Practicing Kindness: The Hack

Kindness as Feeling.

There is a feeling that kindness lives in.

Most of us miss it.

We think kindness is something we do. A tone we use. A behaviour we offer when the moment calls for it. But real kindness is not an action first. It is a state from which we act. A familiar inner feeling. A way of staying close all the time. Then, it exists more like a readily available way of being than an ‘on again-off again’ way of acting.

Kindness works best when it is already present before anything uncomfortable happens. Because there is always going to be a moment when someone reacts or a comment lands awkwardly. Those moments when a boundary is ‘discovered’ or we oddly find ourselves fixing, defending, over-explain, or withdrawing. Those reactions are subconscious because they were learned so early and they have been practiced so often.

But when Kindness isn’t something you do but something you feel, you eliminate the need for a ‘situation’ to occur in order to practice it.

So often, clients ask me; “What do I do in the moment though?” You know, the moment when someone is upset with them because they think their behaviour caused someone else’ reaction… and they kind of hate it when I say: “Sorry, “the ship has sailed.” The very well practiced among us can catch ourselves in the moment. The rest of us? We’ll carry right on losing our minds despite ‘realizing’ that its happening.

Kindness keeps us inside the feeling of peace that already knows how to hold the moment. At its core, kindness has nothing to do with the other person.
It lives in you as feeling.

It begins with a simple recognition. Kindness and awareness are inseparable. Awareness can hear but it can’t be heard. It can see but it can’t be seen. Kindness can be felt but it is only visible through outward acts that are always open to interpretation. That’s why your first responsibility is to yourself. Then, you would never knowingly abandon the feeling of peace emanating from within. You would certainly never trade it for tension, anger, or self betrayal.

Those states are gross.
They flood your body with toxic chemicals. YOUR BODY!
And they fracture the experience of being where you are in the moment.

Who does not want to feel as good as they reasonably can in the moment they are experiencing? And I will never tire of saying that is not selfish.
That is possible.

When you stay loyal to the feeling of peace, the change is palpable. You do not rush to correct, nor do you brace to defend. You don’t abandon yourself to the management of someone else’s emotional weather. You stay in yourself. You remain inside the calm that was already there, and you let the moment move around you. This is where kindness lives. It exists peacefully below the surface in a place no one can touch, unless you let them.

I like this image: You are not the ripple, you are the energy underneath that moves the water.

Most reactions do not belong to the present moment anyway. They are echoes. Memory responding to memory. A raised voice can summon a past misunderstanding. A disappointed tone can awaken an old shame. Suddenly you are protecting someone you used to be, instead of listening to what is being said now. Kindness as a feeling interrupts that reflex. But kindness as action relies too heavily on circumstances.

When you practice 360° Kindness (kindness as a feeling) you recognize the peace as home, and you choose not to leave it again.

From there, your responses are simple.

“I hear you.”
“You sound upset.”
“I understand.”
“Can you say more about that?”

None of these or similar responses escalate anything.
They do not dramatize, charge, or capitulate an energized moment.
They arise naturally because your nervous system is not under threat.

Kindness does not mean saying yes when you mean no.
It does not mean absorbing harm or minimizing yourself.
It does not mean keeping things pleasant at your own expense.

In fact, kindness sharpens boundaries with the intent of connection.
It allows you to feel your truth without flooding or collapsing.
It lets you speak clearly without the brain fog that is caused by cortisol.

When you remain in the feeling of kindness, you can tell the truth without injury. You can listen without disappearing. You can stay present without fearing how someone else will react. This is the strength of kindness. You don’t have to reach for it in the moment because you are already in it. Who wouldn’t want to be?

When I practice kindness this way, I am no longer pulled into unnecessary conflict. As I have no doubt written before, I do not create two hard conversations where there only needs to be one. The one I am in now, and the one I will need to have later to apologize for the things I say when I get dysregulated in the one I am in now!

So, here is the simple (not easy) practice:

Your internal voice is nattering away in there anyway, usually trying to find the answers to questions you don’t really give a poop about. You know the ones… why would she wear those shoes with that dress? How can I be so stupid to have thought…? Why do I always have to be the one that…?
Instead try: What excites me about this thing? What drains me? Will this help me stay in the best feeling I can have or move me out of it?

Staying in kindness is not about getting it right. You don’t control what arrives in the moment anyway. It is a practice. Moment by moment.
Returning again and again to the feeling that frees you.

That is where clarity lives. That is where connection grows.
And that is where you remember that you always have a choice in how you meet the world.