While I try to practice kindness and be kind, it is shocking to me how often and how quickly I can become unkind.
The flow of events is well known to me, if I care to sit and think about it. I fixate on a person or a group or an idea (and the people ultimately that the idea represents). I become focused on it, then aggravated about it, and the first thing I know I am into unkindness Maybe not to their face - somehow I find I lack that particular courage - but I think of and speak of their flaws, their behaviours, even their personality. I make judgements too often based purely on the outward rather than a full set of data.
I have written of this before of course, this not knowing what everyone else is facing and thus what is impacting their lives. People - myself included - come into every situation with long term and short term baggage, and sometimes an encounter is simply catching someone at the wrong time.
I write this. I do not practice this as much as I should.
The key, I think, to breaking this chain is twofold:
1) The first is to recall how kind God is to us. All the time, even knowing our backgrounds and our long and short term baggage. If He knows all of that and yet continues to shower us with love and kindnesses (chesed), we can probably at least try to do the change.
2) The second is simply to break the chain. When I start to fixate, I need to stop immediately. Nothing good ever comes of thinking about how a person aggravates you. It immediately diverts me into a track that runs into a dark and tortured place, if I allow it.
If given a choice between starting the fixation and the grumbling or choosing to stop it and choose kindness, I always need to choose kindness.
After all, no act of kindness is wasted.
Aye TB, stopping that chain of thinking is the nub of the matter. That fixation on what's wrong with someone else, I have a difficult time with that myself.
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - The idea of a chain is really from Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit (Prompt - Routine - Reward). In this case it is figuring out how to stop that prompt - annoyance, anger, just plain "I do not like this person" - and replace it with something else (I suspect this is where that "Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you" comes into play...).
DeleteThat chain.... I was late to a very important deadline due to missing a turn. I was rushing down 35 in San Marcos way too early. A young lady decided to police me down to well below the speed limit. I almost stroked out. After she cut across all the lanes of traffic to make her escape exit, I had a new thought. If I had a knife in my leg and was trying to make the ER, she'd have been keeping me from help. If I was trying to get to the hospital to say my last goodbye to a dying relative, she'd have been stealing a moment that would never come again. At that moment, I quit thinking badly about speeders. I have no idea why they are pushing so hard. I pray for them to make their destination safely, and protect those in their path as I do what I can to get out of the way. It took ALL the sturm und drang out of the situation. It gave me peace. Not presuming a motive.... maybe being kind splashes back onto the giver at times.... Happy Sunday!
ReplyDelete"Presuming motive". What a good thought, STxAR. I do presume motive too often, when more often than not I really do not know.
DeleteIt makes one feel all the more worse when you do get the back story and so often it is one that makes the nature of your uncharitable thoughts embarrassing to say the least.
I call this old people syndrome and you may have an early onset case of it TB. My grandparents, when they got old and couldn't get around well anymore, spent a lot of time in their apartment fuming about this or that, all things that I considered minor in my scale of life. Now my dad is also doing this some too. I think it just comes with being in some sort of contained environment with not a lot of outside stimulation. So my plan to avoid the onset of symptoms, besides the two you mentioned above, are to just keep exposing myself to the people and environment around me. Hopefully that will be like a vaccine and keep my brain from dwelling on things.
ReplyDeleteEd - Maybe reframe it as "insular syndrome" and I think you have a thing; I know plenty of people younger than I that have this "fuming" nature you speak of. A lot of it can be simple exposure to people and the world, especially those that are not "like" us in age or culture or beliefs. This used to be easier because once upon a time, having different thoughts and beliefs was far more acceptable than it is now (on all sides).
DeleteBut there is also an element of just letting go of things as well, something I am equally terrible at.
Sometimes as we seek to grow our metacognitive abilities, the healthy, reflective self awareness we seek can get derailed and become ruminative in nature. It’s a rather fine line and complexities abound.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to breaking the chain, my personal experience now leads me to seek spiritual guidance and to remember who and what I am. For me, this leg of the spiritual journey is a solo personal endeavor. (This deep dive is not really a group activity.)
These things help keep me on track and foster a healthy self awareness. Good mental hygiene practices help keep me focused.
I wholeheartedly agree that no act of kindness is ever wasted. Given the fact that I’m my own harshest critic, I prioritize kindness to self.
Relatively easy to write, harder to practice.
Seeking progress rather than perfection.
Peace to you.
B - I spend more time than most thinking on (or overthinking on) such things, so I am likely to fall too much on the "cogitating" part of the equation.
DeleteFor me, it has helped me to remember how often I am in an off mood and how I hope for the understanding of others. It has helped me to work on extending that consideration of others.
Self kindness is important as well. How to manage that is (at least) a post or two of its own. And it is indeed hard to practice.
You never know whose life you might be changing . . .
ReplyDeleteWe really do not, John. I wonder if the people that changed mine with their simple acts of kindness realize the impact they had.
DeleteI think this is something we can all relate to. I agree it's key to nip it in the bud, so to speak. Our thoughts and emotions seemed to be tied together. A situation can trigger an (unkind) thought which hooks our emotions, which we fixate on mentally, and before we know it, the snowball is rolling out-of-control down the hill. Learning to recognize it at first thought is the challenge.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, it surprises me how easily I can get pulled in. If I am already a bit cross with someone, a random song or literature reference can be enough to end my mind whirling. I am trying to get much more conscious of directly cutting the thought off.
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