The 44: The Power of Kindness

I hope you’re enjoying the program so far. You might be wondering why compassion or loving kindness training is so important … let’s talk about that today.

What’s so important about loving kindness? Well, compare loving kindness with how we normally go through life:

• Normally: We get stressed, frustrated, angry, anxious, overwhelmed, and then deal with it by running away and going to comfort foods and distractions (or other comforts). With kindness: We might still feel these difficult feelings, but then give ourselves compassion and loving kindness to help deal with it.
• Normally: We mess up somehow, either by not sticking to a diet or a new habit we’re creating, or not being the person we want to be … and then we feel guilty, beat ourselves up about it, etc. With kindness: When we mess up, we notice the feelings of guilt or harshness and then deal with it by giving ourselves compassion and loving kindness.
• Normally: We get upset at someone for not acting in the way we’d like, and this can result in us being harsh with them, damaging our relationship. With kindness: We see that this person is acting less-than-ideally because of some difficulty they’re having, and we might give them some compassion or loving kindness. Our relationship gets better.

As you can see, every time we act with compassion and loving kindness, things improve. When we act with harshness or by running away, we make things worse.

This is the power of kindness and compassion. They help us to deal with the frustrations and anxieties of life in a more loving way, and in doing so, they connect us to others, they improve our relationships with ourselves and with others, and they make us happier.

That’s worth practicing.