LEAD THE WAY

“From now on your kindness will lead you to success.” This was my fortune cookie this week and it now sits prominently on my desk. This topic has been chasing me lately and needs to be written about.

I have noticed that when I am under stress of any kind, kindness seems to evaporate…… and so does my compassion. They seem to go hand in hand. Also when I get under stress or in fear, I want to control things to manage that stress and fear……and kindness doesn’t much fit there either. When my kindness evaporates, it seems as is everyone’s kindness evaporates also. So here I am again, back at the mirror. It never seems to amaze me how what I notice in people is what is going on with me.

So this week I took the topic of kindness to my men’s group and it was interesting to see how everyone checked in around kindness. Most of the men found ways they were being kind in their lives in some manner, yet when it came time to talk about how they are being kind to themselves or letting kindness in their lives, there is always these long silent pauses which continues to show me how hard it really is to be kind to ourselves. How do we nurture ourselves? How do we let the love in? Those are great questions.

Without fail, it always seems to come back to loving ourselves and how that is for all of us. This touches on that taboo subject of “selfishness” we all grew up with. How can I be functionally selfish and when does that apply? Another great question.

I think today is about questions and not answers, so I will leave you with a question “How are you kind to yourself? How do you let people love you? Well that’s two questions, guess you have something to keep you busy for a while.