The week 3 prompt of the Kindness Challenge issued by Niki of The Richness of a Simple Life was:
to radiate kindness
Isn’t that a lovely image? I loved imagining that for myself each day. Radiating kindness from my heart in a field of golden energy. I imagined it preceding me by a few milliseconds kind of energizing the way AND also sort of buffering the way for energy coming towards me to be filtered through this field.
This wasn’t very much of a stretch for me as I already have a morning practice where I imagine I’m radiating my pure soul signature energy outward from my heart; but it was rather delightful to add this extra layer, imagining kindness rays.
And how did it work? Well I certainly had a lovely week. But truthfully, and I do believe we should be truthful as we examine our behaviors and responses, I don’t often struggle with kindness. I mean that in the sense that I don’t often feel like I have to struggle to invoke kindness – that it’s some huge effort to arm myself with it, or some burden to carry. I feel like kindness and I are old comfortable friends and we’re comfortably attuned to each other’s energy. Kindness is important to me – I want to be met with kindness and I certainly want to be adding to the kindness quotient in our world.
But the tricky and interesting part is that I believe in sovereignty AND kindness and sometimes those things seem at odds with each other. And I’m always interested when that shows up.
I think it can be a disempowering and unhealthy thing to use kindness as a way to abdicate responsibility for your own needs and desires; and I actually see this with rather surprising frequency in loving people on a spiritual path. For some people it is more important to be perceived (by themselves and others) as kind even if it means feeling their boundaries have been violated, or their needs disregarded, or any endless variation of that.
Now admittedly this isn’t the majority of people most folks are dealing with on a daily basis, and yet it’s a large component of my world, and so that’s what I paid attention to. Can kindness be part of the equation when we choose to say no to things that aren’t right-fit for us, or when we have hard things to talk about? That’s what I particularly watched and listened for this week.
For myself I think being intentionally focused on radiating kindness made it much more graceful to say no to something that wasn’t right for me. I think kindness can always be part of that equation, but what I realized with more clarity this week is that it is a kindness to myself to say no when no feels right to me; it’s a kindness to be honest – not making up excuses or trying to “justify” the decision to the other person, but genuine honesty allows the person to understand it’s not a judgment that somehow makes them wrong; and it’s a kindness to model that honoring ourselves as sovereign beings willing to speak up for ourselves.
And in those cases where I bumped up against no from others, or something else that felt limiting, I really felt how radiating kindness allowed all of us to hold those situations without needing to revert to feeling hurt or judged or somehow not right.
I appreciate this is really a very limited subset of interactions in the scheme of a week, but it was helpful to feel like I was looking at things with a new perspective.
Expanding outward from this limited point of focus to comment more generally on what I thought about radiating kindness – I have to say I think it’s a delicious practice. There is always room for kindness, and our world seems increasing starved for it. So let’s radiate away.
As I was thinking about kindness this week and our role in radiating it, I thought about this bit of wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut:
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”
That’s certainly what I want.
What about you? How has kindness shown up for you this week? Sovereignty? Softness? Do tell – you know I love to hear.
What a thoughtful post. I hadn’t thought about how to try to express kindly the need to do something that is opposed to what is asked. Hard problem that one. The Vonnegut quote is marvelous. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
“I think it can be a disempowering and unhealthy thing to use kindness as a way to abdicate responsibility for your own needs and desires; and I actually see this with rather surprising frequency in loving people on a spiritual path”…Deborah, I certainly hear what you’re saying here! There are aspects of this issue to be looked at: those who abdicate power in service to the need to be liked, and boundaries being crossed by people who confuse kindness with weakness to be taken advantage of. Often these behaviors are played out in the same encounter. One of the primary examples of abdicating responsibility in ones life, that I have been witness to, has not come from a person of kindness, but from a person of selfishness, however, I do see many kind people taken advantage of due to selfish people crossing boundaries of behavior for their own ends and the kind people find themselves bound by a ‘code of conduct’ that tells them kind people don’t say NO. You make a great point/observation that it really can be kind to say NO to others, instead of saying ‘yes’ then struggling to meet the request due to an over packed schedule of ‘yes’ that is not in alignment with your own personal needs.
Thank you for this lovely blog post today and for sharing your thoughts on this kindness project. It is truly thoughtful and thought-provoking in an inspiring and uplifting way =)
Ah, that’s a helpful observation of the other end of the continuum Monica! Life can certainly be complex can’t it? I’m especially enjoying this kindness challenge because it’s giving me endless opportunities to practice self-kindness, for all the times I’m in free-fall wobbliness. 🙂 Here’s to healthy boundaries and kindness for us all!
I DO love the image and the idea of physically sending kindness from my body out to others. Personally, kindness shows up in a calm and patient voice with my family when I’m beyond frustrated or tired. 🙂 Sometimes, their small acts stop me in my tracks. It’s amazing how fast kindness can melt anger or irritability. And self-kindness… that is most revolutionary of all.
Kindness is like one of the best super powers isn’t it?! And how lovely when you’re open to receiving it in those moments when you’re teetering near the edge – it makes such a difference. But I think you’re right too when you say self-kindness shifts everything. Wishing you lots of it always Naomi.
Finding you for the first time on the summer challenge road trip. Your post on kindness is a great place to start. After a 1st life starting into a 2nd wife that has lasted 43 years so far, I realized that kindness was a top priority in a marriage. It goes a long way….a phone call to say, I’ll be late, remembering to say thank you, KINDNESS…goes a long way. A great word to meditate upon. See you on the road this summer.
Kindness really does go a long way doesn’t it? I appreciate you making me a stop on your summer “road trip” Stepheny. I’ll be popping by to see you as well, but in the meantime, wishing you a wonderful summer filled with both fun and kindness.
Gosh, you are doing another challenge. After the A to Z I needed to rest. To radiate kindness is something drivers should work at. It is not necessary to be so aggressive on our roads. Just image how happier people would arrive at work if the trip was less stressful. I try to let people in and some seem shocked when you do.
Fran @travelgenee visiting from the A to Z Road Trip, TravelGenee Blog
Thanks for stopping by on your “road trip” Fran. It’s great to be able to incorporate a little more ease into our visiting pace isn’t it?!
Less aggression and less stress on our roadways would really make a difference wouldn’t it. I’m looking forward to the day when all cars are self-driving.
I never thought much about radiating kindness, I guess it is my second nature. And I am a very kind driver, I love driving and I can’t imagine what I will do when cars start to drive themselves? Read a book? Do some embroidery? I pray that they will have some kind of a switch to manual driving. Hugs
I remember you remarking once before Evalina about how much you enjoy driving. Good for you! And I suspect the world of cars and driving would be a far kinder and fun if everyone driving enjoyed it. Let’s have more lane love and less road rage!