In last weeks blog post, I mentioned kindness. I am not big on kindness as I believe that others will view me as being weak, if I were to exhibit kindness.
Then I gave the matter some critical thought.
I have decided to act with kindness just to see what happens. I aim to give it a few weeks and log my journey here.
Week One
Rather bizarrely I have quickly realised that I am not particularly kind to myself. No wonder that I do not suffer fools gladly. I have seen it written, ‘I haven’t got an anger management problem, I have a working with idiots problem.’ and I chuckled, ‘me too.’
Now that I have noticed that I am not especially kind to myself I have relaxed a little. My personal stress levels have dropped which is a win for the ‘being kind’ protocol. A large enough win for me to maintain this for life. (Yes, I do have that much will power.)
Today, a colleague sent me an email which would have caused me a great deal of anger. It caused me none whatsoever. I have been trying not to become angry with my colleagues for several weeks, if not longer. My director is aware of my self stated challenge and he has provided me with gentle encouragement, as has an additional member of staff. Now, as I am trying to be kind, I saw the email as a challenge rather than challenging. How to reply in a kind manner was the thrust of my thoughts. The fact that the email was ‘unpleasant’ was of no real interest to me. The only thing I sought to do was answer with kindness.
Answering with kindness took me around twenty minutes as I struggled with the concept of being kind. Being kind is not a natural state of being for me. Anyway, an email battle ensued and I continued to be kind. I did not experience any concern over my actions or any anger or even the slightest tinge of any emotion at all. I saw it as a great training ground for being kind.
As far as personal stress goes, this being kind thing is amazing. My personal stress is down to zero.
Now, I mentioned weakness earlier. This was a major concern, I believed that acting in a kind manner would be interpreted as weakness. Well, nothing could be further from the reality of the situation. I don’t care if others see it as a weakness, they will soon find out that they are mistaken. To be fully open and honest about this, I sense that they aren’t even aware of my effort to be kind.
I suspect that when people get used to this ‘new me’ they will just see a calm and powerful individual. I am sure that they will appreciate the calmness, self control, confidence and assurance. The word ‘kind’ is not likely to be used by them and I won’t be mentioning it any time soon.
Week Two
This is becoming somewhat unreal. Reality, as I understood it, has pivoted. Ongoing problems appear to have solved themselves. Unrelenting immovable objects have just been walked around.
We have a hard working colleague who I thought could be more useful. Let us try that again with kindness. I have complained endlessly about a colleague who could be more useful, the colleague tends to agree. His caveat is that he must have the right training. After 18 months of stress and anger, we now have calmness. As he never quite gets the ‘right training’ we have decided that he simply cannot do the extra things that would help me. So, we changed the situation to suit the capabilities of our colleague. Wait, what? Really? That was just one unsolvable problem walked around, there were others.
Let us forget about work and consider my forty-four years of weight training with no visible results, in my opinion. I never knew when to train hard, train really hard, give a maximum effort or take a day off. Do I do low reps, medium reps or max reps. How often do I train to failure and how much should I eat. What utter nonsense. Train with kindness and your body will manage the rest for you.
In forty-four years I have tried everything I have ever read about so even if this kindness training doesn’t work it doesn’t matter because nothing ever has anyway. After three days I have nothing to report except that my muscular pains have receded to nothing. Not a great surprise as my workout intensity has been ‘low’.
That is the two main aspects of my life this week covered but I do think a lot. I saw a film, many years ago, where the main character was not Jesus but he did keep popping up. In one scene the main character is being force marched across a dry and dusty area and is begging for water. His guard keeps hitting him and stating to all that no water is to be given.
Jesus appraises the situation and as an act of kindness presents the thirsty man with a cup of water which he accepts greedily. The guard moves to stop this and Jesus shines him a Mona Lisa style smile. The guard stops being aggressive and drops the ‘no water’ rule.
Why do I have this very strong feeling that kindness and weakness are inseparable. Jesus demonstrated that kindness was a more potent form of being than armour, a job title, a short sword and an aggressive manner Why did I fail to see this? Why do I see kindness as something a weak and frail old lady relies upon? Perhaps the old lady has wisdom or saw the same film as me and realised it’s message far sooner?
That was week two and it was a marked improvement upon a ‘normal’ week.
One potentially important thing to realise is that I was kind to myself first in all situations. If I found myself in a situation that I didn’t much care for, I was kind to myself and spared no such thoughts for others. Only once I was happy with a situation did I then extend kindness to others.
I do realise that this sounds selfish and perhaps it is. I have chosen to view it as ‘extending kindness’ and as such, the kindness should be actively present in me before I can give it. This simply means that kindness begins at home or simply put, kindness starts with yourself.
Well that was week two and I look forward to more of the same. I am also curious as to what the long term benefits could be, not just for me but others around me too. Very curious and hopeful of good things to come. Perhaps things could go backwards, who could know such things.
Week Three
No downsides to this ‘kindness’ experiment, which I didn’t expect. To explain further, I am being actively self aware viewed through a lens of kindness.
The primary goal is to be kind to myself and once that is achieved, in any given situation or moment, I can then extend kindness to others.
How others are perceiving this is beyond me. I have also noticed that this kindness lens also helps with listening to other people and understanding them.
I mentioned that I had some concern about presenting to others as weak. I feel that I am presenting to others as powerful. Perhaps it may be more accurate to say that I am displaying no weakness.
I suspect that I have stumbled upon a little known truth, aggression may well be based upon fear. The flight or fight reflex being far too easy to activate. Whereas, true power may well be based upon kindness. Fear is not a stable base upon which to build anything. Fear is temporary. Kindness can be forever and is a solid base upon which to build your life and legacy.
I am not suggesting that ‘kindness’ is the thing that you may wish to embody. It might as easily be respect, thoughtfulness or any other sense of being.
My thoughts regarding how others are perceiving my kindness is that they are presented with a calm, relaxed and thoughtful being. Someone who is not easily upset or offended by others thoughts, concerns or actions. In extending kindness to others, their flaws and weaknesses are not seen as annoyances but simply things I have noticed. (See all but judge nothing.) The word ‘flaw’ is unkind as is the word ‘weakness’. In pointing out and labelling another persons flaws you will no doubt reflect the same mentality at yourself, at some point. Being kind to others reinforces the kindness that I am showing to myself.
Anyway, I have noted no disadvantages to this way of being but noted a great many advantages.
Conclusion
Very interesting that I believed that kindness was somehow directly linked to weakness. When I think of kindness I always visualise an old woman, a grand motherly figure.
I now believe that kindness comes from strength. That strength could be physical, emotional or spiritual. Critically thinking about that last sentence, it may be that strength is amplified by kindness. Well, it is if you believe it is and I do.
Perhaps consider running the same or a similar experiment for yourself?
Thanks for your time.
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