Kindness Consciousness
The Kindness Formula
I have something I’d like to share with you that I call kindness consciousness. This is being kind to yourself, so you can be authentically kind to others. Kindness is made up of two main components: compassion and empathy.
Compassion is connecting with yourself and others by really understanding that person’s situation. The connection of compassion opens our hearts. Empathy is feeling what the other person feels. This helps us connect on an even deeper level.
To make it more visual, compassion opens the door from my heart to yours, and with empathy, I feel the emotions in your heart as if they were my own. When we have both of these components together, we get kindness.
Healthy Boundaries
As you go out into the world giving kindness to yourself and sharing it with others, it is important to set healthy boundaries in the process. Whereas we do wish to be kind to everyone we encounter, we do not need to open the door to our hearts fully to just anyone. We can practice compassion and empathy from a distance without becoming vulnerable to others who may not be emotionally or otherwise safe for us.
As discussed in a previous blog (Empath or Codependent?), at the point where the empath senses emotional danger and mistrust, if they do not make the choice to set a boundary and create space/distance, they will begin the slippery yet subtle transition from empathy into codependency.
The codependent person builds layers of denial around another person's unhealthy and/or unsafe behaviors, and then creates a situation in which they can actually become consistently victimized. On a similar note, when we are engaged in people-pleasing behaviors, we end up really being “nice” to others instead of demonstrating true kindness. (See more on this in Don’t Be Nice, Be Kind)
In order to set proper boundaries with others in our kindness consciousness, we must first have empathy for ourselves, feeling our own emotions deeply and giving conscious validation to ourselves for having them. As we do this, we are able to tune into our authentic selves and realize when there is the intuition of danger and/or an emotionally unsafe situation with others. When we sense danger, we create a boundary and practice kindness from a safe emotional distance.
The Dalai Lama
When Buddhists (especially the Dalai Lama) discuss compassion, they speak of it in terms of connecting with another person where they are in their current state of mind. Even when we disagree with them or we “don’t like” their ways of being, we can still Love them. In fact, we don’t need to, and we’re not even supposed to, like everyone and everything we come into contact with. When we choose to Love them, however, it is a beautiful thing. We do this first by connecting with Love for ourselves, so that we can give that energy through ourselves out to others.
When we give the empathy and compassion of kindness to others, the world becomes a better place. I don’t mean this as some kind of cheesy phrase or meme—I mean it quite literally. When we are kind to others, we create a real positive shift in their energy. As they receive this Loving energy, they have more space to feel for themselves without judgment, and more to give to others as a result.
It’s a virtuous cycle of giving and receiving the intrinsic Love of kindness. When we show kindness to ourselves, our families, our friends, our coworkers, our clients, and others in our communities, it spreads on through them and beyond. In fact, I’ll give you an example of how just a single person can affect the energy of thousands.
I saw the Dalai Lama at the hockey arena in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in the early 2000s. There were literally 10 or 15 thousand people there to see him, all of us with great respect and anticipation. There were a lot of serious-looking people, some of whom were wearing traditional Buddhist robes and were likely very respected within the Buddhist community. These individuals seemed to feel a sense of reverence and seriousness for the event, as I did not see any of them smiling.
When the Dali Lama came out, he was smiling, laughing, and Loving. He embodied the essence of compassion and empathy. My vibration quite literally was lifted (I could actually feel it) just by being in the same room, as I listened to him speak and watched as he displayed such positivity with ease and grace. He had so much compassion with himself and others that he was able to shift the energy of thousands of people during his talk. Who knows how many more were touched by that energy as the people in attendance left the event with higher vibrations and positive emotions.
Practicing Kindness
So back to this concept of kindness consciousness—as you go out into the world the rest of this week, try to be conscious of the way you feel about others around you and how you treat them and yourself. Choose kindness; that is, choose compassion and empathy. Think about how it makes you feel, and how it might have been had you not chosen kindness.
In my experience, choosing kindness always yields a better outcome. Remember that even in the Loving energy of kindness, it is both ok and necessary to set healthy boundaries to keep yourself and others safe and in integrity. I hope that your kindness consciousness raises your vibration, and that, in turn, it also raises the vibration of the people around you.
Much Love,
Noel Neu, The Songwriting Therapist™