In honor of Minority Mental Health Month, I wanted to start the month off talking about self-talk and self-identity. For more information visit nomoremartyrs.com

Do you remember the last time you learned something new? I mean something that was totally out of what you were used to doing?

It’s been awhile for me too. My oldest biological son just turned 8 and was blessed with a bike for his birthday from my mother. He’s had some kiddie bikes before, but this was his first big boy bike. The first few riding attempts were brutal and it left him frustrated, mad, and overall feeling a bit defeated. He kept telling me that it was too hard and he just couldn’t do it. The interesting part to me was, he was doing just fine. Would he be able to ride down the block carefree? No. But he was making great progress. For Daniel, progress was failure simply because it wasn’t complete.

Each one of my kids teach me something about myself and life. Let me explain who Daniel is in my life (outside of him being my first baby). Daniel is my mirror. The same strengths I have, he has, but also some of my weaknesses. He is extremely hard on himself and if he makes a mistake he will wallow in it for quite some time. That is a true gift/curse of a perfectionist. He’s extremely bright and figures everything should come easy and when it doesn’t he really takes it hard. Which…if I am honest, I tend to do the same thing. I will ruminate on why this worked or didn’t work, sometimes for days at a time. It really used to shake my confidence to try new things.

Having him show me some of my destructive thought patterns has really pushed me to openly talk to him about my struggles and try to capture every negative thought/word he says and turn it into a positive. He is still learning every day how to be kinder to himself (and honestly so am I).

Daniel is still learning how to ride confidently, but everyday he has been putting his best foot forward.

How are you learning to be kinder to yourself?