The importance of being kind to myself came in a couple of different ways today. One being associated with maintaining my physical health and the other being associated with a shortcoming.
While attending a Mindful Parenting class earlier in the day, I shared with those present my struggle with setting aside those things I become busy doing to stop and eat. Immediately, a mom sitting beside me handed me a KIND Granola Bar that she had with her in her purse. As I quickly scanned over the granola bar, I initially noted the nutritional value of the ingredients inside and was most excited about the nuts. I really like the health factor of nuts and the energy it provides.
As the capitalization of the brand name of the granola bar also caught my eye and stood out to me, it was a tender mercy how the word KIND resonated and had a very profound meaning for me in that moment. It was a personal message to me of the importance of being kind to myself. I do things to take care of my intellectual, spiritual, mental, and emotional well-being but not to the same degree for my physical well-being, particularly taking time to eat. I enjoy food. I just prioritize other activities over eating and I don’t multitask both at the same time. It is a conscious effort I have to make to stop and eat. The tender mercy message reminded me to continue to be intentional in this area.
This profound statement to be kind to myself helped me later in the evening too when I commented on a prompt I posted on my Tender Mercy Moments Facebook group and assumed at the time I sent it that it made sense, but later realized my response lacked clarity in effectively connecting to the prompt.
When I went back to the original post an hour or so after to add a tie in sentence, I was hoping and praying that my friends would return back to the message and reread the revised comment. Though I felt embarrassed for my faux pas, I giggled as I remembered to be kind to myself. It was a tender mercy I was able to accept my deficiency in writing and move forward without letting it set me back as well as trust that Heavenly Father would help in a way that whomever could benefit from my updated response would at some point read it.
After the two occurrences, I went in search for an inspirational song that spoke to being kind to myself. Over and over again I found myself playing the song “Say Love” by Hilary Weeks. Though the lyrics are about sharing words of love and kindness to others, I recognized how valuable saying words of love and kindness to myself is when I get down on myself in those times I fall short and mess up.
Another tender mercy moment of reflection on the importance of being kind to myself happened not that long ago while sitting in a parking lot after dropping off my kids at school and I noticed when I looked down in my lap for a moment that some of my hair that had fallen forward over the front of my shirt was in the shape of a heart.
When have you been reminded in a profound way the importance of being kind to yourself?
tendermercym❤️ments~jld
“How have you noticed Heavenly Father’s awareness and mindfulness of you today?”
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