Old Happy: "I need to punish myself for feeling stressed."
New Happy: "I need to be kind to myself when I'm feeling stressed."

Imagine you're at a party, looking to make new friends.

What do you think is going to be more successful: going up to people and openly judging them, or going up to them and being kind to them?

We all know that it's the latter. It's an ironclad rule: being kind to others is always the best way to build a relationship.

Yet, for some reason, we expect that rule to be invalid for the relationship we have with ourselves. We believe that we can criticize and hurt ourselves into the self that we want to be. All this does, though, is harm our relationship with that self — because while you can walk away from a judgmental stranger at a party, you can't walk away from the judgmental self that you have to live with.

This week, I hope that you practice meeting your stress with compassion. Here's what that looks like:

Acknowledge it: Remind yourself that it's completely normal to feel stressed. It is an inevitable part of the human experience; there's nothing wrong with you for feeling this way.

You can be a friend to yourself, even when you're stressed. And that friendship will make the stress a far lighter burden to carry.