Treat Yourself Like Someone You Love

Treat yourself like someone you love is a guide in blog form to self-compassion for people who are far kinder to everyone else.

In honor of Valentine's day I thought self love would be a great topic! Plus, our brand gut love is rooted in evidence-backed prebiotic and probiotic strains designed to help you bridge the fiber gap and show your gut some love.

Speaking of Valentine's day, if you are looking for ways to show yourself (and your gut) some love - read through the end and I'll share my top gut loving and self loving gifts!

Treat Yourself Like Someone You Love

Imagine your closest friend calls you in tears. She has had a hard week — she made a mistake at work, she is exhausted, she feels like she is failing at everything. What do you say to her?

You probably say something like: "That sounds really hard. You have been carrying so much. One mistake does not define you. I am so proud of how hard you are trying." You say it and you mean it — because you can see clearly that she deserves that kindness.

Now think about the last time you had a hard week. The last time you made a mistake, felt exhausted, wondered if you were failing. Or maybe you had gut symptoms and were left doing "gut symptom math" - trying to figure out what caused your recent uptick in symptoms.

What did you say to yourself? And more importantly, how did your self-talk feel?

For many of us, the answer is very different. The voice we reserve for ourselves is sharper, less patient, less forgiving. We speak to ourselves in ways we would never tolerate from anyone else — and we have been told, somehow, that this is what high standards look like.

It is not. And learning to treat yourself like someone you love — genuinely, practically, imperfectly — may be one of the most important things you do for your wellbeing, your relationships, and your life. This post will show you how.

Why Is It So Hard to Treat Yourself Like Someone You Love?

The gap between how we treat the people we love and how we treat ourselves is not an accident. It is the product of years of social conditioning that tells us self-sacrifice is virtuous, self-criticism keeps us sharp, and putting your own needs first is a form of selfishness. These messages are so pervasive — from family, from school, from culture — that most of us absorbed them before we were old enough to question them.

The result is the inner critic: that relentless internal voice that narrates your failures in real time, magnifies your flaws, and holds you to standards it would never dream of applying to someone you love. If you heard a friend speak that way to another person you cared about, you would say something. You would intervene. But when the voice is inside your own head, it can feel like truth rather than cruelty.

"If you heard a friend speak to someone you love the way your inner critic speaks to you, you would say something. You would intervene."

Here is the irony: we genuinely believe the relentless self-criticism is making us better. That without it, we would be complacent. That we need the pressure of our own harsh judgment to keep striving. But research tells a different story.

The Science of Self-Compassion

Treating yourself like someone you love means extending to yourself the same care, patience, and compassion you would offer a close friend — especially in moments of difficulty, failure, or pain. It does not mean ignoring your flaws or excusing harmful behavior. It means responding to your own struggles with kindness rather than cruelty, and recognizing that your imperfection is part of a shared human experience, not evidence of personal inadequacy.

Dr. Kristin Neff, a pioneering researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the world's leading experts on self-compassion, identifies three interlocking components that make up a genuinely self-compassionate stance:

Self-kindness means treating yourself with warmth and understanding rather than judgment when you struggle or fall short — the same warmth you would offer a good friend. Common humanity is the recognition that suffering, failure, and imperfection are universal human experiences, not personal defects that set you apart. Mindfulness is the capacity to hold your difficult feelings in balanced awareness — neither suppressing them nor amplifying them — so they can be acknowledged without becoming overwhelming.

Together, these three qualities are consistently associated in research with greater emotional resilience, higher motivation, better well-being, and — perhaps surprisingly — lower rates of anxiety and depression. Self-compassion does not make you complacent. It makes you capable. When you are not spending energy attacking yourself, you have more left for everything else.

5 Ways You Are Not Treating Yourself Like Someone You Love (Yet)

Recognition is the first step toward change. Read these not as criticisms but as a mirror — a way of naming patterns that most people share but few ever examine out loud.

1. The Way You Talk to Yourself

"I always ruin everything." "Why can I never get this right?" Most people have a version of these phrases playing on a quiet loop in the background of their days. They feel like honest self-assessment. They are not. They are distorted, absolutist, and almost certainly things you would never say to another person you cared about — and would not stand by silently if someone else said them.

Your internal monologue has no exemption from basic decency. The words you use about yourself, repeated daily over years, shape how you understand yourself and what you believe you are capable of. That is not a small thing.

2. The Way You Respond to Your Own Mistakes

Real accountability — the kind that actually leads to growth and repair — requires some compassion for the person who made the mistake. You cannot access genuine remorse, learning, or change from a place of pure self-attack. Shame says "I am bad." Guilt says "I did something I want to make right." Only one of those is useful. The other just adds suffering to the situation without correcting anything.

Think of the most effective, caring parents, teachers, or coaches you have ever seen. They do not punish indefinitely. They address what happened, they support better choices, and then they move forward. That is the model — not endless self-flagellation.

3. The Way You Neglect Your Own Needs

Skipping meals to stay productive. Running on insufficient sleep for weeks. Cancelling rest because there is always more to do. Saying yes to others until there is nothing left to give yourself. These habits tend to feel virtuous — like evidence of dedication — and yet you would not watch a friend do them without concern.

You would not tell someone you love that they have not earned a break. You would not tell them their need for rest is a weakness. Examine where the message came from that you are somehow different — and whether it has ever actually served you.

4. The Way You Dismiss Your Own Feelings

"Other people have it so much worse" is a thought most compassionate people have regularly — and it is both true and completely beside the point. The existence of greater suffering elsewhere does not invalidate your pain here. It just means more pain exists in the world. Your feelings do not require a comparison to justify acknowledgment.

When you tell a friend "your feelings are valid," you are doing something important: you are witnessing their experience without trying to minimize or fix it. Feelings that are witnessed and named tend to move. Feelings that are suppressed or dismissed tend to grow, sideways, into other places.

5. The Way You Set Impossible Standards

Perfectionism is one of the cruelest forms of self-punishment, partly because it disguises itself as virtue. The goalpost that always moves — the achievement that never quite counts — is not a high standard. It is fear wearing the costume of aspiration. And you can usually spot the difference by asking one question: Would I hold someone I love to this exact standard, in these exact circumstances? If the answer is no, the standard is rooted in fear, not values.

A MOMENT TO PAUSE Think of the person in your life you love most unconditionally. Now ask: how would you speak to them if they were going through what you are going through right now? That voice — warm, honest, patient — is available to you. It can be turned inward.

How to Treat Yourself Like Someone You Love: 7 Practical Shifts

Self-compassion is not a feeling that arrives on its own. It is a practice — a set of small, learnable redirections that, repeated over time, genuinely change how you relate to yourself. None of these shifts require perfection. They just require willingness.

01  Speak to Yourself With the Words You Would Use for a Friend The next time your inner critic fires — after a mistake, a setback, a moment of self-doubt — pause. Ask yourself: "What would I actually say to my best friend if this had happened to her?" Then say that. To yourself. This is not toxic positivity or false reassurance. It is the honest, balanced perspective you would offer another person you genuinely cared about — as opposed to the distorted, catastrophizing voice of the inner critic. The shift is not from hard truths to comfortable lies. It is from cruelty to honesty. Try this: Write down what your inner critic is saying. Then rewrite the same message as if it were a letter to someone you love.

02  Respond to Your Mistakes with Accountability, Not Shame Shame says: I am bad. Guilt says: I did something I want to repair. These feel similar from the inside but produce very different outcomes. Shame shuts down growth — it overwhelms the system and triggers either collapse or defensiveness. Guilt is actionable: it points at a specific behavior, motivates repair, and allows you to move forward. The self-compassionate response to mistakes is not "it does not matter." It is: acknowledge what happened honestly, take responsibility, identify what you would do differently, and then — truly let it go. A loving parent does not withhold affection indefinitely over a child's error. They address it and continue. You can do the same for yourself.

03  Honor Your Basic Needs Without Negotiation Sleep, nourishment, rest, movement, connection, time in nature, quiet — these are not rewards you earn after sufficient productivity. They are the conditions required for you to function as a human being. Treating yourself like someone you love means taking responsibility for those conditions, even when — especially when — there is always more to do. Think of it as stewardship. You are the person responsible for the wellbeing of the person living in your body. That person needs care. Consistently depriving them of it is not dedication; it is a form of neglect — one you would notice and name immediately if you saw it happening to someone else. Try this: Identify one basic need you routinely push to the bottom of the list. This week, protect it like an appointment you cannot move.

04  Validate Your Own Feelings Before Explaining Them Away The first movement of genuine self-compassion is acknowledgment. Not problem-solving. Not minimizing. Not comparison. Just: "This is hard. It is okay that this is hard." That is often the thing that most needs to be said — and most rarely is. Emotions that are witnessed and named move through us. They complete their cycle and dissipate. Emotions that are suppressed, dismissed, or talked out of tend to find other ways out — through the body, through behavior, through a low hum of unexplained unhappiness. Being a good friend to yourself starts with actually listening.

05  Set Standards That Come From Values, Not Fear There is a meaningful difference between standards that come from what you genuinely care about and standards that come from what you are afraid of. Values-based standards are flexible, motivating, and forgiving of imperfection. Fear-based standards are rigid, exhausting, and — crucially — never satisfied. No amount of achievement quiets the voice that says it is not enough, because that voice is not tracking your accomplishments. It is tracking your anxiety. Ask yourself: Is this standard I am holding myself to something I actually believe in — something aligned with who I want to be? Or is it something I maintain because I am afraid of what it means if I fall short? The first kind of standard is worth keeping. The second kind is worth examining with great care.

06  Protect Your Time and Energy Like You Would a Friend's If you watched someone you loved running themselves into the ground — taking on too much, sleeping too little, saying yes to everything and no to themselves — you would say something. You would be concerned. You would want to help them protect themselves. That same protective instinct is available to you — about you. Boundaries are not walls or acts of rejection. They are how you preserve the capacity to show up fully for the things and people that matter. When you have nothing left, everyone who depends on you loses something too. Protecting your energy is an act of love in multiple directions.

07  Celebrate Yourself the Way You Celebrate Others Most people are quick to notice and amplify their friends' wins — a promotion, a finished project, a hard conversation handled well, a quiet act of courage. And most people apply a very different filter to their own accomplishments: minimizing, dismissing, moving on too quickly to the next thing, the next benchmark, the next gap between where they are and where they think they should be. Self-acknowledgment is not arrogance. It is the internal nourishment that makes long-term effort sustainable. Noticing what you did well — genuinely, specifically, without immediately qualifying it — trains the nervous system toward stability and motivation rather than chronic dissatisfaction. Try this: At the end of today, write down one thing you did that deserves to be acknowledged. Not your biggest achievement. Just something real.

Simple Daily Habits That Help You Treat Yourself Like Someone You Love

You do not need a dramatic overhaul of your life to begin practicing self-compassion. The following habits are small enough to start today and cumulative enough to change things over time — because the relationship you have with yourself is built, like all relationships, in the small moments.

Morning

Begin the day with one sentence of honest self-acknowledgment — not a forced affirmation, just a moment of honest recognition. "I am tired, and I am showing up anyway." "I did something hard yesterday." "I am still learning." Something true, and something not unkind.

Midday

When the inner critic fires, name it. Not to fight it or silence it, but simply: "There is my inner critic." Naming creates distance. A thought you can label is a thought you are no longer fully inside. It becomes something you are observing rather than something you are.

Evening

A one-minute self-compassion check-in before sleep: How did I take care of myself today? What did I need that I did not give myself? If I could do one thing differently tomorrow, what would it be — and can I hold that with curiosity rather than judgment?

Weekly

Write a letter to yourself about something you are currently struggling with — written exactly as you would write it to a close friend going through the same thing. Sit with it. Reread it the next day.

Ongoing

Notice the language you use about yourself in everyday conversation. "I am terrible at this." "I am the worst." "Of course I forgot." These phrases feel like throwaway self-deprecation, but they compound. The words we speak out loud about ourselves shape the words we believe in private.

What People Get Wrong About Treating Yourself with Kindness

Self-compassion tends to attract a particular kind of skepticism. Before you dismiss it — here is what the objections actually get wrong.

MYTH  Self-compassion is selfish. Reality: People who practice self-compassion are, consistently and across multiple studies, more compassionate toward others — not less. When you are not depleted by chronic self-criticism and unmet needs, you have more to give. You cannot pour from an empty vessel, and treating it like a character flaw to refill it helps no one.

MYTH  Being hard on myself keeps me motivated. Reality: This is one of the most persistent myths about self-criticism, and research does not support it. Self-criticism activates the body's threat system — the same physiological response as external danger — which narrows thinking, increases anxiety, and undermines exactly the creative, flexible cognition required for growth. Self-compassion, by contrast, is associated with greater motivation and longer-term persistence.

MYTH  Treating yourself like someone you love well means lowering your standards. Reality: It means pursuing your standards from a place of genuine care rather than fear — and that shift, counterintuitively, produces better results. Fear-based striving is brittle and exhausting. Values-based striving, supported by self-compassion, is more resilient, more creative, and more durable over time.

MYTH  I have not done enough to deserve kindness yet. Reality: Self-compassion is not a reward you earn. It is a pre-condition for doing the work — any work. The version of you who is brutal to herself is not producing better outcomes than the version who is kind to herself. She is just suffering more while producing the same results.

MYTH  This is just toxic positivity. Reality: Genuine self-compassion does not deny pain, minimize difficulty, or insist everything is fine when it is not. It acknowledges both honestly: "This is genuinely hard, and I can be kind to myself while I navigate it." That is not positive thinking. It is clear-eyed care.

Treat Yourself Like Someone You Love - Final Words

You would do almost anything for the people you love. You would sit with them in the hard moments, tell them the truth with kindness, forgive them when they fall short, celebrate them when they win. You have probably done all of this, more than once, without needing a reason beyond the fact that they matter to you.

This post has made one argument: you matter to you, too. Not in a theoretical way. In the specific, practical way that makes a difference at ten o'clock on a Tuesday when something goes wrong and the voice in your head starts talking.

"To treat yourself like someone you love is not an act of indulgence. It is an act of integrity — a commitment to bringing the same honesty and care to your relationship with yourself that you bring to the relationships you value most."

None of this requires perfection. It does not require that you suddenly believe in yourself without reservation, or that the inner critic falls permanently silent, or that self-compassion arrives fully formed one morning and stays. It requires only that you practice — imperfectly, intermittently, with growing gentleness — and that you extend to the person doing the practicing the same patience you would offer anyone still learning something important.

Not perfectly. Not all at once. But a little more gently, starting today.

Did this resonate with you? Share this post with someone who needs permission to be a little kinder to themselves.

Valentine's Day - List of Our Favorite Tools to Love Your Gut

Buying yourself gifts is by no means the only way to treat yourself like someone you love - but it's fun to treat yourself on occasion!

Valentine's day is about showing love to those you love, but it can also be a day to show yourself some love and treat yourself! We compiled a list of all our favorite things (with a gut-friendly spin of course) below.

• The Squatty Potty - If you don't have one already, I totally recommend it! Poop positions actually do matter and will help you have better poops!  The squatty potty is famous for changing how the world goes Healthier Posture, Happier Poops + feet up = straight colon = easier.
• GoodWipes - If you are someone living with gut issues, these can be a game changer. I bring them with me when I travel because, hello, airport toilet paper is rough!
• Raaka Chocolate - My all time favorite chocolate - I love their unique flavors! Chocolate in it's whole form is rich in antioxidants and minerals.
• Blue Stripes Chocolate - Yes, chocolate is on here twice because I love chocolate AND... have you ever tried chocolate that uses the entire cacao bean, including the shell? I love the eco friendliness of less waste and the fiber addition is a big bonus!
• Shout out's: One of my favorite people I've learned Self Compassion from is Tara Brach and her book Radical Self Compassion. I also can't help but mention Kristen Neff who I mentioned in the beginning and who wrote Fierce Self-Compassion

I hope you enjoyed our blog and that maybe you are walking away with some new ways to treat yourself like someone you love!

Sources & Further Reading

Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101.

Neff, K. D., & Germer, C. K. (2013). A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the Mindful Self-Compassion program. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(1), 28–44.

self-compassion.org — Dr. Kristin Neff's research hub, including the validated Self-Compassion Scale and free guided practices.