Written by Chelsea Arangcon
It can be easy to neglect ourselves. Everyone can become so focused on other aspects of life, such as school, socializing, and sleeping, that we forget an essential aspect: self-kindness. Not to confuse self-kindness with self-care, for self-care involves self-work that feels dreading but is ultimately rewarding in the end, but self-kindness is what the word means. It consists in being nurturing and kind towards ourselves, despite failing or feeling our insecurities.
UNA-USA CSUF's Women and Girl's Chair, Rawabi Alayed, was dedicated to spreading self-kindness on campus. Perched on CSUF's Titan Walk, our CSUF chapter set up a tabling board that invited students to answer the question, "What words of kindness would you say to yourself?" on November 16th, 2021. Students received post-it notes to write their answers and then offered free candy with attached self-affirmations.
Initially, some people were weary, whether they hesitated to answer the question or did not know what to write. However, some board members were patient and offered them the space to write anything they desired. People began to answer the questions. Some were quietly writing while others were giggly about their answers. Either way, colorful post-it notes began filling the blank poster board.
The end resulted in an array of colorful self-affirmations, whether it was speaking from the point of view of "I" or "you" and some even in different languages. Self-affirmations are powerful, and even though it only took merely a minute out of each student's day, everyone was able to walk away feeling empowered within themselves.
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