MSS #025 How to free your potential by being kinder to yourself.

MSS #025: Be kinder to yourself.

MSS #025: How to free your potential by being kinder to yourself.

1 July, 2023

Read time: 5.7 minutes

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This week we will use an ancient Hawaiian practice called Ho’oponopono to explore how being kinder to ourselves can be highly beneficial.

Become more aware of harmful self talk and use the Ho’oponopono framework to be kinder to yourself.

Often, the way we talk to ourselves, we would never find acceptable when talking to others, yet we still do it – which can have a huge impact on our wellbeing.

Most people fail to stop and think about this, so the old harmful habits keep persistent.

Let’s crack on with it.

Awareness of how we talk to ourselves.

This awareness is easily overlooked, yet it has the power to transform your, if you are continually tough on yourself.

If you choose to be kinder to yourself you can make a big impact on your happiness and resilience.

It is ok to challenge ourselves to get out of our comfort zones and be better versions of ourselves. It is ok to strive for more. How we treat ourselves in our own heads with our own self talk can make a big difference between feeling good about ourselves and motivated to achieve more or feeling downright miserable and defeated.

Our self-talk about ourselves often goes unnoticed and unchallenged for years. It simply becomes a part of our accepted identity.

How we treat ourselves reflects outwardly in our physiology and how we appear to others.

Rather bizarrely how we treat ourselves is often picked up on by others, unconsciously and forms an opinion of how they think we might like to be treated. When we change how we treat ourselves, this also influences how others treat us.

For example, if you feel miserable because you keep being unpleasant to yourself, you naturally withdraw and want to be left alone. Other people pick up on this queue unconsciously and might say “he/she seemed a bit stand offish; I think I will give them a wide berth” and so others leave you alone. This simply justifies how you are feeling and “proves” you were right all along!

Start noticing.

Most of our self-talk goes unnoticed. Now I have drawn your attention to it, you will not be able to avoid being far more aware.

Firstly, just be more aware how you treat yourself, are you nurturing and inspiring or are you draining or unkind to yourself?

Here are some aspects of how you treat yourself to look out for.

Make some notes in a book either at the end of each day or as and when you notice something, or perhaps a few set times a day.

The importance step is to regularly be aware.

Notice when you are unkind to yourself,

• What do you say to yourself?

• Are there specific situations or events?

• Are you generally unkind to yourself?

• How does this make you feel?

• What does this stop you doing?

Now you are looking out for what you say to yourself, you can decide or choose to do something about it.

As this self-talk is often an ingrained habit, a good strategy is to use the existing triggers but change the self-talk. Once you know what the triggers are, a specific circumstance, location, event etc you will notice it quicker. 

Change the language in your head to be more supportive and nurturing, introduce the possibility of achieving something. For example, if your self-talk is something along the lines of,

“You know you cannot do presentations; you are always bad at this.”

You could soften this to,

“In the past I did not enjoy presentations, but now I look forward to them.”

You could use the fact that you get nervous as a trigger, for example saying,

“When I feel the nerves rising before a presentation, I know this is my mind getting me ready to perform really well.”

You could try a completely different approach of radically changing your self-talk to be very positive. For some this will work well, for others this will be a step to far, to fast maybe if your previous self-talk has been very poisonous. You could say,

“Every time I give a presentation, I feel exhilarated, I really enjoy it and so does my audience.”

To embed this well, accompany it with emotions and mental images that support the self-talk, to help your unconscious really grab hold of and accept this revised self-talk.

Another approach to be kinder to yourself is rather than look at self-talk for specific situations you can choose a strategy of unconditional kindness to yourself without need or justification. In fact, you can choose both spontaneous self-kindness and specific event-based kindness.

We are going to use the Hawaiian tradition of Ho’oponopono as our framework for this.

Ho’oponopono.

There is a tradition in Hawaiian culture of practicing self-kindness called, Ho’oponopono. Which roughly translates into prayer for forgiveness, healing and making things right. Its intention is to attend to relationships with yourself, others, ancestors, the earth and deities. At its heart it is about forgiveness and gratitude.

It follows in part the Stoic approach, that we are responsible for how we respond to situations, so even if someone is unkind to us, by forgiving them we let ourselves go free and unharmed.

I saw a great example of this recently, with a UK celebrity saying she often gets cruel comments on social media from so called Trolls and rather than responding back to them about their unkindness or taking those comments to heart, she takes a different response. In her mind she feels sorry for them and compassion that they feel the need to be unkind and contacts them to ask if they are ok and encourages them to seek help with organisations like the Samaritans.

A brilliant response that makes her feel better and unharmed, does not “fuel” the Troll’s to respond with more unkindness and most likely helps the trolls.

This approach is summarised eloquently by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius,

"Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been." - Marcus Aurelius

Back to the Hawaiian prayer, you could see the practice as a two-way street, if you forgive and are kinder to yourself, it affects those around you. If you forgive those around you, you also get benefits. The tradition taps into forgiveness, gratitude, love and repentance.

The Ho’oponopono prayer.

First consider when you will use this framework.

Triggers: You can practice this in several different ways or all of them,

• When someone harms you (or to be accurate when you choose to respond to someone by feeling harmed – a topic for another newsletter).

• When reflecting on a past situation.

• Without any trigger or event in mind, just as a moment of quiet spontaneous reflection and self-kindness.

How you use Ho’oponopono prayer is entirely up to you, you could choose to’

• Say it out loud.

• Say it in your head.

The prayer is simply,

I am sorry.

(Please) Forgive me.

Thank you.

I love you.

You can if you want to use this process to explore your feelings a little more, entirely your choice and optional.

You might want to ask yourself if you had no event in mind “what am I sorry for?” and see what comes to mind.

You might want to explore where and why you might seek forgiveness.

Reflecting on what you are thankful for is a form of gratitude, you can consider what you are thankful for in general or right this minute. You might want to ask yourself or reflect on why you should feel loved.

If you let a feeling and sensation of healing and reconciliation fill you this can be extremely rewarding. If you are reading this and thinking this is a bit farfetched, remember we are chemical machines. All this process is doing is using the “keyboard” to your brain (the mind) to create the necessary chemical changes which we interpret as feeling good about ourselves.

In summary be kinder to yourself, notice when you are not. Either choose to be kinder and change your language based on specific circumstances or in general.

Summary

Quick recap.

• Ho'oponopono is a Hawaiian system of reconciliation and forgiveness that can be used to restore harmony in relationships and promote personal well-being. Here's a simple summary of how to use the Ho'oponopono process:

   

  1. Take responsibility: Recognise that you are responsible for your experiences and the state of your relationships. Accept that you have the power to initiate change.

   

  2. Repeat the prayer: The core practice of Ho'oponopono involves repeating the following mantra sincerely and with intention: "I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you." These words carry the essence of seeking forgiveness, expressing gratitude, and offering love.

   

  3. Cultivate forgiveness: As you repeat the mantra, focus on any specific situation or person causing disharmony in your life. Imagine sending forgiveness and love to them and yourself. This helps release negative emotions and promotes healing.

   

  4. Clear negative emotions: Acknowledge and release any negative emotions or memories associated with the situation. Understand that these emotions are a part of you, and by letting go, you create space for positive transformation.

   

  5. Practice regularly: Engage in Ho'oponopono regularly, as a daily practice or whenever you feel the need for healing. Consistency is key to deepening the effects of the practice.

   

  6. Trust the process: Have faith in the power of Ho'oponopono to bring about positive changes in your life. Trust that the act of seeking forgiveness, expressing gratitude, and offering love will contribute to your personal growth and the restoration of harmony in your relationships.

   

• Remember, Ho'oponopono is a deeply personal and spiritual practice.

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading, really hope this helped. Contact me if you think I can help you further at [email protected].

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Happy thinking.

1 July, 2023