Why We Talk Kindly to Our Friends, But Not to Ourselves

If someone you love came to you and said, “I’m not okay. I don’t feel like myself lately. I’m tired in a way I can’t explain,” you wouldn’t tell them to snap out of it, you wouldn’t roll your eyes, you wouldn’t throw logic or timelines at their feelings; you’d soften almost instinctively, your voice would lower without you realising it, and your presence would turn into something warmer, slower, safer, because when it’s someone else, compassion feels natural and effortless.

But when it’s you, the entire tone changes.

When it’s you, there’s impatience.There’s urgency.There’s a quiet cruelty that sounds like practicality. And what hurts most is how normal it has started to feel.

The double standard we don’t question

Somewhere along the way, many of us became people who hold everyone else with gentle hands, while keeping our own hearts under constant scrutiny, constantly assessing, correcting, disciplining, and demanding more from ourselves because we convinced ourselves that kindness is something we give outward, while toughness is what we owe inward. We sit with other people’s confusion but rush our own.We validate other people’s pain but minimise ours.We forgive others quickly but treat our own mistakes like moral failures. And we don’t call it harshness.We call it “being strong.”We call it “not being dramatic.”We call it “being realistic.”

But sometimes, if we are honest, it’s just self-abandonment wrapped carefully in maturity.

If you spoke to a friend the way you speak to yourself…

Imagine someone you adore sitting in front of you, feeling exactly what you feel on the days when your chest feels heavy or your head won’t stop spinning, and imagine speaking to them in the same tone you use on yourself ~ the one that says “come on, this is nothing,” “why are you still struggling with this,” “you should be better than this by now.”

Would they still feel safe with you?Would they want to open up again?Would they feel understood, or would they shrink a little, the way you secretly do inside yourself?

We don’t realise it, but sometimes the person making life harder for us isn’t the world or the people in it ~ sometimes it’s the voice inside our head that never gives us the softness we desperately need. And then we wonder why our body is tense, why rest doesn’t feel like rest, why even good moments feel fragile, like they could break if we breathe wrong.

This isn’t about self-love slogans

This isn’t about pretending everything is beautiful or pushing faux positivity into real emotion.This is about not becoming another person in your life who treats you harshly.

It’s about realising that you don’t have to choose between being driven and being gentle; you can want better for yourself without tearing yourself apart, you can hold yourself accountable without shaming your existence, and you can still be incredibly strong without becoming emotionally violent to your own interior world. Because you do not need to earn tenderness. Not from others. And definitely not from yourself.

A small truth you probably needed today

The world can be loud, and life has a way of moving faster than your feelings sometimes; people won’t always pause long enough to understand what you’re carrying inside, and not everyone will know how to hold your heart the way it needs to be held, but the least you can do is promise yourself that you won’t become another person who dismisses what you feel.

You already know how to be patient.You already know how to be kind.You already know how to sit with someone you love without rushing them into being okay.

All you’re learning now is how to turn a little of that tenderness inward, how to speak to yourself with the same gentleness you so naturally offer others, how to be soft with your heart even when it feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable.

Slowly. Imperfectly. Honestly. Like someone who is finally realising they don’t have to prove they deserve care ~ they simply do.

And whether your mind believes it yet or not, your heart still deserves that warmth.

Always.