Kind words and healthy thoughts can pull you through anything. Kindness is important, but we can’t forget ourselves when giving compliments and expressing love.

We often hear that your harshest critic is yourself. We are harder on ourselves than anyone else is on us. When we are cruel and critical of ourselves the more stressed we become. According to Psychology Today, “Self-kindness, an important aspect of self-compassion, has been proven to help reduce stress.” In high school stress is just a regular daily occurrence; however, we are only feeding into the stress. When we critique ourselves we only add to our own trouble.

At our school not everyone can think bad things about themselves. Kindness is really important to a lot of people. Junior, Krista Frank, says “If you know who you are, and you remember how important you are to yourself, then it doesn’t matter what anybody else says.” No words ring more true then those. It really doesn’t matter what other people think. You are only stuck with one person for the rest of your life; yourself. Why not love what you have. “I think everyone deserves to feel special and feel loved,” says Frank. Caring about others is very important but we often forget to care for ourselves.

Self-Kindness has been emphasized for a while in trying to get teens to understand how important it is. Bingham junior Emily Royall says “Most people are very hard [on] themselves. How they look [only makes them]  judge themselves. I think it is very important to be kind because you are the best that you are…you are special, there is no one else like you.” Kindness is hard but something we should always remember as well as remember that. No one else can change the way you think about yourself except you.

If we think kindly of ourselves we will become happier. When you notice the good things inside it is easier to concentrate on the great things that you can find in the world outside of ourselves. The world we live in is full of light, and when the sun sets the light doesn’t go away. The bright things that are in the world are on a constant cycle but never are you in complete darkness. There are always good things that can be blanketed over a veil of bad. You just have to keep digging to find good things.

Reading an article on being kind to yourself can only get you so far. The most important thing you can ever learn is to love who you are. We are all different, it is so hard to not compare yourself to others. Little do we know there are people watching us a wishing that they could be just like us. Everyone has something to offer, and you can’t offer anything if you are only focused on the negative things in life. Self-Kindness can be neglected in the world we live, but you should never ever treat yourself rudely. It is so important to realize how much worth you have. Let Bingham be known as the school that is not only kind to others but kind to ourselves.