Cultivating Kindness

There are some questions in life that we use to explain or complain. But I’ve taken lately to examining the questions as if they were of great importance, not just a random comment.

I didn’t start with “Why can’t we all get along?”. I started with the question, “what keeps people from being kind”?
That’s what led me to the “getting along” question. I found the answer to one, was the same as the other.

Seek opportunities to express kindness in word and deed.
Dave KerpenInfluencer
Founder & CEO, Likeable Local, NY Times Best-Selling Author & Speaker

Nature or Nurture?

What do you think? Do you think that there’s something we’re born with that makes us kind or not kind? Or is it conditioning in our home environment?

Let’s think further out than the nature-nurture debate, shall we? What triggers unkindness?

I spent an entire day thinking about this question. It wasn’t a situation in which I experienced an unkindness that got me to pondering.

It was hearing myself say to my son, “I just showed someone a great kindness, and I’m feeling inside, the sweetness of having the space to do so”. I went on further to reflect on times when I might have wished later I was kind but “didn’t have it in me” at the time.

What kept me from being kind in the past? Was it simply feeling too rushed, too tired, too overwhelmed by what life was presenting at the time?

While those things may have been true, introspection showed me there was something deeper going on.

When It’s Easy to Be Kind

Have you found, like I did, that it is so much easier to be kind, when things are going well, when you are rested, when you feel loved?

You might assume that fatigue or overwhelm prevent kindness. But no. If you look deeper with me, I think you’ll see what I saw too.

When I’m tired and overwhelmed there’s a much larger companion quality that I believe is the real culprit in both the “why can’t we all get along” and the “why can’t we just be kind to one another” questions.

That sneaky trickster is FEAR; and not the kind of fear that is the body’s wisdom trying to keep us safe. No, this fear is the fear born of some story that we probably inherited from someone else!

Erosion of Kindness

Is the fear of Scarcity, Betrayal, Rejection, and others like these tearing away at your kindness? Have you know others that this is the case?

Do you see how the answer “fear” is the same answer to both the kindness and the “why can’t we just all get along” question?
It’s fear. It’s always about fear. And most often it’s fear we didn’t come to on our own, but fear handed down from someone else.
Crazy thing is, it’s not just about kindness or getting along. Fear actively erodes anything we want to create…if we let it.

How Do We Stop Fear?

Wow, that’s a big question, too big for one blog post.

For one thing, as I mentioned before; there are two kinds of fear. The one that keeps us safe (if we listen and use it well) and the other than just keeps us where we are, playing small and disconnected from a larger, more wondrous life.

But here area  few suggestions, just to play with. See if any of them appeal to those of you who want to live in a kinder world where everyone gets along more.

“For when I can love all of me, I will love all of you.”
Debbie Ford

Take Good Care of Your Body

All real fear, is fear for the body, that it won’t be safe. Help the body feel safe by getting enough sleep, movement, nutrition, water, decompression from stress, and connection (human, pets, nature, the arts) and you will be rewarded, I assure you.
If you don’t know where to start, comment below and I’ll support you.

Cultivate Awareness of Times You are Feeling Fearful and/or Reactive

There is usually a trigger, that if explored, will offer up an old, unhelpful belief; that once seen can be shifted. A new choice can be made and your energy can be uplifted.

Practice Loving Kindness With Yourself

I know, I really do; it’s the most challenging of all, what I’m encouraging here. I know from my own experience and from the experiences of thousands of clients.

And what I’ve found is that the more kind we are to ourselves, the more kindness finds its way to us. Call it Law of Attraction, call it Karma. When you are kind to you, others are too. And it’s easier to be kind to others when you have it already in you.
Same goes for getting along. When you can get along with you…well let me put it this way; when you are not getting along with you, how can others?

So practice finding ways to become your best friend. (smiley face).

“Each aspect within us needs understanding and compassion. If we are unwilling to give it to ourselves how can we expect the world to give it to us? As we are, so is the universe.”
Debbie Ford