Kindness is a concept that I hope you think about every day of the year. The day this blog posts is Christmas. This is a season of joy. Love toward all. It’s been a challenging year and there’s been a lot of negative stuff to navigate. We can still stop, take a breath, and remember the intention of this season.
What is kindness? It isn’t “being nice.” Yes, when you’re being nice you can be kind at the same time, but I’ve seen a lot of so-called “nice” gestures that were not done out of kindness. You can open a door for someone while thinking how stupid it is that society expects you to do things like this. You can donate to a charity while being resentful of the gesture.
Kindness is deeper than niceness. Kindness is encompassing. It wraps you and the person you are being kind to in a blanket of love and warm fuzzies. When you are truly being kind you relax and anger falls away from you.
Many people tell me they can’t be kind to people who aren’t nice. They say they just can’t be kind to someone whom they dislike. They tell me they would feel fake. Well, then you aren’t being kind. Kindness isn’t fake. Nice can be. But kindness is felt in every cell of your body.
How do you learn to be kind to all people? Even the ones who have harmed you or someone you love?
Become curious. A bully is someone who is in pain. Can you find empathy for someone in pain? Can you find kindness for someone in pain?
I used to be a bully. When my therapist pointed this out to me, I was shocked, dismayed and in denial. Then I thought about it. And the shame overwhelmed me. I had exerted aggressive power over people in service positions for so many years. I took my frustrations out on them and it was so wrong. Talking to my therapist she asked me why I felt I needed to have power over them. What!? That’s not who I am! I’m kind and loving and, and, and…and a bully.
That day ended that era of my ego. As a side note, this is why coaches and therapists are so damn important – we can’t always see ourselves clearly, and sometimes need an objective eye to help us look in a real mirror, not the funhouse one we’ve been looking in for years.
The next year after that realization, I went into yoga teacher training. One of the first things we talked about was Karma Yoga (look it up, it’s a real thing). In Karma Yoga we work to be intentionally kind. Not nice, kind. Not niceties that are based on automatic habits. Kindness with awareness.
I started practicing this like a boss on any service person who came near me and felt an intense sense of relief. Then there was the day of challenge, I was headed to T-Mobile to get a new phone. I’m a self-professed technophobe, although it has been pointed out to me that once I get past that limiting belief I do pretty good with tech.
Cell phones are a huge anxiety trigger for me. I’m not going to go into the details, but let’s just say that the last time I had gone to get a new phone, 4 years prior, I had given myself a panic attack.
This time was going to be different. I set my intention. No matter what, I was going to be okay. I was going to be kind to the clerk who was helping me and doing the best that he could with what he had. I was not going to be rushed. I was going to be curious about the process. I was going to be present and aware.
It was ah-maze-ing.
No joke, I felt like I was on a kindness high. It took an hour and half overall to buy the phone and transfer all of my data to the new one. I had decided that didn’t matter. There was no reason to become anxious or angry, because things take time. All in all, I left that store feeling a lightness I don’t think I’d ever felt before.
There aren’t enough words to explain how life-changing this was for me. I want you to feel this. Please don’t start saying, “I can’t do that”, or “sure, but you’re a coach and a yogi, of course you can do that, not me”, or “that’s just not who I am”. Bull shit.
You don’t want to do the hard work yet? It’s okay! File this away for when you’re ready, but don’t say you can’t until you’ve really truly tried. And tried. And tried. You deserve this.
Step one: Set an intention at some point in your day. Choose the beginning of the day and decide who you want to be or how you want to meet the day. Or just before going into a meeting. Just before seeing your mother. Before the kids get off the bus. Before you address a difficult topic with someone. Set the intention of how you want to show kindness, empathy and curiosity about how the other person is feeling.
Step two: Get in there and do it. Move slowly. Speak mindfully. Intentionally smile from your heart not just in your face. Project love and peace to the people you come in contact with.
A few helpful hints that I use: When someone cuts me off in traffic or doesn’t use a turn signal, I get a little triggered. As soon as I notice the negative thinking I stop, take a deep breath and direct the Meta Prayer at the other person “May you be well, May you be happy, May you be peaceful” over and over.
I also talk to myself pretty much constantly. Often in the form of questions. Do I need to get angry right now? Do I want to feel like that right now? Will it change anything? Do I feel like I need to prove something to someone? Can I let this go and move on? Will it kill me to be kind? Will I die if I don’t cause a ruckus because I want this party to be over? Can I survive the time that it will take for this thing to run its course?
And that’s just a few of the questions. I bet you can come up with some great ones and I’d love to hear them. DM me on Instagram or email me at kate@soulfulspacecoaching.com with the questions you use to slow yourself down and make conscious, intentional choices about how you want to be.
If, when you give this a try, it simply does not make sense, know that you have not done anything wrong. This is tough stuff. Contact me and we’ll coach you toward your goals. You don’t have to do this alone.