Be Kind to Yourself!

Prefer to read? Here’s a transcription of the video:

I want to remind you today to be kind to yourself, to do something kind just for yourself.

We are going through so much personally, globally, economically, socially, ecologically. There’s so much going on. And so, however this is showing up in your personal life, there is so much overwhelm. And sometimes when we are overwhelmed, we forget to stop, practice some self-care, and do something kind for ourselves.

I’m Anna Gatmon and wherever you’re watching this, this is coming to you from The Expansive with Anna Gatmon YouTube channel.

So I’ve had two amazing professional opportunities come into my life in the past few weeks, and I am super excited about them. And yet, I was feeling overwhelmed and that’s what I want to talk to you about today. So one of them is teaching a graduate course at a local university, and I’m teaching a course called The Psychology of Power, Privilege and Culture.

So you can imagine my excitement that I get to teach a course like this for an amazing group of graduate students at this time in the life and the history of America. I feel honored and I feel a responsibility to make the most out of this course, but I’m in a learning curve that’s huge. And so last week I was feeling so much overwhelm learning the online platform and interacting with a course that I hadn’t created and that I was diving into just like the students were.

And then the second professional opportunity that I’ve been given, which I’m so excited about is that I have been offered to host a radio show– my own radio show. And so this is very exciting. I get to interview anyone I want. And I get to ask that question and direct the show however I want to, but you can imagine the stress of preparing the show and finding the guests and the focus of the show.

And so here I was having these two things were arriving at the same time, and I was focusing on both of them and regular work and everything I’m doing in my life. And I was so overwhelmed that last week I was in paralysis. And so I was reminded that many years ago, I took Psychology 101 in community college.

And one of the things that we learned is the stress test. The stress test shows you what events in your life are highly stressful and what are less stressful. And it turns out that even seemingly positive and joyful events like getting married, having a child, buying a house are highly stressful events. And so it’s not just seemingly negative or hardships like losing a job or illness or death that are equally stressful, but also positive, joyful events are stressful.

We know when we’re stressed, when we’re super stressed, our immune system goes down. We have a harder time sleeping. We’re stressed, we’re nervous. We don’t always make the best choices, the best decisions. And so it’s important to monitor our stress level. With everything going on, this is like a pressure cooker that the universe organized for us, where we get to go inwards and make a change in our life. Take a leap of faith, grow personally, professionally, in any area of our life, whatever we need to do. Whatever’s right for us. We each have a lesson that has been brought to us through this world pandemic and all the events that are going on.

So whatever you are going through, if you are taking on the opportunity to transform and change personally, as well as be part of this global movement that is going on for change– for social change and economic change– then you must be experiencing some degree of stress and overwhelm and fear and worry.

So this is what I want to offer you to do every day for just five minutes:

Take a moment and just stop.

Put your hand on your heart and ask yourself, what do I need right now?

How can I bring more ease into this moment and into my day?

How can I be kind to myself and do something kind that’s just for me? To nourish myself? To be good to myself?

How can I do something that’s maybe fun, enjoyable?

How can I take a break from it all?

Whatever it is, just listen to what your body, your soul, your psyche tells you. You will hear an answer, and whatever the answer is, go do it.

There’s so much going on. There is so much overwhelm. Whether you have amazing opportunities that have come into your life, whether you are stressed for other reasons, you’re still not knowing how to deal with all of the overwhelm that’s happening socially and economically in the world.

There is overwhelm and there is stress for all of us.

And so stop, chunk things down, do one thing at a time. And most of all, find something you can do just for yourself. Practice self-care, and do something kind for yourself.

So wherever you’re watching this, leave me a comment.

I send you many blessings of kindness.