Kindness When No One Listens

Hey loves!

Being alone with yourself in quarantine can be a great time of rediscovering old hobbies, re-connecting with friends, taking on a new hobby ... but it can also be the perfect time for taking your flaws and picking on them. It is the perfect time for old fears to come back from under the bed. So while this can be a positive time, it is easy to fall into lows.

Personally, I found it quite easy for myself to spend an extra few minutes in front of the mirror to point out to myself all the little red spots on my head and how everyone around me must notice them - whether I am wearing makeup or not. We all have that voice in our head that tells us that we are not good enough and that some of our flaws outweigh all our positive attributes.

A friend of mine recently recommended a tactic to combat this and I have been using it every since: write a nastiness journal. We have probably all heard of kindness or gratitude journals where you are supposed to write down the good things. My friend told me, 'f*** the good stuff, when you're in bed late at night, you're thinking of the one stupid thing went down and not of the great stuff.' And so she started writing about that stuff that is usually on her mind late at night. She started writing down the worst things she had told herself on a day, the worst things she had thought about herself, and how she feels about them.

The first time I used this method, I had a hard time writing down the truth about what the voice in my head had said. I do my best to be kind to others, but writing this journal taught me that in focusing so much on being kind to others, I failed to focus on myself. The things I told myself were things I would never say to someone else. It is so easy to be nasty when no one is listening. But that is actually an illusion - because one person is listening very attentively to that nasty voice: you.

I would highly recommend starting a nastiness journal. It is not an easy thing to start and you might end up being ashamed of your thoughts. But acknowledging that these thoughts happen is the first step to stopping them.

I wish you guys all the best and I hope you are all staying safe x

Lots of Love,

Elena