“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” — Mark Twain
In recent weeks I have come across a few articles on teaching our children “the future skills” of empathy and kindness…and off I went on a huff; it cannot be a future skill. It is a now skill, a now necessity!
Just as vulnerability is often mistakenly thought of as a weakness (“There is no courage without vulnerability” Brené Brown) I have heard people, and sadly often people in business, say “you cannot show kindness, it will be taken advantage of.” In my experience, kindness when shown in an adult manner (think transactional analysis) and not made to sound childlike or patronising, is not taken advantage of.
For kindness to be effective it must be supported by respect & sincerity. If those critical values are not present in kindness, the impact or intent of kindness can go awry.
What is Kindness?
Kindness is being friendly, generous, and considerate to others and yourself. Kindness doesn’t demand hard work. It originates from the simple act of doing no harm to others. It involves judging less, however compelled you might be to do so.
The ego is quick to judge when it is victimised and hurt, so it retaliates in revenge.
Kindness, however, bites its tongue. It does not seek to be right but to preserve peace of mind.
You gain little by giving someone a piece of your mind, other than inciting conflict and separation. Kindness is about giving honest feedback when doing so is helpful to the other person.
As always, I have done a fair amount of reading on the topic before writing this, all the literature tells you that both the giver and the receiver of kindness benefits from it. It is an elixir for happiness, a good heart and most articles quote, good health. And you will say well that is stretching it a bit now, well actually not. When we are happy the following very helpful and healthy hormones are secreted, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin. The healthy happy “drugs”.
We know that stress can lead to burnout and many other illnesses, so is showing kindness in the workplace and in life then not an antidote to stress and poor health?
We can tell our children and our managers about the importance of kindness and then we can erase all that when we ourselves do not model kindness in our lives. Talk is cheap. Children and our management teams learn so much more from what we do than from what we say.
Telling people to be kind, how to be kind and why to be kind (like I am doing now) means nothing and has no impact if we ourselves are not kind.
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness,” stated the Dalai Lama XIV. He continued by saying that if you can’t be kind, avoid harming others. This was stated somewhat similarly by our own Archbishop Desmond Tutu when he said, “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
When I reflect on the people I hold in a high regard, they have one thing in common, they are kind. I have experienced kindness from young people, old people, poor people, rich people, educated and uneducated, all genders and all races. Kindness is not only available as a value, skill or behaviour to some. It is a gift you give yourself and others. Do so generously and always with sincerity and respect.
Finally, the wisdom of Mother Theresa, “People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centred; forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.”
One of my favourite meditations start with,
“May I be filled with loving kindness
May I be held in loving kindness
May I extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others and show them kindness”
So, my wish for you is,
“May you be filled with loving kindness
May you be held in loving kindness
May you extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others and show them kindness.”
Included under the Resources tab is the Loving Kindness guided meditation by Tara Brach. Take the 20 odd minutes you need to listen to it. Save it, you will want to visit it often.
Sincere Regards,
Lou-Anne Lubbe
Find•Your•Wings