The Harshest Person in My Life Was Me. And I Had No Idea.

I noticed something about myself a few years ago that I haven’t been able to un-notice since.

When a friend was going through something hard, I had time. I had patience. I knew when to talk and when to just sit there.

But when I was the one going through it, I had none of that for myself. I had a deadline, a list, and a voice that said you should be further along by now, you don’t have time for this, other people have it worse. I was exacting, impatient, completely unforgiving, and I had no idea, because it never felt like cruelty. It felt like being responsible.

That is the part that still stops me. Not the harshness itself, but how invisible it is from the inside.

I think most of us learned very early that kindness is something you hand outward. You comfort the friend who is crying. You make room for people to be imperfect. That is what love looks like, and we learned it well. Nobody taught us to turn any of it around.

So when something has to give, it is always something of ours that gives first. The sleep. The meal we meant to cook properly. The hour of quiet we needed before we could feel like ourselves again. We trim these things so automatically we don’t notice, and then wonder why we feel hollowed out.

Underneath it sits a belief most of us never examine: that gentleness toward yourself has to be earned. That you get it after you’ve been productive enough, good enough. The trouble is that the standard is never met. There is always more to do, always somewhere you fell short. So: tomorrow. After this next thing.

That tomorrow doesn’t come. Not for this.

The harshness doesn’t build strength. It drains the very thing a woman is trying to give. Someone constantly at war with herself doesn’t have more to offer because of it. She has less, and whatever care she gives others ends up carrying her exhaustion with it.

Being gentle with yourself isn’t letting yourself off the hook. It’s closer to treating yourself like someone you are responsible for: patience when things go wrong, rest when you’re tired, the plain understanding that nobody runs well on nothing. It’s saying, today didn’t go well, I’ll try again, without the hours of punishment in between.

Something else tends to happen, too. When the bracing inside loosens, it gets easier to see other people clearly. That they are tired too. That the sharpness you sometimes meet in others is often the same thing you’ve been carrying after too many days on empty.

Most of us don’t need to learn how to be kind. We already know how.

We’ve just never been on the receiving end of our own kindness.

This is KC — from Love & Life. 💜