S2 EP310 – The Power of Kindness to Change Your Life

 Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here and welcome back to the Inner Bonding Podcast.  Today’s episode is about the power of kindness to change your life.  Be sure to stay to the end to find more about kindness, starting with learning to be loving and kind with yourself.

I love this quote by author Og Mandino:

“Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.” 

Being kind is a simple act, so why isn’t it more common? Why is being caring, kind, and loving to everyone such a challenge for many people? Some of the reasons may have to do with some false beliefs about kindness. Such as:

• If I’m kind to everyone, I will be seen as weak and I will be taken advantage of.  
• If I’m kind to someone before I know whether they are going to be kind to me, I will end up feeling rejected and hurt.  
• If I’m kind to someone, they might think I’m strange or that I want something from them.  
• What’s the point of being kind to everyone with no thought of any reward?

All of these beliefs bypass the underlying reason why kindness toward everyone is so important.

Do you feel happier and more peaceful inside when you are kind to others, or when you are mean toward others or dismissive of them?

The main benefit of being kind to others is that it is actually kind to yourself to be kind to others. When we are being kind to others, our heart is open and filled with loving energy. This feels good!

I’m not talking about the kind of kindness that’s about being overly nice to please others. Sugary niceness often comes from fear – fear of rejection, fear of conflict, and fear of being seen as bad or not enough.

Niceness from the ego wounded self says: “I’ll go along so you won’t be upset.” “I’ll say yes even though I mean no.” “I’ll hide my truth to keep the peace.” This kind of niceness is self-abandoning.

True kindness, on the other hand, comes from love. Kindness does not require you to betray yourself. In fact, true kindness requires integrity. You can be kind and still say no. You can be kind and still set limits. You can be kind and still disagree. Kindness without truth is not authentic kindness, and truth without kindness is often harsh and uncaring.

I’m also not talking about ignoring your own feelings. And I’m not taking about the kind of kindness that exhausts you or asks you to override your truth. It’s not about being polite, agreeable, or accommodating.

I’m talking about the kind of kindness that comes from the loving adult – the part of you connected to love, compassion, truth, and spirit. This kindness begins inside and flows outward naturally. Kindness – real kindness coming from the heart – is one of the most powerful forces available to us. It changes your nervous system. It changes your thoughts. It changes your relationships. It changes your experience of life, because it’s regulating. It calms your nervous system which changes your internal chemistry. It softens your heart and helps you be in the present moment.

When you act with authentic kindness, your stress hormones decrease, your oxytocin increases, your heart rate slows, your body relaxes, and your brain shifts out of threat mode. This is true whether the kindness is directed toward someone else or toward you

Kindness tells your system that you are safe, connected, and not alone, because you are operating as an open, caring, spiritually connected loving adult.

In a world filled with fear, division, judgment, and harshness, kindness is a radical act. It interrupts cycles of reactivity. It disarms defensiveness and invites openness.

Kindness doesn’t mean you agree or comply or stay silent. It means that you are in touch with the inherent lovingness of your soul and enjoy expressing this. True kindness says that you care about your well-being and the well-being of others.

Before we move into the next point, this is exactly why I created my 30-Day Love Yourself course. If you’re looking to care about your well-being and the well-being of others and learn to truly love yourself and share your love with other, this course is something I walk you through step by step. You can learn more in the description below.

When you are being harsh, shut down, or discounting toward others, you might think you are protecting yourself from getting hurt, but acting in these unloving ways is so much more hurtful to yourself than another’s rejection of you. When you deny your true self – your kind, loving, open, and caring self – you are actually rejecting yourself, which always feels bad inside.

Feeling safe and feeling loved are not the same thing. We feel loved inside when we are being kind and loving to ourselves and to others. We might think we feel safe when we are harsh, judgmental, controlling, shut down, or angry, but this kind of safety – the safety that comes from unloving, controlling behavior – actually doesn’t make us feel safe. Not only do we not feel safe when we are unloving, we also feel unlovable and inwardly rejected. We are operating from separation rather than oneness.

Many of you know that there is a level at which we are all one.

Just like all the cells in our body make up our whole body, so each soul is a part of the whole. We are each an individualized spark of the Divine, and each of us is vitally important to the whole that is the Divine.

If you were hurtful to one cell in your body, that would affect your whole body. You cannot hurt even a tiny part of your finger without it affecting how you feel. The same is true of hurting others. We cannot harm another without harming ourselves – without hurting our soul that is also, on the spiritual level, connected to everyone else’s soul.

We cannot value and cherish ourselves when we treat others with anything less than kindness and caring. Likewise, we may have a hard time being kind and caring with others if we are treating ourselves badly.

Many people try to be kind to others while being unkind to themselves. They criticize, shame, and judge themselves, pressuring themselves to be different. They use various addictions to numb their feelings instead of learning how to take loving care of their feelings and needs. They blame others, seeing themselves as victims, and this unkind inner world is draining.

Do you speak to yourself with gentleness and open to your feelings with a desire to learn what they are telling you, instead of judging them? Do you compassionately comfort yourself when you’re hurting? Do you rest when you are tired? Do you say no when asked to do something that you don’t want to do or that isn’t loving to you?

Self-kindness is not self-indulgence. It is self-responsible. It says:
 “I will not abandon myself.” And when you stop abandoning yourself, your life begins to change. You feel safer inside. You make better choices. You stop tolerating unloving behavior. You stop acting from fear.

Kindness toward yourself is the foundation of emotional freedom, and the foundation of being able to be truly kind to others. 

If you find that you are not able to be kind to others, open to learning about how you are treating yourself. Are you harsh and judgmental toward yourself? Are you projecting this harshness onto others?

You will find it much easier to be kind to others when you are being kind to yourself, and you will find it much easier to be kind to yourself when you are kind to others, with no agenda attached.

Kindness is one of the fastest ways to move out of the wounded self and into the loving adult. It doesn’t require insight or analysis. It only requires a willingness be present in your heart and soul and express the truth from your inherent caring. 

From a spiritual perspective, kindness is love in action, so kindness is a spiritual practice. It’s one of the clearest expressions of connection with spirit. Spirit is kind, gentle, patient, and compassionate. When you choose kindness, you align with that energy. Kindness opens the heart, and an open heart is where guidance flows.

Kindness can truly change your life! It changes how you talk to yourself, how safe you feel in your body, how you make decisions, how you relate to others, how you experience the present moment, and how connected you feel to spirit. Kindness creates a life that feels gentler, truer, and more peaceful, not because life stops being challenging – but because you stop being at war with yourself and align with your true loving self. A life rooted in kindness is a life rooted in love.

If today’s episode resonated with you and you’re ready to learn to love yourself and others and extend kindness to yourself and others, I invite you to check out my 30-Day home study Course that teaches Inner Bonding: “Love Yourself.” This course will teach you how to love yourself, so that you can authentically share kindness and love with others. It’s designed for anyone who wants to be kinder and more loving to yourself and others, and helps you learn the powerful self-healing Inner Bonding process. You’ll find the link in the description. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings on your healing journey.