,,, but I ended up fixating on a certain aspect of kindness and the barriers I saw in my which I have yet to find a resolution for.
Bowing out of the fun Kindness competition
So first, let me say that while I am using the title of the competition this week as part of the #dreemport - c/kindness collaboration my thoughts went in a slightly different way and hence I ended up too late for the contest. To be honest it might not fit the contest itself, cause I love the positivity and can-do attitude of all the entries that I have seen, and this does not feel right in that vibe. I am still sticking to the topic as my title cause that is what started this entire avalanche of thoughts. Also posting it here in the Kindness channel so that we can have a discussion around it.
Barriers, which are the worst of them?
There are many barriers on the path to practice kindness. The ones that pop up easily to our minds are real life pressures like a society based on the money making worth of a person, a society focused only on survival of the fittest, people who do not see anything wrong in taking advantage of others, situations which are catch 22 for normal people between being kind and taking care of their family, and many more.
And that was the my initial plan. Go through this obvious and evident barriers, discuss about some of them and try to work out the solutions.
However some things were happening in my personal and professional life which made me think in another direction. Now none of what I was going through was extraordinary, rare, or out of the blue. However this time I was more sensitive to it, probably cause I have been trying to understand self-kindness for more than a month now, looking at it in a new light.
And that meant I obsessed around the idea of "what is self Kindness" and "What is not self kindness" this whole time, even forgetting to put down a journal as per my earlier plan. And the issues which popped up have just made the inner dialogues even more circuitous.
What better way to pursue further into this than to share with my darling community who have a focus towards kindness. I will be honest and say that it was not my first choice. My natural instinct was to write in private to @gregscloud and check these matter with him directly. On reflection , this approach felt wrong to me. Though it was my first instinct, I felt it will be more transparent if I share my thoughts with the whole community.
So please treat what follows as my brainstorming thoughts, with a danger that it might not be coherent or lead anywhere :)
Self-kindness - does everyone understand it enough for it to not cause pain?
It took me some time to accept the truth that self kindness is important. One might even say it is critical for the well being of a person. However, though I appreciate this point intellectually, years of looking at consideration to oneself to be a selfish act, is a major prejudice to get rid of. And for what it's worth, I trusted the people who spoke about self kindness to accept that my age old belief might not be the most healthy way of looking at life.
However when a lot of life is built around the idea of sacrificing for each other this idea can make one imbalanced. Let me try to exemplify my thought. If I am honest about self kindness I need to say NO at times, or do an action I believe is imperative and important for my mental well being without which I am of no use to anyone else (the "first put on your own oxygen mask, before putting on mask for someone else" idea) However if the action is cutting off a request, or an expectation, from family or people dependent on you the very action can seem rude and unfeeling, and probably selfish. I mean before someone explained the logic I am sure every single person would think that a mother putting on oxygen mask first, before putting it on her child, must be very selfish and only care about themselves.
So my first concern is that this aspect of how self kindness can be at times hurtful to someone around us, even if it might be due to wrong expectations from them. In a plane the message posted on the panel informing people to first put on mask themselves absolves people of concern of being selfish for what needs to be done. How to look at something equivalent for self kindness. Just discussing about it does not feel strong enough to get through to someone who might just decide you are just being selfish. I guess therapy can help but I am trying to think of how to do it normally. I have no answers yet and hope to get ideas from you in the comments, or in your own posts.
Self-kindness - what if the self corrupts the kindness?
My second internal barrier is a self reflective one. As I was saying earlier I believe in self kindness because of the people who explained it to me. And I trust them, and implict in that trust is my view that they know the meaning of self kindness.
And probably in my interaction with the larger world I am as honest and trustworthy. I do try not to wear a mask, especially since I have the privilege that allows me to not be anonymous or behind a mask. I do appreciate how some people might not have that privilege. Still overall it is with friends and acquaintances and they don't necessarily see me in a corner looking ugly.
But close family and very close friends do see it. And these are people you cannot disconnect from to recharge or calm down at times. In such cases I worry whether what I am trying to do is true self kindness, or is the self part more powerful unconsciously (especially when in a defensive mode) and all I am really being is selfish. Considering my role in society I might even think that the misogynistic or patriarchal, as well as classist culture that has always surrounded us have made me blind and entitled to things that probably are not equitable in a more liberal sense.
Now people who are kind to me might say that the fact I am thinking and writing about it shows I might be on the right track. But I worry that I might just be fooling them and fooling myself. And mainly I worry that what might be self kindness for the broader situation might become selfishness in close knit situations.
So I guess my question to myself is how much of the self care am I looking as a basic necessity, and how much of the self care I am demanding as a luxury. Maybe it is just me who thinks of this. But if you do have some thoughts do share as it will help me.
So does this mean the internal barriers doom self kindness
This is not to say that I will not practice self kindness. Not only will I continue to try my best to practice it, I will practice kindness on others by evangelizing self kindness to them too. However this thought exercise made me realize that there is a lot of scope that is ambiguous to me. Not just of self-kindness, or even selfishness. The very idea of what is rights and valid expectations of a self, and what are entitlements that make no sense, is something that I have not really reflected on in the midst of the whirlwind life of studying and earning. I find that my idea of self is probably too shallow which has both made me be demanding of both others and of me. So somewhere in the future I need to really establish for myself what my self is, and what it's valid expectations are. And be brave enough to discuss it with my loved ones. Seems a lofty goal, but lets see. Since it is a journey getting kicked off through kindness it just might get me somewhere.
All's well that begins right
At least that is what I am hoping for. Thanks again to @gregscloud for his passion for kindness that made this entire whirlwind enter my life. And thanks to the @dreemport team as well as all the community members who made the kindness month such a success. Their posts are truly wind beneath my wings in this journey, as is this community. I can only hope that such a right beginning can only lead to the answers I am exploring. Thank you all for reading this brain dump. Any and all thoughts on this are welcome, so please feel free to add your inputs.
Image Source: Image was created by me in Open.ai using my prompt and is pointed to the version stored by OpenAI.