How can you be kind to yourself today?

We all deserve gentleness and compassion

Twenty-one years after I began healing from an eating disorder and other self-harming, self-destructive and addictive behaviours, I am still learning to be kind to myself.

Pushing, striving and over-achieving have always been my default, ever since childhood. There were many reasons for this - to survive, to stay safe and to escape.

Perfectionism, hypervigilance and control became part of my armour.

Adrenaline became one of my favourite drugs. Along with excess food and copious amounts of alcohol, the adrenaline highs distracted me from my pain.

This way of being took me far, away from my home in Liverpool and all around the world, into the British parliament, to Downing Street and the White House, as a Reuters journalist.

But this self-punishing path ultimately led to burnout, breakdown and depression.

I could not outrun myself.

Over the past two decades, I have been learning to prioritise peace over pain, to be gentle with myself rather than harsh, to slow down rather than speed up and to trust rather than control.

It’s been a long and tortuous journey, a few steps forwards, a few back, a few sideways.

During this period of relentless personal development (yes, I’ve worked hard at my healing too), so much has changed.

I have transformed.

Yet after all this time and all the growth I’ve experienced, I can still resist being kind to myself.

Now, at 53, with some serious gut issues that are a result of childhood trauma and of all the pushing, striving, anxiety, stress, addiction and self-harm that followed, I am peeling another layer of the onion and learning to care for myself on a deeper level than ever before, to nourish and nurture myself, to be loving to myself, to be a good parent to myself.

Kindness to others begins with kindness to ourselves.

We can’t love others fully if we can’t love ourselves.

Today, on World Kindness Day, how can you be kind to yourself first, and then extend this kindness to others?