathe, honor my limits, or offer compassion, I communicate something different: I am here with you.

Softness Is a Practice: I don't have to transform overnight. A deeper breath, a pause, a moment of rest, or replacing criticism with curiosity can become a small act of self-softness.

From Safety, I Can Give From Overflow: When I learn to care for myself with greater gentleness, I don't have to stop caring for others. Instead, I can begin giving from a place of greater fullness rather than depletion.  

 

Guided Practice

Speaking to Myself With Compassion

I’m invited into a brief reflection to notice how I've been relating to myself lately.

I take a slow breath and gently ask:

How have I been speaking to myself lately?

Then I imagine someone I deeply love carrying everything I'm currently carrying and ask:

If someone I deeply love were carrying what I'm carrying, how would I speak to her?

I then offer at least one of those same compassionate words to myself.

I don't have to fix anything in this moment. I can simply notice what my body notices and practice being present with myself.

 

Featured Offerings & Resources:

  • Softness Is Safe: If you are ready to move out of survival mode and cultivate a deep, internal sense of ease and safety, I invite you to explore my program: Softness Is Safe
  • The Gentle Reconnection Pathway Guide:  Download your guide to begin your journey back to yourself and restore safety in your body: Download Now

 

Connect With Me:

 

Subscribe & Listen: