The Kindness Equation.
The fascinating thing about love, is that we leave our obsession and fascination with numbers behind. You know it’s love when you stop worrying about the counting, and instead are focused on what you can give, rather than what you will receive.
Because in the equations of humanity, filled with ‘quid pro quo’ and ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’, the concepts of love and kindness invite us to put down our desire for self, and truly step into a place of worrying about others.
And not being so caught up with ourselves.
In my life, I’ve been privileged to see incredible acts of kindness, as well as some pretty despicable acts of greed and selfishness.
As I’ve meditated on the lessons that these examples have bestowed upon me, I realized that although kindness is another emotion that invites us to let go of our need for an accounting, there is a very basic math behind the emotions that drive us to experience and express kindness.
That equation goes something like this… Kindness is the importance of others over self, when the self is in an emotional place to be able to give.
Because when I’ve thought about the times in my life when I have felt and acted upon kindness, it has always been when I have felt ‘enough’ in myself.
Conversely, the times when I have acted without kindness (thankfully they are becoming fewer and fewer as I grow) are times when I have felt ‘less than enough’ in myself, and have in some way felt the need to make myself more.
Usually, unfortunately, by denying someone something I could have given them.
And I don’t mean that in a monetary sense, although that has happened, but more in a sense of giving someone the words or the space that they needed in a time when they felt less than ‘enough’.
Maybe it was giving them the kindness of allowing them the space to share their opinion without fear that I would insert my own over theirs (because I was feeling the need to be right, rather than the opportunity to be present).
Sadly, there are many more examples I could show you.
But understanding the equation of kindness has helped me realize that for someone to act unkindly towards me really means that they are feeling ‘less than’ in some area of themselves.
For whatever reason, whatever sadness haunts their soul, they have chosen to react and restrict their ability to be kind, in some need to fill up a part of their soul that has either a trickle, or a gaping wound.
And if I am feeling ‘enough’ about myself, I can exercise kindness by refusing to allow their behavior towards me to affect how I feel about them. Because really, the way we react towards others is the ultimate expression of how we feel about ourselves.
And the funny thing about kindness, the thing that really makes me smile, is that when I remember to exist and act from a place of kindness, I am in fact extending it to also to myself.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings