PULSE
How to treat yourself with kindness
Habits — those typically human characteristics that are so very difficult to dispense with — can play havoc with our health and mental wellbeing. As writer W Somerset Maugham said: “The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones.” When you look at all the addictive behaviour human beings indulge in, ranging from mild — nervous nail biting — to obsessive — stealing from your family to buy drugs — you’d think that as a species we were on a one-track mission to self-destruct, while we actually claim to be pursuing immortality.
Countless books and magazine articles have been written, hundreds of apps have been developed and hours on the psychologist’s couch have been spent talking about how to rid yourself of your nasty habit, be it looking at your phone, weight gain, drinking too much, smoking or being stuck in a destructive relationship or dull job.
A new book, The Kindness Method, claims to offer a different tack.
The author, Shahroo Izadi, studied psychological sciences and psychology, and worked at an NHS substance-misuse service in northwest London, training in core approaches like motivational interviewing, relapse management, group facilitation, risk management, intervention, harm reduction, strengths-based assessment and mindfulnessbased relapse prevention. But, she says, she learnt the most important lessons about treating addiction when she successfully used the methods she was developing on herself.
“After more than two decades of struggling with compulsive overeating and extreme dieting, desperately trying to find a plan I could sustain, I used the tools in this book to lose — and keep off — eight stone [50kg],” she writes. She refreshingly admits that her advice doesn’t come from the perspective of “a professional therapist, but instead from a professional procrastinator and experienced excuse-maker”.
Izadi’s method is based on being good to yourself — treating yourself as you would a loved one, someone whose best interests are of utmost importance to you and the absolute motivation for your actions.
“You will start by documenting what you’re good at, and reminding yourself of all the times you’ve proven that you can feel driven, capable and motivated. You will then start examining the thoughts and behaviours that may be holding you back.”
Her message is that being kind to yourself is the only way to make changes in your life that will last.
Since the book draws from Izadi’s experiences, she takes the reader through a series of “realisations” that helped her in her own life.
Feeling unworthy because, for instance, you’ve let yourself down can feel like a place of comfort in which you don’t have to face rejection or criticism, but it can also become a place to retreat from life and indulge in your addiction.
If, however, you are kind to yourself and think of yourself as worthy of the kindness you would show others, the by-product of that kindness is that many areas of your life will vastly improve.
Izadi’s method also requires that you to complete a number of “maps” to help you stay on track: “For me, there is something very impactful about seeing a collection of reasons I have for wanting to change written down in one place, in my own handwriting,” she writes.
The maps, she adds, will also help challenge complacency and “euphoric recall” — a term commonly used when talking about drugs — to describe the tendency of people to remember past experiences in a positive light and overlook the negatives.
The method involves a series of exercises, writing down, for instance, “ways I’m happy to be me”, or “what I’m proud of”, or “when I’m in the zone”. Then it asks you to set out a plan that involves setting a review date, formulating a realistic plan, managing the initial stages, getting back in the saddle (should you fall off), working on personal development goals and always looking at the bigger picture.
At the heart of the book is Izadi’s advice to treat yourself and your body as you would want your child to treat theirs. “Admittedly,” she writes, “this is a ‘cheat’ because we working towards being able to like ourselves enough to care about our wellbeing before — or at least as much as — that of others.”
So The Kindness Method is about cultivating selfawareness and increasing self-esteem so that you can find the willpower to put your plan into action and keep it on track. It’s about loving yourself, knowing yourself and giving yourself the best possible life. LS
Published by Pan Macmillan and available at Exclusive Books for R267