What I've done in the first 13 Days of the Be Kind to Yourself (Myself) Challenge

First off I want to say that it has been feeling very intentional, uplifting and rewarding to have been doing an act of kindness every day for myself. I hope that others have been following along or hopefully get inspired to go on their own journey of being kind to yourself! Don't forget at the end of the 30 days (March 31st) I'm launching a 7 Day Challenge; Moving towards Self-Love and Self-Acceptance that you have to sign up for by signing up for by emailing me at hello@stephaniekontercounseling.com (which will also give you access to my newsletter, and other workshops, information about giveaways in the future. 

So enough of that, here is the 13 days in review:

Day 1: Gratitude journal; This experience reminded me of just how often I forget to see the positives in life. My favorite metaphor for this struggle is when you look at a rose bush, do you choose to look at the thorns or the flowers... So look at the flowers in life first. 

Day 2: Painting; Painting tends to challenge my need to do things perfectly, so when I intentionally practicing enjoying creating something and doing the best I can, I tend to experience a lot more joy from the experience.  

Day 3: Taking a nap; Oh taking a nap, what a challenging thing to do when you are so used to the go-go-go of life. If you take time to just rest during the day, you'll get benefits like feeling refreshed, like you can restart a day if something challenging has happened, and overall be more focused and alert rather than drained and droopy. 

Day 4: Hiking with my dogs; This activity is honestly one of my favorites, it serves my love for being outside, for getting those exercise endorphins released and spending time with my dogs. For me, this is a must. Your "must" might be something different, find out what it is and do it regularly. 

Day 5: Listen to an audiobook; I do listen to podcasts before bed, or audio books or music when I work out, but this was an intentional act for me to do it in the middle of the day and just relax. Again, not something I am accustomed to, so practicing doing something quite during the day can help you refocus later. 

Day 6: Began working with a personal trainer; Oh man was this a challenge. I'm so used to just doing my own thing at the gym, so when I invited a personal trainer into my life I was a little cautious, but when we got going I remembered what it felt like to be on a team with one goal and mind and that comradery is definitely what I needed to be even more kind to myself in workouts since it boosts my overall level of motivation. 

Day 7: Pre-made healthy breakfast smoothies; Me a breakfast don't always get along, I'm one of those slow to wake up people, so pre-making a healthy smoothie was well worth it, since it served my desire to sleep more other days and that is definitely me working towards my strengths and an act of kindness to myself. 

Day 8: Practiced meditation; Once more this is not something that I typically do, but know it would help me be a better me. So I hope to incorporate this more into my life because taking just those three minutes to focus on my breath and the essential oils definitely calmed my nervous system right down.

Day 9: Pampered my self at a salon; I loved this, my favorite part of any salon trip is the massage I get on my head, my feet, my arms you name it's for me. So even though I got an amazing haircut, I also intentionally focused on my favorite part to soak up all the feel goods. An act of kindness to me!

Day 10: Took time to plan out vacations and fun things; I tend to be a workaholic, so if I don't plan breaks and vacations it won't happen. I can be spontaneous but I tend to be a planner. So making sure I take days off and schedule myself to do fun things I won't feel the impulse to just work through it. So spending that 20-30 minutes to plan felt well spent.

Day 11: Made Kombucha; I love to be creative, I love it when my stomach feels good (a problem since I have IBS), and I love making food/tea/coffee etc. Making Kombucha is an act of kindness because I love it. Anything can be an act of kindness if its something you love. 

Day 12: Cuddled with my dogs; My dogs are my babies, so any time spent with them is rather delightful. When I focus on how we make each other feel good it amplifies that feeling. I love them, and care for them, which fills their needs and they are loyal and help me feel happy when I need some extra love which fills my needs. Its a pretty great partnership we have going on.

Day 13: Roll out my  legs and mindfully apply lotion on my arms and legs; With training for this half marathon and engaging in long distance running, my muscles get sore, my skin gets dry. I get more thristy. So focusing on taking care of myself when I'm not out there hitting the pavement is just as important as being out there. I haven't used my roller as much as I'd like, or used lotion as often as I can, so practicing that was a good reminder of how good it feels and that its worth the time it takes do just put some extra kindness into my life. 

Be Kind To Yourself 30 Day Challenge #LoveMyself18

Each day starting March 1, 2018 I will be practicing a challenge that I encourage you to join. 30 Days of Self-Love, Self-Acceptance, and Kindness to myself.

Reasons why this is important:

1. When you love yourself, the world changes around you. When you see things through the perspective of self love you won't find yourself beating yourself up and that things will seem lighter and brighter each day since you will have less heaviness of self negativity weighing you down.

2. It will help you reach other goals you've set for yourself. Research has found that building yourself up instead of tearing yourself down can lead to better health decisions. Often times we think flogging ourself for our short comings will motivate, when the exact opposite is found to be true. 

3. It can help you procrastinate less. Research suggests that self-compassion can reduce the stress that leads us to procrastinate or avoid responsibilities. This is because it helps us recognize the true downside of the habit without putting us in a negative thought spiral. Try a little self-affirmation, which has been shown to increase problem-solving skills when you’re stressed. 

4. Help you stand up for yourself when you need or want to advocate for yourself. If you believe in yourself you'll believe in your causes and be willing to stand up and say something rather than sit on the sidelines. 

5. Being kind to yourself will motivate you to be kind to others. In general when you feel good, you'll want to spread that joy and love, and you'll find yourself helping others not out of obligation or to have people like you, but to help them feel the same joy you do. 

Now you may be asking well what do I do to Be Kind to Myself, follow along on my blog and Facebook page for ideas of things you can do. 

At the end of the 30 Day challenge of practicing Being Kind to Yourself #LoveMyself18 with one act of self love, I will release an Intensive 5 Day Challenge of Self-Acceptance email series. So start practicing one act of kindness to have access to the email series. 

Forgiving Yourself, While Building Empathy

Why is to so difficult for some people to seemingly forgive themselves so easily while other spend an unreasonable amount of time beating themselves up over a mistake.

First off, the person that cannot forgive themselves cannot see what they did as a mistake, and mark themselves as defective or a failure. This mishaps goes from one mistake to a global understanding of themselves. When a person doesn’t forgive themselves, it deepens shame and guilt, and becomes a breeding ground for pathological self-blame. These same people often over apologize because they see themselves as the defective ones due to this global belief they have adopted. These same people often feel that when they receive an apology from another person that they are undeserving of said apology. 

So, how does one move away from these unhealthy patterns, well it begins moving away from obsessive rumination and self-incrimination about any situation that has promoted the transgression.  It means cultivating empathy for oneself, which will ignite love for oneself. Through self-forgiveness there is psychological and, perhaps even more profoundly, spiritual growth that occurs. 

Here are some ideas on how to cultivate love for yourself:

1) Observation: Identify what you are doing and/or any judgments you are having about yourself for doing that. 

 2) Feeling: Ask yourself, "What am I feeling?"

 3) Need: Connect that feeling to a need/value/what's important to you,  and ask yourself, "What need is not met?" .

 4) Give yourself a moment or two to "sit with" or "feel into" the quality of that need and how important it (e.g. balance) is to you. 

 5) Request: After "sitting with" that need for balance, do you have any request of yourself or someone else? 

This process will help you direct your attention away from the head (where the negative thinking resides), toward your heart (where the feelings reside), and into the belly (where the precious needs reside). In this way, self-empathy is another tool for helping you get out of your head and into your heart and body. 

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How To Create A Healthy Positive Body Image

One of the missions I have in life is to help encourage people create a healthy, positive body image. The first step to this mission, is to practice myself, the second is to educate, and finally help emotional healing to occur.

So, I've done work on myself with therapist and will continue to allow my journey and story to evolve. With this practice of self-love I continuly propel myself to be in means slowing down, eating a balanced diet and practicing yoga. Today I want to address how helpful it can be to your mental health and body image, to create and cultivate a yoga practice.

Yoga And You

Find a teacher and a space to do yoga where diversity and inclusion is celebrated. Stay focused on what makes your body feel good. There are classes where having a certain body, or "nailing" the pose isn't the point of the class, those are the classes I encourage you to find. It may take a few times, but I know they are out there.

One of the first tenants of yoga is ahimsa (nonviolence)—do no harm to yourself or others. The media often is creating unrealistic images of beauty that is harmful to you. Therefore, it’s up to you to set those images aside, love yourself and be kind to yourself. You are beautiful as you are.

In your physical asana practice, focus more on what you can do and less on trying to be perfect at it. Mainstream media will continue to post picture perfect images, but I encourage you to change the esthetic and broaden the idea of what yoga looks like. There are entire organizations calling for yoga to be more about the practice and less about the body. In addition here in Denver there are even instructors that focus on being diverse, such as big booty yoga. I encourage you to post pictures of yourself doing your poses, to help break down what others believe about body image and yoga, as well as to celebrate you just doing you!