Treating Yourself Gently During Difficult Times

* This is a collaborative post on treating yourself gently during difficult times 

Difficulties pop up all the time in life. They’re a part of being human; things are going to go askew from time to time, and there’s no way to rid the chaos that naturally comes from being alive.

However, if you experience a lot of stress and discomfort during these times, there’s a lot you can do to help yourself out. Hobbies and relying on loved ones, for example. But above all else, you need to be kind to yourself.

That’ll help you adjust no matter what’s going on, even if you’ve got a harsh, negative voice in the back of your head. But if you struggle to be nice to yourself when you’re living through a hard time in life, and you find it difficult to give yourself patience and grace, these are the things to count on. Check them out below.

Isolate the negative voice and realise where it’s coming from

When there’s a voice in the back of your head telling you that you’re not good enough, or you’re worthless, or that everything that’s going on is your fault, being gentle to yourself will be difficult. However, that doesn’t mean you deserve to hear your own inner voice be mean and condescending towards you.

You need to isolate the voice, first of all, and think about why it’s there. What’s causing the need to talk to yourself in such a harsh way? Once you isolate this foundation and have the reason in front of you, it’s going to be a lot easier to replace the words with more gentle, or even just more neutral ones.

From here, take some time to practice positive affirmations out loud. You may need to hear them aloud before you can say them to yourself during high stress moments.

Don’t feel bad for relying on unhealthy habits

Unhealthy habits can rear their heads when you’re going through a difficult time. However, feeling the need to do them isn’t a bad thing. Of course, you may feel bad for it, but recognizing what the need means and then counteracting it is a way to be gentle to yourself.

A lot of ex-smokers, for example, may feel the need to reach for a cigarette right now. That will feel bad, but the best thing to do right now is not beat yourself up. Instead, reach for something that provides the same kind of outlet but is also less harmful.

Some berry-flavoured nicotine pouches would be a good thing to invest in at a time like this, as they don’t contain the same carcinogens and are very unlikely to do any harm to your lungs.

And that’s the same principle you should apply across the board. Think about how you can support yourself through getting through an unhealthy habit, just without putting all the more pressure on yourself at the same time.

If you’re going through a difficult time right now, be sure to be gentle to yourself in these ways.