Hi and welcome strawberrybanana. What a yummy name!

Many will recognize themselves in your post. It reminds me of a recent time when I was walking on my lunch break for exercise. While I was walking, I was thinking and when I tuned in to what I was thinking, I had to laugh: I was berating myself for not exercising more! When I realized it I did smile and kidded myself, saying mentally "Uhhh. Hello! You're exercising right now.. how about being a little kinder!?" lol

It takes practice to learn to be kind to yourself. Begin where you are. Awareness is the first step and you have achieved that: congratulations! Now you can see when you need to practice being kind to yourself, as kind as you would be to another person. You might have to imagine it is another person to let the kindness emerge, then when it does, apply it to yourself. Just keep being aware and practicing and don't judge how you are doing with it; that won't be helpful. Just keep working at it.

Everything is a learning experience. What one person labels as failure, another person sees as a discovery...of what works and what doesn't, what feels good and what doesn't, what is desired and what isn't.