This little post on kindness popped up for me the other day. I wrote it last year on my parent’s wedding anniversary.

As my mom was preparing for her “next assignment,” we talked a lot about the astrocytoma that was consuming her brain like a wildfire.

At one point, she looked at me with her crystal blue eyes and said, “The hardest thing about dying is … after 43 years, I ALMOST have your father trained.”

I’m still laughing at what she taught me in that moment.

Here I am 41 years into knowing, learning to love David and teaching him to love me. There is something to be said for spending a good long time learning to love one person and teaching them to love you.

Kindness gives us a pretty sweet headstart. Kindness is something we can give no matter what our relationship status.

Kindness is love made manifest. I believe that with all my heart. I believe it more the older I get. It can’t be the sticky, put on kindness. It has to be connected to the HEART to be love made manifest.

Sounds right, doesn’t it? Kindness is love made manifest.

Consistently EASY? Not generally for many of our clients.

All kinds of things get in the way. Physical pain, cognitive distortions and all the ways we think people SHOULD be inhibit heartfelt kindness.

Kindness is LOVE made manifest.

Isn’t it worth it to consider and help our clients transcend the ways they inhibit kindness? The question I have found simplest is, “what’s between you and kindness?”

We do have to be careful here not to encourage our clients to engage in the subtle aggression of self improvement. Without awareness of the difference between heartfelt kindness and put on kindness, some people may get caught up in thinking if only THEY change, people around them will change. That’s dangerous territory if they are surrounded by people who could be toxic for one reason or another.

In this situation, like most, we can’t really allow kindness to express itself in our relationships when our heart is not in the right place. So again, what’s between you and your heart being in the right place?

There. Right there. That’s where the conditioned self is at play. What a game of hide and seek! Once we spot it and lean into acceptance and integration, we are HOME. It’s easy then to let kindness flow, love made manifest.

Every year for 41 years, roses on Valentine’s Day. The look of love kindness in David’s eyes as he hands me the roses is truly priceless. It’s a privilege to be loved like this. These roses teach me a lot about kindness.

PM me about spotting and ending the trance of the conditioned self inhibiting kindness. It will change the way you think about really HELPING yourself and your clients make love manifest.

INTEGRATION TIPS:
kind / unkind
kind / insensitive
genuinely kind / superficially kind

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