Kindness towards yourself: the hardest lesson

When I first picked up Rupi Kaur's Home Body, I didn't expect to recognise myself on every page. But her words hit me right at the core. Anxiety, self-hatred, trauma, toxic relationships – everything I had been carrying but didn't know how to put into words.

Sometimes I wonder why it's so hard to be gentle with myself. Why can I treat others with understanding, yet always hold things against myself?

Love that doesn't ask for permission

One verse stopped me in particular:

How many times have I thought I had to earn love? That I had to be better, stronger, more successful to be worthy of acceptance? Sometimes it seems to me that all of life is a competition I can't win.

And then I come across a verse like this and realise – maybe the problem lies in the patterns instilled in me. Maybe love doesn't have to be a fight.

Motherhood and the fear of repeating mistakes

Rupi Kaur also writes about motherhood, and that part touched me deeply. Because now, more than ever, I recognise how much I carry from the past. I'm afraid my child will feel the same anxiety I felt. I'm afraid I'll repeat the mistakes others made before me.

Motherhood is wonderful, but it's also a mirror. In it you see everything you thought you had buried long ago. All the insecurities, all the inner voices telling you that you're not good enough.

And then comes the moment when you realise – if I want my child to grow up in love, I first have to learn to give it to myself.

Healing isn't linear

Rupi Kaur often writes about healing, but not as something that happens overnight. It's a process. Sometimes it moves forward, sometimes back. Sometimes you don't even notice it until one day you wake up and realise you feel a little lighter than before.

Maybe what we've lost hasn't disappeared. Maybe it has just come back in a different form – in a strength we didn't recognise, in the tenderness we're learning to give ourselves.

I try to keep this in mind when I feel myself sinking into destructive thoughts. Kindness towards yourself isn't weakness. Sometimes I don't know how to offer it, but I'm learning. And sometimes that's enough.