Today, we remember and celebrate those who have contributed to our training, development, growing and learning process. And I want to dedicate this article to the memory of the person who contributed the most for me to be who I am today, Michael Blumenstein.

And I want to do it sharing one of the most significant lessons he left me.

The word kind (amable in Spanish) comes from the Latin “amare” and the suffix “ble” which means possibility. Kind means “possible to love”.

When we search for the origin of the word love (amar in Spanish), it isn’t clear, so I will use the definition Michael gave about love: “contributing to the other so he/she can remember his/her enoughness”.

The idea of being kind with one’s self means “the possibility to contribute with me in a way that reminds me of my enoughness”.

Enoughness?

Enoughness is the feeling you have that no matter what happens you’ll be able to deal with it. And, that you can do so in the best way for you, for everyone else, for the situation. That in case you are wrong, nothing’s going to happen, you can always try something different next time.

Is this feeling that emerges from trusting that you come fully equipped with everything you need to live your life. And that you can live it well.

And well doesn’t mean perfect. Well doesn’t mean without difficult, challenging, or painful experiences. Well means learning from all that. Don’t get stuck in anything special. Look forward. Create new alternatives. Enjoy life. Recognize yourself for it. Just live.

Where’s the Challenge?

The challenge is that socially we have learned so many things that aren’t useful for this, that we frequently we do everything but be kind to ourselves. We judge ourselves harshly. We demand ourselves a level of perfection that we don’t ask anybody else to have. And we are not very compassionate with ourselves, not even in the way we would be with someone we like.

If we do something that doesn’t turn out in the way we expected it, we turn it into a mistake, failure, or dumbness, instead of living it as an experience we can learn from and create a resource.

Instead of looking at ourselves with love and kindness when inexplicable things happen in life like death, sickness, or an accident, we go seeking for explanations that invite us to feel guilty about because we carry a part of the story, because we are loyal to someone, or because we want to feel like we are the boss.

Sometimes we are so hard with ourselves that we put our lives through something completely distant from our dreams. Because we already tried once and we weren’t capable, and we can allow ourselves to make a mistake again, to be ridiculized, to hurt our hearts, or fail again.

A New Look

I used to be like that with myself, and maybe perhaps with others, especially teachers who expected “perfection” and “congruence” until I met Michael and he loved me in the way he did.

He taught me about being nice with one’s self, every second, every hour, every day of our life.

Did you drop the water glass? Instead of saying “what a fool”, he made something. He would stand up and clean, he wouldn’t make a big deal of it, neither would he use it against himself, or against someone else.

Are you late? Instead of being stressed and start far away from his enoughness, he would offer an honest apologie and say “let’s do something good with the time we have left”.

You did your numbers wrong? Instead of annoying himself every day until the next income. He would ask himself if there was a way for him to adjust the budget and what could he make so in the future it was different, or not. Sometimes he would go past his budget to buy me flowers or go get dinner together, and then together we would decide where to make some adjustments.

About to Go Crazy

Maybe if you were raised in perfection you’ll feel like you are about to go crazy by this part of the article. Maybe you think it isn’t possible to live in this less demanding more compassionate way.

And maybe you haven’t realized how crazy and tiring it is to live with so little compassion and kindness for themselves.

You would be surprised how much someone can run over, hurt, abuse their position or hierarchy, if they don’t live to be kind to himself/herself and his/her sufficiency. And it is very simple, it’s really hard to treat others with kindness when they do not treat themselves in this way.

Instead, when you have learned, everything changes. You can look at your contributions and recognize that perhaps you did something that wasn’t useful. You can adjust yourself and try something new, without judging or demanding yourself. And since life isn’t perfect, you can (every time you manage to do it) be kind to yourself even in intolerance, self-demand, and anger.

So in this Teacher’s Day, my invitation is to remind the most touching and useful lesson I learned from the best teacher I’ve known so far. Be kind with yourself!