6.

Offering kindness to my grief would look like me curling it up on my lap to be held, warmed, and cocooned. To be kind to my sad self would be to let her be sad - honestly sad. Not "hanging in there" sad, but can't get out of bed today, sad. Kindness would look like holding my own hand and crying with me. Just letting me be vulnerable, honest, and raw with what I'm feeling. To offer kindness to myself in grief would be akin to letting myself stay in bed, turn off my phone, cry, watch an old movie, and sleep. To offer these things would be to gently honor and acknowledge it all. And to not judge any of it. To just let myself be, as ugly as it might look or feel and to love myself anyways. Kindness is hugging myself when I can't stop crying. Kindness is letting myself cry as much as I need to. To be kind to my grief, I have to let it live and breathe. To deny it's existence would be unkind. Kindness can be missing when I don't let myself do the things that grief is craving to do. When I ignore my true wishes because it doesn't match my plan for the day. Kindness is being flexible, changing my plans, doing nothing, and having no judgement about it. Kindness is ignoring the thoughts about how other people seem to be doing okay, and acknowledging that I don't know everything. To be kind to my sad self would be to let myself be honestly sad, and to love myself anyways. Grief has left so many marks on me already, I might as well be kind to them.