On my last day working at the hospital, one of the nurses came up to me and said, “We’re going to miss you. Then she gave me a hug, and as she did, she said, “Be kind to yourself.”
Wow. That took me by surprise. I couldn’t remember anybody ever telling me to be kind to myself. And it really stuck with me – obviously it did because that was almost 10 years ago.
If you’re a person with COPD, I trust you’ve been encouraged to focus on taking good care of your lungs and your overall health – being good, and kind, to yourself. And I hope you’ve gone ahead and done that. Yet, in spite of physical challenges, although it’s good to be kind to others, you may sometimes try to be helpful and kind to the extent that you’re pushing yourself to an unhealthy limit. After all, it’s not always easy to say, “No, I can’t help you with that,” so you just go ahead and do it.
Maybe due to finances, you’re not able to buy something you’d really like to have. Or maybe you’re keeping yourself from doing something that takes work but would be good for you – exercising, eating more nutritious food, learning something new about COPD, etc. Could it be that you’re sometimes too hard on yourself, thinking that you always have to do things perfectly? Or worse, do you find yourself going over and over something in your mind, something you did in the past that might not have been the right thing to do, and not forgiving yourself? When we think about it, there are a lot of ways we can be unkind to ourselves.
What is your idea of “being kind to yourself?” What would be your first thought if someone said that to you?
Let’s talk. I look forward to hearing from you!