If your childhood was anything like mine, one of the first lessons you learned was to be kind to others. Before I entered kindergarten, long before I could read or write, I could recite the Golden Rule by heart:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
My brothers and I were often told as children how thoughtful, kind and considerate we were. We learned to listen — really listen — to others and to think about what they needed even if they didn’t articulate it.
That kindness stays with us today and serves us well in our lives.
One of my brothers is a family physician and the other is a teacher. They are on the frontlines.
Helping people stay and become healthy and well. Shaping young minds and supporting young people in some of the challenges they encounter in their lives.
Kindness is a less obvious comparative advantage in my work as a climate policy researcher, but I find it helps me be better at my job too.
I’m glad I learned to be kind at a very young age. It’s important to teach children to be kind to one another. Don’t get me wrong. We need more kindness on Planet Earth.
But you know what I didn’t learn as a child? To be kind to myself.
And I’m not alone.
I recently listened to an episode of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast in which the guest, writer Ashley C. Ford, was asked how she came to love herself. She responded that it was a process, a long but worthwhile journey, which began with an understanding of what self-love looked like:
Self-love is about holistic love to me. What does it mean to love myself well? Well, I know that I’m really good at loving other people. I’m great at it. It’s a thing that if I’ve had an intentional practice over the course of my life, that has been my intentional practice. I think because I felt a dearth of love and safety in my childhood. I have always wanted to be really good at providing it for someone else, and for friends, and lovers, and everybody. It took me a really long time to realize that I had not practiced turning that love inward at all and didn’t know how.
Ford knew she was great at loving others, at seeing what they needed to do to take better care for themselves and telling them to do just that. She realized that loving herself would look like turning that inwards:
I now know that loving myself is treating myself the way I would want anybody I love to treat themselves. That’s what it is. It’s treating myself… When I think to myself, ‘Man, I really wish my friend would just take a break. Like she needs a break.’ Like, ‘I wish that she would tell her husband that he needs to take the kids and she’s going away for a weekend and she just needs to do that.’
Acknowledging that you’re not treating yourself as you would want others to treat themselves is the first step. That’s the easy part. The next step is understanding why you’re not treating yourself the same way. For Ford that led to the realization that she had not been loved the way she deserved to be loved, the way she needed to be loved, as a child:
I could come up with all these reasons why everybody else deserved a break. Why they deserved love. Why they deserved a gift, a surprise. Why they deserved a compassion and for some reason, when it came to me, none of that stuff could be pointed my way. It wasn’t until somebody said to me, ‘Okay, well then what’s the best example you have of you being loved? Who’s loved you the best? What did they do? What did that feel like to have them love you?’
After some soul searching she understood that she still had some healing to do from her childhood. From the abuse she suffered at the hands of the people who should have protected her and the systems that oppressed her, her family and their community.
Ford realized that rather than being angry at others, she had turned that anger on herself. And she decided to stop being angry at herself, stop hating her younger self for things she could not control:
I was like, ‘You know what? F*ck that. I’m not doing the work of people who would harm me anymore. I’m not joining that club. I’m actually not on their side. Why am I doing their work?’ Now I just try to do the opposite.
What does the opposite look like? What does it sound like? For Ford she thinks of what she would tell others to do for themselves and then she does that for herself:
I just think about what would I tell a friend who had a long hard day who is in the middle of a depressive time? How would I ask her or encourage her to take care of herself? What questions would I ask her about what she needs to take care of herself? I just let myself be that friend to me.
One of the hosts of the podcast, Glennon Doyle, responded:
New golden rule. Treat yourself as you would have your friend treat herself. Give to yourself what you wish your friends would give to themselves. I love that so much.
These words felt like a punch to the heart. I realized that I was sending so much kindness outwards, naturally as part of who I am. As part of how I walk through the world. But I continued to be hard on myself.
I didn’t extend to myself the same kindness I did to others.
And I suspect you do too, Dear Reader.
We all need to stop doing that if we want to create a better world.
Because we can’t be the best versions of ourselves if we don’t love ourselves wholly and completely. If we don’t treat ourselves as we would advise a cherished friend to treat themselves.
I am fortunate not to have had a traumatic childhood like Ford. I was loved as a child and I’m grateful for that.
But I didn’t have self-love modeled for me. And I suspect many of you didn’t either.
Over the past few years I’ve realized how much better everything is when I love myself. It’s not been an easy journey. And it’s one that will continue for the rest of my life.
It has required a lot of what I call “soul work”.
But it’s worth it.
So worth it.
One thing I know for sure is that we could create a better world if we all abided more by this new Golden Rule: Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto themselves.
I know my world has already shifted and I hope yours does too.
For more on my work with young climate leaders find me here. For more on my work on global climate policy find me here.
