.

I am not justifying that you deserved that overpriced candle or a second slice of cheesecake because you should "treat yo self". Compared to self indulgence, self-compassion is a fancier word for describing ways in which we can be kinder to ourselves. Zoey's internal thoughts can be very critical and judgmental; tell me if you can agree to some of these,

- How did you only get 3 things done off your list of 10 things to do today?

- Oh, right on Zoey, efficient use of your weekend.

- People think I am too much.

- I doubt he is going to get back to me.

- In what world does my outfit look good, not on Earth.

- You shouldn't have said that Zoey

- You shouldn't have done that Zoey

- How are you surprised?

- Stop complaining you have no money when you are buying food and socializing a lot

- You won't make time to read.

- You are so unorganized and inconsistent

- You don't deserve that Zoey.

- Since when is this a lot of work? You should be able to handle it all and juggle everything

- You never make time to meditate

- This back injury is making you so lazy

A took a quiz to determine how self-compassionate I am towards myself this summer. It was a part of my yoga teacher training and I recommend taking the quiz yourself. Here, check it out, https://self-compassion.org/test-how-self-compassionate-you-are/

There is no doubt that we are tough on ourselves. I most certainly agree that we should push and challenge ourselves but not to a point where we begin to suffer. Perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger would beg to differ? This entry isn't about him, it's about you!

Prior to taking that quiz and reading more about Dr. Kristin Neff's work, I never considered taking care of myself like I would do for a friend. You'd think I would and mind you I am sure I have without realizing it, but my point is that, I never considered that I could be deserving of giving myself the same affection. Another way of putting this is, one cannot take care of someone else if they themselves haven't taken care of their own self. Or... put your breathing mask on before you put on someone else's. You get it.

So Dr. Neff, does this mean I deserve to treat myself with cheesy bread, a lot of down time, and new lulus? She would answer no. Rather it's more about how we talk to ourselves! We truly are our own worst critics and I see it in action every day. Not just with myself but I hear how my friends and sister often talk about how they are "disappointed" and "annoyed" with themselves. I don't even view them that way, but there they are, beating themselves up. If we chose to be a bit more empathetic with ourselves maybe that will be a step in getting ourselves out of our own mess. One problem I often notice, is that I think we seek friends or significant others to uplift our spirits for us. Hey, guilty as charged - I love support & we NEED it. In a perfect world this would be ideal but we should never depend on any one person - just ourselves! Agree to disagree but that is my approach because I have been and seen people get hurt and feel they need to have someone to lift themselves up. Yo, I think that is good- I reach out and ask for a hand or two myself but I know it starts with me. What can I do for myself to feel better? Well that's obvious, a day of dancing in my room, practicing yoga, and watching SNL like it is my day job.

I was inspired to write this blog because the intention of our yoga session in our club today spoke about going with the flow. While my friends and I were planning for today's journal questions, it had me reflecting on how little people may be giving themselves self-compassion during this stressful time in the semester. It is easy to put our personal needs on the back burner when we have a lot of things to get done, people to see, and jobs to be at!

Awareness is the first step so I am going to re-frame the things I said above,

- You got three things done amongst the crazy day you had

- Be proud of who you are and all that you do, right now

- If he doesn't get back to me it isn't meant to be

- You got a unique sense of style and can pull anything off

- That was a lesson

- Oh look another lesson you learned

- You've got good intuition, listen to it

- Money comes and goes

- It'll be worth it to take some time this week to read a few chapters

- I've seen you be organized before, you can do it again

- You are deserving

- Some days are harder than others & you don't have to compare yourself to a past version of you

- Meditating makes you feel good, let's start our mornings doing it!

- This back injury has been a humbling experience

We have to give ourselves more credit for the things we do and experience each and every single day. We could be a little kinder to ourselves and accept the emotions our bodies barnacle onto. What is temporary? Everything. What you feel now won't feel as strongly a bit down the road but during the process we still have to love ourselves. Our future selves don't have to be our better selves - I guarantee shitty things are going to happen to us within a few months ahaha. It is so silly we accredit that "being better" as the ideal state of being, for when we are "feeling low," we actually beat ourselves up because we aren't "supposed to be" in that state! Well feeling low is an emotion and it deserves more recognition. I have hope that others can heal faster when they accept that where they are at is okay and NORMAL. (I feel like I used the quotations incorrectly like the time Joey in Friends did that one episode).

Lets compare life to Call-of-Duty shall we. In the game we get shot and the screen displays obnoxiously, GAME OVER. but below, there is an option to restart the mission from your last check-point. We should view life like this when we feel like we've failed ourselves or our goals for the day. Yes, every day could be a new start but I've died a lot in just a few short hours binging aggressive army games, meaning that you can have a lot of restarts in your day! Didn't work out? Well that's ight, you can now, later, tomorrow, sometime. Give yourselves 9 cat lives each day so that when you get ambushed by the universe "aka. Nazi Zombies" you have the opportunity to try again... maybe with a different approach next? I learned a few missions later on that, rebuilding the windows in nazi zombies mode, allows buffer times between each level to prevent the zombies coming in faster - let's make this a metaphor! Well the wood blocks you place on the windows to refrain the zombies from entering, represent your self care. Each wood plank expresses all aspects of your personal life that you need to rebuild to fix that window (self) so... when the zombies(problems) come AND THEY WILL, we can be better prepared to handle it!

Fight zombies or die trying

haha which you would if you didn't win mwahaha

Till next time,

Lil Z, bb Z, DJ Zharky, Zoey Fern. xoxo