Sometimes, we are our own biggest critics; we tend to overthink and beat ourselves up whenever we encounter failure. Think about it, is it how we would treat our friends or loved ones? When we have loved ones undergoing challenging times, we often come up with words of encouragement. If we can offer kind words to others, we might as well practice telling these to ourselves.
Misako Yoke shares another genki habit: being kind to ourselves.
Misako: As you mentioned, life throws you everything, so when it comes to setbacks, we have to deal with the loudest nastiest voice that is our voice.
Our inner mind, our inner voice attacks us. So when it comes to 'K' -- be kind to yourself. I was in a very difficult situation in American Samoa. I didn't know what to do, I didn't get that for a long time.
I was confused and I felt someone was grabbing my stomach and churning, putting something into it and churning it. Then I remembered my best friend and my conversation, and I made a big mistake and I was blaming myself:
"I'm just so stupid I cannot do this. I'm bad, and I'm not good enough" And she said to me, "Hey, if I was suffering, you wouldn't say that to me, would you?" That hit me, my other best friend said, It's no use adding extra pain when you're suffering.
So that's the 'K' -- be kind to yourself.
Nick: Yeah, I really connected with that passage in your book, because it's something I've been teaching myself. You would never say to your friend constantly, you're an idiot or you've stuffed up again, you wouldn't do that.
But we do it to ourselves constantly, every day. Especially when we're struggling with life or we've had some stuff-ups and made mistakes. That was really good advice.
You wouldn't even treat a total stranger like that so why do we do it to ourselves, it's just so unhealthy. Being kind to yourself enables you to really go back to this idea of being your true self.