Only Kindness

This was another of my wise grandmother’s sayings. It took me a long time to understand how important it is.

Whenever my husband and I argued, I always felt I needed to have the last word. I was sure that if I could just make him understand how I felt, that I was the one in the right, he’d apologise and agree with me; of course, that never happened, however much I screamed at him!

Sometimes, at first, connecting to a kind feeling within you, won’t be available to you either. As you now know, when you act from a place of fear, lack, displeasure or any other ungrounded feeling…the outcome will never be positive.

Soon you will find it easy to reside permanently in a loving space, but until then, staying silent is the very best next thing. This is so simple but goes against everything you’ve learned so might well feel rather odd. Very soon, though, being still and gentle will be the most natural thing in the world for you…and needing to say or do something rash and unthought out won’t. Before following a new peaceful path becomes completely natural, you can learn to remain silent until you feel grounded enough to trust your feelings.

Even though your outrage, resentment, jealousy or other unpleasant feelings will appear very real, allow yourself to remember back to a time when you were happy and peaceful. Just acknowledging that there are times when you feel loving and loved, and being open to the possibility that what you’re feeling in the middle of your turmoil isn’t to be relied upon or believed, will help you to hold your tongue and keep quiet.

It may be worth clarifying here, that I’m not talking about an impolite silence or an arrogant dismissal of anyone’s views, just a steadfastness not to become emotionally involved.

It is impossible to start or maintain a conflict of any sort, if only one of you is participating…your opponent will give up pretty quickly if you don’t fuel their fire. I can’t tell you how much in control and enormously empowered you will feel when you master this.

Clients have told me that they’re worried about becoming, or being seen as weak by not arguing back. I don’t see it that way at all! Defusing a battle is exactly what you, and all your relationships need…close and otherwise. It is why you chose this program.

Kindness is never a weakness, as I once thought too, in fact it shows incredible strength; it’s easy to react with anger or hurt when challenged, it takes a little work on yourself to step back and take a few seconds between stimuli and reaction to choose the best course of action. This tiny gap is yours to use wisely. It’s a small shift that will make all the difference. Learning to take your time to respond is magical. Enjoy it.

You may find yourself bursting to stand up for yourself, but when you remember that nothing said or done in such an agitated space can serve any good purpose, you will see that silence is the answer. When you realise how good it feels not to have been pulled into a fight, you’ll feel no need whatsoever to join in.

I’m sure it is not only others who you bark at and treat unfairly, but yourself too. You are worthy of all the love, gentleness and kindness you can give. Acting without love is a destructive habit and chips away at your self-esteem. You can break the pattern of blame and lack of empathy by refusing to rely on your old and familiar ways of treating yourself and those around you…by choosing kindness, by choosing love.

You will find your life much happier when you give people a bit of your heart rather than a piece of your mind.

Soon, rather than being pulled into your or anyone else’s mayhem, you will be able to maintain your composure and serenity. This is not bottling up your emotions….I don’t believe this is at all healthy, but rather that you simply will no longer be triggered into needing to put your argument across.

Once you learn to retrain your thoughts and are able to choose to act and react with love, you will find that unwanted feelings come less and less often, are less and less intense and stay for less and less time.

As a wonderful bonus, by being kind you are giving permission to those around you to be kind too.

Notice how easy or difficult it is, to stay quiet rather than say anything unkind. Practice on small things and see how much easier it becomes…

Sorry is a very interesting word…

I looked it up in the Cambridge Dictionary. There were two definitions…in this order –

sorry adjective (SAD)

feeling sadness, sympathy, or disappointed, especially because something unpleasant has happened or been done.

Examples :

“I’m just sorry about all the trouble I’ve caused her”

“I feel so sorry for her kids – it must be really hard for them”

sorry adjective (APOLOGY)

used to say that you wish you had not done what you have done, especially when you want to be polite to someone you have done something bad to:

Examples :

“Oh, I’m sorry – I didn’t see you there”

“Tom, I’m so sorry about last night – it was all my fault”

“I’ve said I’m sorry”

When we say sorry…are we apologising or empathising?

Do we know the difference?

It’s amazing how many people don’t.

When someone is sad and you say you’re sorry…

is that because you’re admitting causing them sorrow or because you feel empathy with their sadness…human to human? It will, of course, depend on the situation.

Do you find yourself saying sorry a lot?

This can be a sign that your self-esteem is low…that you assume everything must be your fault, or that you will always back down and bury your real feelings in order to keep the peace.

Or hardly saying it at all?

Interestingly, if you find saying sorry difficult…this also shows a lack of self-worth.
Somewhere deep down, you are afraid of giving anything of yourself away…you need to cling on to being ‘right’.

Some people, who can’t feel able to make an apology, will avoid the use of the word ‘sorry’ in any circumstance…lest it be construed as a weakness…a giving in. Though this may not be conscious.

Remember though, that how, anything we say or do, is taken by others cannot be our concern….

…we can only ever do our best in each moment.

Notice how, and when, you use the word ‘sorry’ and observe your feelings around it. You may find things that you’d like to change in yourself.

It is comforting to believe that others, especially those closest to you, think along the same lines and in the same ways as you do but that doesn’t make it true….and this really is okay….though I remember it was once a deal-breaker for me; I couldn’t bear the thought of opening my heart to anyone dissimilar to me. It’s uncomfortable for many of us to feel we don’t know what people are thinking, so, without realising, we fill in the gaps with what we would feel in their situation.

This is where things start going wrong…

Because I am a very wordy person, during arguments, I perceived my husband, who is naturally a quiet person, as cold and uncaring. He, in turn, perceived me as dramatic and demanding. He often believed I ‘was making up’ how I felt because how I acted was so far from how he would and therefore impossible for him to comprehend or believe. Neither of our perceptions were true, but we both believed, very strongly, that they were….and that very nearly split us up.

We can never know what anyone else is thinking, but because we think we can and like to feel in control, we project our own thoughts onto them.

It is really easy and lovely to believe that when we look lovingly into our partner’s eyes, their thoughts are full of love too, but actually, they could, just as easily, be thinking of something quite unrelated and much less romantic. This is the same as when you’re in a grumpy mood and believe everyone is thinking horrible things about you.

This works at a mundane, daily life level too. I may have mentioned my husband makes a cup of coffee by putting the milk in first and thinks I’m peculiar for adding milk after the water?! Really?

These little things can add up without us even realising it and leave us with an overall impression that others are just plain wrong about many things, as lyrically demonstrated by George Gershwin, in Fred Astaire’s ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’.

I can give you another example from my marriage.

My husband renovates houses to sell or rent and I’ve helped him with quite a few of them. Each evening when we prepared to leave the property we were working on, I spent the last part of my day putting away all the tools that I wouldn’t need the following day, leaving it organised and tidy. He continued working till the last second, and left everything in a complete mess. We both felt sure that our way was correct and had several truly dreadful arguments about it. He thought I was wasting time needlessly, and being ridiculous and nasty continually nagging him. I argued that I was forever falling over and having to clear away his stuff that he no longer needed to be there, so that I could work on my own tasks.

Renovating houses is hard work, especially when you’re no spring chicken and when you’re working against the clock, because time is money. Constant battles made it much harder.

Who would you have sided with? Which one of us was correct?

Maybe, because you’re viewing it unemotionally, you can see that neither of us were right or wrong, we just had different ways of doing things, and that needn’t have caused so much stress between us.

When it’s your own life, this becomes harder because you are so involved, and tempers can run very high. On days when you’re tired, stressed, grumpy and so forth, you will find it much more difficult to be dispassionate about other’s different ways of doing things.

All your relationships become much more harmonious when you see that every little thing doesn’t need to be a bone of contention and that being just a little less judgemental, goes a long way to helping you get along well with people.

The feelings you have about anyone, are only ever about your thoughts in that moment and nothing about them in any way. Equally, their feelings about you are only ever about their thoughts at that moment.

I talk about this a lot…it is essential to your understanding…but I know it is a difficult concept to absorb. It will, however, make a tremendous difference to your life, and to the lives of those around you, so please take a little time to let it sink in. The exercise, Perceptions, will help.

I hope you can accept, at least in theory, that your belief that you need to know what people are thinking and that it has to be the same as you, are no different from any other thoughts. As such, they can be observed and released. Holding onto them, stops you moving forward.

When you are able to accept this as a possibility, even if you’re not sure how to release them yet, their control over you diminishes.

I like you to imagine this feeling of letting go as a helium balloon being freed from your grasp… it’s one less thing you need to concern yourself with…one more step toward freedom and happiness.

Take a little time to think about what perceptions you hold about the people in your life and notice that they come from within you.

Can you see how they have often kept you locked in resentment and unhappiness? And that there may be another way to be?

Revisit this exercise often to remind yourself to be open to new possibilities, and to see how much you have grown.

Until you are able to always step back and observe rather than be sucked into your stories, another useful method of being happy is to fake it! This may sound odd but I discovered how useful it was, many years ago when I taught aerobic classes. Sometimes I would have to teach a class when I felt anything but happy and yet, there was no option other than to be very smily and bright in front of my lycra clad students. I mean, have you ever seen a gloomy fitness teacher?? if you have, I’m certain they didn’t last long in their job!

Whatever my mood or the situations I’d been in immediately prior to my class, I had to bound in, jubilantly, and motivate a group of people who were sometimes feeling very unmotivated themselves. I would jolly myself into amiably greeting everyone, and starting the warm-up. What I was surprised to notice, though it happened every time, was that within just a few short minutes of acting happy, I actually was happy.

We are naturally peaceful, we are only unhappy when we unnecessarily hold onto unhappy feelings. As soon as we forget to, or purposefully let go, we return to our innate state of okayness.

Believing this, is half way to it becoming a way of life.

I wake up happy every single morning now…and before this was completely automatic, I simply chose to notice my grumpiness and allow it to leave naturally when it was ready.

This isn’t about replacing a grumpy thought with a nicer one…it’s about knowing that that simply isn’t necessary. Thoughts, feelings and moods ebb and flow…and you can continue happily living your life regardless…choosing not to watch that particular video screen.

Soon you will wake up in a pleasant demeanor every day and remain that way all day, and in that state, feeling hurt or angry won’t even be on your radar any more; why would it be? It certainly isn’t on mine. This may still seem a little way off for you but actually it is only a small shift in mindset. A small shift that will change your life forever.

This is a lovely exercise. I’d like you to transport yourself back to when you were falling in love with your situation and list exactly what you loved about what or whoever might be troubling you right now…..maybe your partner, your job, your friends, your family or yourself.

Be mindful as you look at whatever has been concerning you, and see it or them with love.

Note – saying you love someone is not the same as feeling it.

Remind yourself to think of and be grateful for all those wonderful things on your list as often as you can.

Leading on from thinking kind and loving thoughts about a certain person or situation, you can choose to think the best of everyone and everything…and when you can’t, be nice anyway. You might be surprised how quickly you really do mean it.

Think of this exercise not as a one-off task but as a mindset, as a lifestyle.

Now you can think loving thoughts about the people and things in your life…to only concentrate on the good points…it’s time to share that with the world.

How often do you tell people how wonderful your partner, daughter or friend is?

Make a conscious effort to tell people about how great your loved ones are, the things they do to make the world, or at least your world, a little better.

I do not mean this in a showing off way but rather that you are comfortable in your own skin and don’t need to either feel competitive or take them for granted.

This will also further retrain your thoughts.