Be Kind to Yourself: Quiet the Inner Critic and Find Rest

Being kind to yourself means noticing the inner critic that tells you “you’re not enough” or “you should try harder” — and choosing rest and grace instead of pushing harder. It’s not self-indulgence; it’s recognizing your human limits and trusting that you don’t have to earn your worth. Rest, understood this way, is a spiritual practice, not a reward you have to qualify for.

Why Do We Downplay Our Own Struggles?
Why Do We Need to Know We’re Not Alone?
What Does It Mean to Be Kind to Yourself?
Why Is Rest a Spiritual Practice?
How Do You Quiet Your Inner Critic?
A Moment in the Wind
Quotes to Consider
Questions to Reflect On
Frequently Asked Questions
Further Reading

Sometimes I listen to a person sharing something of their life, and I think they deserve a medal or an award for what they have been through.

We hand out awards for bravery, sports, business leadership, and the arts — but not for those who have faced the grit and grind of ordinary life. I hear, at a heart level, the failures, successes, regrets, moments of passion, and moments of sheer exhaustion. Yet they keep going. It’s a humbling experience to go deep into the struggle of another’s life. There is an invite, in that moment, to say “well done.”

Why Do We Downplay Our Own Struggles?

People often downplay how amazing what they’re carrying really is — not out of modesty, but out of a genuine unawareness that what they’re doing is remarkable at all. It sounds something like this:

“Raising three kids on my own — not that big a deal.”
“My wife has had severe depression for 25 years of our 30-year marriage — not that big a deal.”
“I’ve had psychotic thoughts for ten years now. It’s a struggle, but not too bad.”
“I started going to counseling five years ago for PTSD from childhood sexual abuse. It’s tough, but it’s not that bad.”
“Other people have it worse off than me.”

I want to say to them, “You’re amazing.”

Why Do We Need to Know We’re Not Alone?

There is often a pull to self-isolate — to hide away with our struggles. Rugged individualism has an allure to it: “I can do this on my own.” Yet at the full-stop point, the place where you run out of resources, there is a need to reach out and seek help. “I can’t do this on my own.” Only in the movies does the self-made superhero exist.

Most of all, we need others who say that they are with us. They may not be able to magically solve the problem or heal the hurt, but they can offer to wipe away the tears of exhaustion. They are there to be there for that moment.

What Does It Mean to Be Kind to Yourself?

Can you, for a moment, look at the grit and grind of your life and rest yourself in a bath of kindness? Perhaps there is a little voice inside you saying you’re not enough — that you don’t measure up, that you’re a failure, that you need to try harder.

Maybe you have a list of measurements you feel you have to hit to know you’re doing okay: a daily quiet time, reading the Bible, praying for a certain number of minutes, attending certain church events, giving a certain amount of money. Being kind to yourself means you can drop these for a moment. No one is going to jump on you and kick you off God’s team. If you have critical people like that in your life, it may be time to find a healthier group of people to be friends with.

Why Is Rest a Spiritual Practice?

For six days, the creative team behind the universe worked and built. It was truly unique what they created — mountains and microbes, stars and snails, a man and a mouse. What a burst of energy it must have been, furious love exploding out everywhere.

Then on the seventh day, they rested. A deep rest of sitting with each other and soaking in the kindness of it all. They were kind to each other, and to themselves. We still have that opportunity to enter kindness and rest today.

Being kind to ourselves is an invitation to rest with God because we accept our clay-bound human limitations. To be kind to ourselves is to know there is a much larger story going on, that we are part of it, and that God, with creative artistic flair, will bring all things together for good (Romans 8:28). Can you rest yourself in that?

How Do You Quiet Your Inner Critic?

Yet there is still that little critic inside that whispers and shouts a list of expectations:

Do this
Do that
Try harder
You’re not good enough
You don’t measure up
You should be doing this
Why can’t you be like them

There’s no carrot, only a stick that drives the donkey of your life. Please, be kind and stop “shoulding” on yourself. Start to notice the inner voice of the critic and see the influence it has over you. Where did that voice come from? Who was that slave driver? It may be time to learn how to work out of your rest, instead of working toward it.

A Moment in the Wind

Yesterday I had a typically busy day outside, but I stopped for a moment. I noticed a particular wildness in the wind, so I ceased working for a few minutes and let the genesis energy of the wind flow around my face and through my lungs. I was kind to myself, and I rested.

It was a “no” to the “shoulds” and an embracing of the “coulds.” There were options. I could keep on working, working, working — or I could, for the next few moments, become mindfully aware of the presence of God in the wind around me. I was kind to myself, and I rested.

You may be working so hard in life that I can hardly rest with you. Please, be kind to yourself and take a rest.

Quotes to Consider

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” — Socrates

“In the inner stillness where meditation leads, the Spirit secretly anoints the soul and heals our deepest wounds.” — John of the Cross

“Our anguish plays out in our distorted images of our selves, our self-centered compulsions, our need to control, and our illusions about what makes us feel we are accepted or important. In all of this, grace is at the heart of deep change.” — Roger Heuser

“When you compare yourself with others, you have no idea what challenges they are facing.” — Rob Bell

Questions to Reflect On

Are you kind to yourself?
Do you downplay your struggle to yourself?
What would it be like to be fully at rest?

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean to be kind to yourself?

Being kind to yourself means dropping the internal checklist of “shoulds” — spiritual, personal, or otherwise — and accepting that your worth isn’t something you have to earn through performance. It means noticing your inner critic, questioning where its voice came from, and choosing rest and grace over relentless self-judgment.

How do I quiet my inner critic?

Start by simply noticing when the critic speaks — the “you’re not good enough,” “you should be doing more” voice — and naming it as a separate voice rather than the truth about you. Ask where that voice originally came from. Replacing a “should” with a “could” is one practical way to loosen its grip, because “could” restores your sense of choice.

Is rest a spiritual practice in Christianity?

Yes. The creation story describes God resting on the seventh day after six days of creative work, not out of exhaustion but as a deliberate, holy pause to delight in what had been made. Christian rest, understood this way, isn’t laziness — it’s an act of trust that things don’t depend entirely on you.

How can I stop comparing myself to others?

Comparison usually runs on incomplete information — you’re comparing your full inside story to someone else’s edited outside. Shifting focus to your own “personal millimeter” of progress, rather than someone else’s finish line, tends to restore a sense of peace.

Be Kind to Yourself: How to Quiet the Inner Critic and Find Rest

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