Kindness seems to be a bit of a theme this week, I love it. I feel like this meme from Byron Katie generally sums up my feelings about it but I felt like adding my two cents anyway, as I often do, ha ha ha. MwwwaaAH!
To me, kindness is really just love, and like abundance, love always wants to share itself. When you make love a life goal, beginning with loving and accepting yourself, and working towards living more and more in your heart, kindness is a bi-product of that work. I especially feel like a champion of love when I feel genuine kindness towards someone who has felt like a challenge in my life. For me, understanding that love and happiness always want to share themselves makes it easier to see a challenging person with love. Happy people wish for everyone to feel happy. People who feel loved, want everyone to feel loved. When I remember this, it becomes easier not to take unkindness personally, and to work towards meeting it with kindness.
Kindness to me isn't necessarily about taking care of others, physically or emotionally, it can be, but sometimes it's just about trying to see the best in people whether you like them or not. It can mean having compassion and accepting people wherever they are at, sometimes from afar, and wishing for the best for them. Sometimes it means keeping one's mouth zipped and staying the hell away from them, ha ha ha. I am always working on speaking from my heart, and with honesty, but also with discretion around what I choose to say, or not say... pausing and asking myself is this useful? Am I pushing an agenda or speaking from my heart?
Sometimes, for me, kindness really is about keeping a healthy boundary. If I feel that my presence, actions or words are not wanted or valued, or if I feel taken advantage of, or any kind of resentment, it's best to step away, clean my own internal shit up and then assess whether to talk it out or if it's best to simply offer love and light from afar. Kindness without boundaries, or showing kindness towards others at the expense of kindness to our own sweet self, well that is really just codependence, which I have found does not often end well, lol.
What is kind in any given situation really depends on the individual situation in that moment but, imho, genuine kindness always comes from the heart, it feels like inspiration, and it gives space to whoever needs it. Love, love and more love to all y'all.
