Tara Cousineau, PhD

Clinical Psychologist, Kindness Warrior

Blog

Kinder Workplaces? A Hard Sell (But Better for the Bottom Line)

by Leave a Comment

Truth be told, kindness is a good prescription for a life well lived. Kind actions and a compassionate attitude bode well for both physical and mental health. And let’s face it:  We might try to be kinder than we think we are — especially at work.

Why? For one, according the Global Happiness Policy Report 2018, the majority of people are miserable at their jobs even if they say they’re happy to have one. Two, we spend over 30% of our lives working. Might as well try to enjoy it, right? Third, when we behave in kind ways, the positivity that arises spreads to others. It’s just like that old 1970s bumper sticker: Kindness is contagious.

Yet, the topic of  kindness can be a non-starter for most businesses and HR executives. Many organizations operate on the principles for survival, namely finding self-serving ways to get ahead and stay ahead.  In spite of the billions spent in workplace wellness and leadership training, something isn’t sticking very well. It may be that we’ve been conditioned by entrenched beliefs that it’s a dog-eat-dog world. We don’t truly recognize that thriving, instead of surviving, is the key to success. Charles Darwin, after all, observed that we have a stronger instinct for caring and cooperation than for trampling over one another. It just didn’t make the headlines. Thriving means taking care of each other by focusing on wellbeing and cultivating resilience in our relationships — whether in family, at work, or in the greater community. After all that’s how the human species continues to survive.

We’ve just got things a bit mixed up in our heads.

For the skeptic out there, here’s a workplace study that was conducted at Coca Cola Iberia in Madrid, Spain. The researchers randomly assigned over 100 employees into three different groups and the employees weren’t aware of their assignment to the groups or the true purpose of the study. The employees were assigned to be Givers, Receivers, or be in a Control (people who don’t do anything).

The Givers practiced five acts of ordinary kindness a day from a specific list ideas of kind gestures (see below). This was not about flowers, balloons and cake. The Givers could choose when to do the kind acts, and for whom from a list of fellow employees assigned (unbeknownst to them) as Receivers. The Givers did this for four weeks.  Examples of the kind activities included:

  • Bringing someone a beverage
  • Cheering up a coworker who seems to be having a bad day
  • Speaking up on the behalf of another
  • Emailing a thank you note

The people in the Receiver or Control groups were not asked to do anything at all during the course of the study. It was just work as usual for them. All three groups filled out surveys before and after and two months later.

Here’s what the researchers found: Givers and Receivers mutually benefited in well-being in both the short- and long-term. They showed improvements on weekly measures of feelings of competence and autonomy, for example, acting in alignment with core values. Receivers remained happier a full month after the study and Givers became less depressed and more satisfied with their lives and jobs. They also noticed the changes in workplace. Givers’ prosocial acts inspired others to act: Receivers paid their acts of kindness forward with 278% more prosocial behaviors than Controls. That’s right, just like that ‘ol bumper sticker said so.  Surely, this is a prescription for happier workers and workplaces.

Why does this matter?  The most common contributors to low job satisfaction and causes for absenteeism include but are not limited to: bullying and harassment, burnout, stress and low morale, stress of childcare and eldercare, depression, disengagement, illness, and not surprisingly, looking for another job.  I will never forget when I was a psychology intern and was told to forge medical documentation that previous staff had failed to sign. An accreditation was at risk. I refused. My supervisor reprimanded me, “Don’t you know? Shit flows downhill.” I stood my ground and almost left the profession before I barely got started. Later I learned his wife had stage 4 cancer. He was desperate. But still.

Consider that kindness, a prosocial skill that needs to be practiced in order to grow, is about connecting with other people in genuine and transparent ways. Yes, most of us are caring and want the best for others. But life poses daily challenges and we can be easily distracted. So we have to put in the effort. All the co-opted leadership buzz words of today apply: compassion, grit, emotional intelligence, empathy, mindfulness and wisdom. Yet, practicing these skills at work is another matter entirely. 

Moreover, there is a multiplier effect when you do try. Your kind and caring action and the corresponding upswell of positive emotions will spread,  influencing at least three other people like a happy virus.  It’s likely that each of those three people will positively influence others in their social circles. A little kind intention can go a long way. It’s not all that different from raising well adjusted kids, which of course, takes time. It requires courage, consistency, calm, and true connection — no matter the successes and failures along the way. That’s the caring advantage. It flows uphill. If we can’t model such genuine attention to the people we work with every day it will be hard to expect retention, innovation and longevity. 

Survive or thrive. What would you rather do?

*

A version of this article originally appeared on the Whil blog: http://blog.whil.com/make-work-virtuous-viral.

My new book is “The Kindness Cure: How the Science of Compassion Can Heal Your Heart and Your World.” Drawing on research in psychology and neuroscience, this book will help teach you the benefits of practicing kindness from the inside out. Check it out today! https://www.taracousineau.com/book/

@taracousphd

Photo Credit:

Johnson Wang

Nathan Dumlao

Handprints in the Heart: A Reflection on Love and Loss

by Leave a Comment

It’s been a raw, rainy and cold spring in New England.  An impatience for summer has taken hold as I feel vitamin D deprived. If anything, the slog of the last few months has been a time for quiet reflection.  

I went on my first 7-day retreat of “noble silence” at the Insight Meditation Society in March.  A week of nothing to do but meditate with 100 women, all strangers to me. No friends. No talking. No technology. No reading. No writing. No obligations.

My family and friends at home wondered:  Was it amazing? That must have been so relaxing! How nice to get away for a whole week.  As if I was napping and reading fashion magazines at a spa.

Not even close. It was a week of sitting in silence, walking in silence, sitting in silence, walking in silence, sitting in silence, walking in silence… in a snowbound building and in the most rural part of the state. It was so bleak that the warm glow of a sunset, like a cherry swirl popsicle, was a gift I didn’t know I desired until it appeared. A deep appreciation settled in.

But by the end of the week a sort of transformation took place—in part because of the contrast with what came after. The minute I left I was hit with a reality of life: the hustle and bustle, the noise, the demands for my attention, a work crisis. Perhaps most poignant were the looming changes ahead: My youngest was about to turn 18 and be off to a college far away. We had also decided to move out of our home after two decades. The proverbial emptying of the nest.

If anything, the week of silence helped me to be present with all the uncertainty, to be patient with discomfort, and to practice the deep work of befriending my own mind. This is not easy.

One evening at the retreat the master teacher, Christina Feldman, read one of my favorite poems, Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

Hearing the poem in the midst of such quietude was a comfort, like the tender hand of a grandmother resting on my shoulder. The young woman next to me began to weep and I wished I could have taken her hand in mine. We were alone, together. And yet the proximity, the felt sense of compassion, was enough for each of us to bear our own thoughts.

The opening lines of the poem linger with me as I clear out closets, discover remnants of child’s play, and make the donation rounds to Savers. Mostly achingly the words sear as I apply and reapply fresh coats of paint to the stair banisters, oily and stained by children’s hands. Covering up the proof of our lives.

The other day my college-bound child flounced on the couch in my home office. She looked up at the ceiling and noticed a dirty hand print. That’s yours, I told her.  “No way.” Yes. You tried on a new white dress for a banquet and twirled on the coffee table feeling so pretty and proud. She didn’t believe that she could have reached that high as a kid. She hopped up and realized that indeed her 11-year old agile self might very well have done just that. One of her nicknames was Jumping Josie after all.  We stared at the smudge for a long while.

…all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

We both knew. Same time next year all this would be but a memory. Childhood is like that. It has a shape, many shapes, and then it’s gone. Even the dirty hand print.

 

Still.  I’m not painting over it.

Not as long as I live here anyway.

 

 

P.S. Hop on over my book page to sign-up for Kindness Cure goodies.

Notes: 

You can listen to the poet Naomi Shihab Nye read her poem Kindness at On Being radio.

Photo credits:

Stairs, Jumping Josie, Hand Print (c) Tara Cousineau, 2018

Sunset

Aaron Andary

Astonish Yourself: Find Common Ground

by Leave a Comment

I have been snowbound these past weeks with Nor’easter storm No.3 behind me and No. 4 predicted for next week. The ides of March. All around me is a wet, heavy blanket of snow. I yearn for some color. Not the color of mud, either, which surely is the next palette.

As I was rummaging around to clean my home office space from the vestiges of writing The Kindness Cure, a postcard tumbled out of a pile of papers. A plain white postcard. White!

But in black type was a well known quote from Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field, meet me there.

I paused and looked out the window.

A message from beyond, I thought. This random incident might be what SQuire Rushnell calls a god wink, “An event or personal experience, often identified as coincidence, so astonishing that it could only have come from divine origin.”  He suggests that unexpected or delightful experiences aren’t coincidental at all, but somehow are evidence that the universe is conspiring in your favor. As a glass-half-full kind of gal, the idea of god winks is sort of up my alley.  

I considered the Rumi quote a god wink — the kind to awaken me from a spell. It caused me to pause and be still for a little while.  What or who might I meet in the middle of a vast field? What is happening right now in the world that asks us to venture forth into uncertainty? Parkland, Florida. Syria. Primary elections. Community service. Oh, the fields we can find ourselves in if we are willing to wander there. If we can muster the courage.

There is a story in my book that comes to mind, in a chapter called “Radical Acceptance.”  It’s a story of a mom who learns, through a painful unfolding, that her child is transgender. The story is about a brief exchange she had with a longtime friend, another mother, who pitied her. She was stumbling in a field ripe for compassion yet without a language for it among her circle of friends. That was yet to come. She told me: “I’m not trying to convince anyone to accept my kid, but if you look at us as human beings, I don’t see why you wouldn’t. We all really want the same things at the end of the day. We want our kids to be happy and healthy and productive members of society. That’s not different for me. I know in my heart if I didn’t accept my child, my kid would be dead. I don’t know of any parent who would choose that over clinging to beliefs. Common ground is there if people want to see it.”

The field. Common ground. Possibility.

Of course, the fallen postcard may not have been “astonishing” really.  Curious, I looked up the definition:

 

astonishing

adjective  as·ton·ish·ing  \ ə-ˈstä-ni-shiŋ \

:causing a feeling of great surprise or wonder : surprising – an astonishing discovery

 

That we might be open to moments of wonder, however it falls before us  — is an opportunity to see something in a new way or accept things as they are. Sometimes we need reminders.

Your kindred spirit,

;D

Tara

Behold the poke of the tulip leaves! A sprig of spring.

Check out a few of my recent guest posts and please share with your friends! The world can always use more kindness. Let’s spread the word.

Please be sure to  follow me on social media and like/follow my Facebook author page. Sharing is caring!

Photo by Paul Green on Unsplash

Photo By Tara Cousineau 2018

Empathy Hurts. Empathy Heals.

by Leave a Comment

“It all your fault,” my daughter sniveled as we shared an entire box of tissues. “I inherited this from you.” She was accusing me of endowing her with an overabundance of empathy as we watched the film adaptation of the young adult novel Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Auggie Pullman is a 5th grader who was born with a facial deformity. He’s a Star Wars geek. He hides under an astronaut helmet that is as publicly conspicuous as his face, but at least allows him some measure of safety from the stares and cruelty of others. The story heartbreakingly shows the complexity of being human, what it means to be different from the norm, and serves up the usual suspects of friend and foe on the cusp of coming of age. The story also evokes—for  anyone with a beating heart—the essentiality of love, belonging, and the healing energy of kindness.

By midnight my daughter and I were surrounded by a sea of twisted white tissue and debris. The film obviously worked the story’s magic for both of us and served as an emotional release. It was another tumultuous week of emotional highs (teens rising) and emotional lows (a federal proposal to arm teachers with concealed weapons)—at least for us.

Here’s the thing: Empathy hurts. We feel sadness or anger or pain when another person feels sadness or anger or pain. That’s emotional empathy. These feelings can lead to empathic distress. We can also mirror uplifting emotions like joy, care, pride, love, and compassion for another’s suffering. This can lead to empathic concern. As such, empathy can tie us together in ways that illuminate our deep connection. Similarly, we can imagine the feelings of another person without necessarily being caught up in heightened emotional states. That’s cognitive empathy. Evoking the imagination is what allows us to be moved by real and fictional stories, too. That’s why reading novels helps promote empathy. We can picture ourselves in the shoes of another person and taking on roles.

But empathy is tricky. We need a good balance of both the emotional and cognitive elements to ignite motivational empathy, or the kind of empathy that allows us to reflect on our reactions without being flooded by difficult emotions. This takes some emotional muscle. There is an art and skill to rumbling with empathy that allows us to calm ourselves and, if and when possible, choose compassionate action. I describe this in detail in my book, The Kindness Cure.

So if you are feeling upset or distressed by recent events, that’s totally understandable. The experience of empathic distress maps to neural networks in the brain similar to that of physical pain. It hurts. I’d be concerned if you weren’t (on some level) moved by yet another school shooting or by any suffering for that matter, even if how you and I decide to respond is different.

The sobering truth is that my daughter and I could finish watching Wonder with relative feelings of safety. We could tuck ourselves in and imagine how we’d stand up to those mean 7th graders that roughed up Auggie. We can also decide what, if anything, we want to do about current events. In this way we are privileged, blessed, lucky—or all of the above. We have freedom to choose a course of action. Of course, that privilege can change at any moment. That’s why it is so important to be present to the unfolding of life and to recognize our inherent responsibility in caring for one another—in spite of differences in how we look, where we come from, or in what we believe—because we can.  Empathy also can heal us.

Maybe that’s why the rising voices of young people is so refreshing: they are unapologetic, demanding, and focused on putting compassion in action. They care about the basic needs of children to feel safe and loved. They’re putting up a fight. They’re demanding respect.  They feel empowered. And they are demonstrating a universally understood imperative of the Golden Rule. There’s a quote in my book from a spiritual master that’s worth repeating here:

True kindness does not have an agenda or ulterior motive; it is an instinctual response that can feel highly energized and even fierce. Yes, kindness can be fierce. Chögyam Trungpa, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, goes so far as to say that a compassionate mind is a warrior’s mind. ‘To understand our self-nature, as well as the self-nature of humanity, we should focus on what has beauty and dignity among humankind. Doing so will rid you of a fearful mind, and change it into a spiritual warrior’s mind.’ To overcome your fears of living in a world where painful things happen, expand your compassionate nature. Because it is innate. Know that what you do matters to others, so be caring and careful about your actions. Be a kindness warrior.

The challenge today is that we have an overexposure to negativity and underexposure to the goodwill in the world. Our attention is constantly diverted away from ordinary moments of kindness. We forget that there is so much we can appreciate and love. Let’s try looking a little closer.  We might just see the beauty and dignity among humankind. And that’s worth fighting for.

 

  • Coming in March is Palacio’s newest work, a picture book for younger children called We’re All Wonders. It introduces Auggie and the themes of kindness, empathy and tolerance.
  • The book Wonder inspired the Choose Kind Campaign and there is also an app for that! It’s called Daily Wonder. 
  • To be human is to be kind—at all stages and ages—including creating caring cultures at work. Join in the conversation in an upcoming webinar for the workplace hosted by Whil.com:  The Kindness Cure: A Prescription for Engaged and Successful Workplaces.  Tell your colleagues and co-workers. You can register here: http://bit.ly/2EuecOL

Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash

Illustration of Auggie: Wonder by R.J. Palacio

No More Guns and Roses

by Leave a Comment

Embed from Getty Images

“Do you know that there have been 239 school shootings since Sandy Hook?”

“Mom.”  My younger daughter’s voice cracked, “One of the boys got his acceptance letter into a college the day before.”  

She stood in the shadow of a door in the one corner where she could charge her smartphone while scrolling the deluge of messages and postings from teens all over the country about Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. She will graduate in a few months.

We stared at each other. It’s hard to come up with words in such a moment. Sometimes there aren’t any. Her long hair was loose and wavy from a run in the rain. In the dim light she looked like one of those ephemeral paintings by J.W. Waterhouse. A mythological maiden. An image of worry and wonder. Fragile yet fierce.

She stomped off to study for a calc quiz in a flurry of anger—and I imagine also a wave of guilt and gratitude that she can even be angry about homework when 17 kids can’t. I’m with her. Those precious lives cut short. I think of the grieving father who couldn’t remember if he told his daughter “I love you” when he dropped her off at school that day.

No words.

I silently asked myself: What is the next best thing I can do right now? It seems that the grown ups are failing their children. Yet I sense a vibe. These kids won’t stand for it. This generation is going to do something about it. Two decades of a public health crisis in schools and they will use their common sense, pure and simple. They could care less about lobbyists and special interests. They care about each other.

But at 10 o’clock at night there is only so much a mom can do. There is an Eastern compassion practice called tonglen, which is a giving and receiving reflection to use in difficult times. As Rabbi Rami Shapiro writes in The Sacred Art of Loving Kindness, “It is a way to take upon oneself the pain of the world and transform it into love.” That’s what I choose to do in the moment.

Here is a simple version that I offer in my book.

Sit quietly and comfortably, perhaps with a hand on your heart. Breathe in and out in a comfortable way. As you breathe, bring to mind a sense of warmth, comfort, and ease, or whatever you need in the moment. Inhale this soothing feeling.

Bring to mind a person who is struggling and needs compassion. After you inhale a comforting breath for yourself, on the exhale offer the other person feelings of kindness, caring, comfort, and ease.

Then return to yourself, breathing in warm sensations. Switchback to the person you are visualizing. In an even flow of in- and out- breaths, receive and give warmth and kindness. Like a see-saw. Back and forth, back and forth. One breath in for me, one breath out for you.

It’s an uneven see-saw. All those kids. Parents. Friends.

Some say prayers are not enough. This feels true. But where would we be without them?

A sacred pause. A deep breath. One for me, for you. An infusion of air inviting a sliver of hope. Maybe even a dose of faith. When we start from a place of loving awareness a smidge of space opens up. It’s here where we can discern the next best thing to do. It can reveal a path to compassionate action.

Call a congressperson. Support sensible gun policy. Vote at the midterms. Volunteer. Donate. Speak up. Say I love you.

Make every moment count.

Are you concerned about Gun Violence in Schools and communities?

It is time for a kindness revolution. Kindness Cure Sightings:

 

 

Credits:

Getty Images, 2018

Tara Cousineau, 2018, Guns & Roses Multimedia

Making Friends with Your Inner Cynic

by Leave a Comment

People often ask me if I think people are less empathetic in today’s world. It’s a good question. After all, just a quick glance to the daily news or a social media feed is a sure-fire way to trigger feelings of doom and gloom. Another Valentine’s Day passes you by with sweet nothings for nothing? A temper tantrum toward an unsuspecting family member or co-worker maybe? An urge to run for the hills to hide? I’m with you. On more than one occasion in the recent past I have told my friends that I’ll be moving to Canada, or even better, to cozy Denmark where the happy people live.

We can’t help but want to rumble or retreat in the face of danger — real or imagined. Our brains are wired to scan for threats and that is essentially a good thing. Yet, there is a downside to giving too much attention to what ails us and the world: You will surely provoke your inner cynic. Pessimism can take hold. Empathy can hide. And that’s not such a good thing. Instead, there are ways to redirect our attention that can allow us to hold what is both difficult in the world and what is beautiful.

Pay Attention to Your Attention — If there is something that truly ails our culture it is not a lack of empathy, it’s a lack of attention. We’re scattered; we’re overexposed to negative media; we’re addicted to busyness; and stress levels are chronically high. We can forget to pay attention to the very things that matter and bring us joy. It takes practice to redirect attention to the people and moments we can appreciate in our daily lives. There’s so much good in the world if we are open to seeing it.

Practice Kindfulness — Kindfulness is being aware of the present moment with heart. When difficult reactions arise, such as upsetting thoughts, uncomfortable feelings, and bodily irritations, your body is sending out important signals that it’s time to pause. Honor this innate emotional intelligence. Name the experience for what it is. For example “I’m angry.” “This is despair.” “I feel helpless.” Breathe tenderness to the sore spots and allow the moment to flow through you.

Make Room for the Inner Cynic — If you didn’t care about the wellbeing of someone or something, you wouldn’t be upset in the first place. The voice inside, the one lamenting that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket, is trying to protect the vulnerable part of you that wants so much to be safe, to belong, and to feel empowered. Your cynic is also a messenger, so listen with curiosity and an open heart. Fresh ideas will arise.

Align with Your Integrity — Amazing things can happen as a result of befriending your inner cynic. You can ask yourself: “How can I bring kindness to this moment?” “How can I love and resist at the same time?” “How can I take meaningful action?” When I think back about the Women’s March of 2017 I feel an uplift of positive emotions that still sustains me and keeps me involved about issues I care about. When you focus on what serves your highest self and that of others, the inner cynic will stay at bay.

Grow a Kind Mind — We can purposely cultivate compassion without being overcome by emotional distress. Our natural reaction to another’s suffering has a neurological correlate in the brain. In fact, the empathy network maps on a similar neural network for physical pain.

It’s no wonder we impulsively recoil, retreat, wince, numb, or faint in response to pain and suffering! This is a normal and temporary reaction. But it’s what happens next where we have control. We can learn to manage difficult emotions. It means taking gentle care of yourself by giving time to restore, rest and respond with kindfulness. Otherwise, prolonged experiences and exposure to suffering can lead to empathy fatigue and detachment (for example, among caregivers, first responders, and people living in traumatic conditions).

Cultivate Kindsight — The art is to make room for loving attention and have enough emotional perspective to keep your wits about you. I call this kindsight, or viewing life experiences with tenderness and understanding. Compassion practices, like a daily loving kindness meditation, help to broaden and cultivate warm and caring feelings toward ourselves, others, and the whole of humanity. Community practices, such as volunteering or simply helping out in the neighborhood or local school, are direct ways to put kindness in action. Compound this with a good dose of gratitude for what we can offer and do for others, and the inner cynic is sure to be quelled.

If you like what you read, please consider getting my new book The Kindness Cure for you or a friends. It’s chock full of vignettes offered by people, scientific tidbits, and practices in kindness. Thanks for your support!

Photo credit:

Nicole Mason

Illustration: Pamela Best for The Kindness Cure

Being a Kindness Warrior

by Leave a Comment

The world can at times feel like a very unkind place. The year my daughter, Josie, was twelve years old, three horrendous events occurred: the “Batman Shooting” at a movie theater where twelve people were killed and seventy wounded; the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left twenty- six children, teachers, and staff dead; and the Boston Marathon bombing that wounded hundreds of people and killed three. It was a year of extreme tragedy. Despite my efforts to minimize overexposure, Josie felt a real and strong fear that these things could happen to her. Lockdown drills were being done regularly at school, and she began imagining herself and her loved ones torn to bits. Josie’s heartbreaking response was to wonder aloud, “Why do people do this?” A basic dread took hold of her.

Then something sparked an awakening. In a long-jump sandpit, some kids discovered a pair of baby field mice. Josie became determined to rescue them, even though everyone knew it was a lost cause and coldly said as much. She declared, “I know they will die. At least I can give them comfort until they do.”

At her insistence, I drove Josie to the sports field as she clutched a bottle of Pedialyte and a dropper. She dashed across the track to be Nurse Nightingale. The mice were still alive, and she gently placed the pink creatures in a box of tissue. As I watched, it hit me: Josie was fully alive with her compassion for all living things. It was the act of caring itself that mattered to her. As if, by demonstrating the kindest way that she could possibly act, she could turn the world around. She gave them names as children do—Bradley and Charlotte—and carefully nursed them. One mouse died a few days later. Josie held out hope for the other but, in the end, she buried the pair in the garden. While she was frustrated that they hadn’t lived, she consoled herself with this: “At least I tried.” We were all moved by her efforts. At a time when the world felt burdened by grave issues, saddled with grief, frustration, and helplessness, Josie found healing and empowerment by demonstrating her own kindness. She showed a brutal world that she would care for the meekest of its creatures. And, in doing so, she discovered that what feels best is not evading harsh realities—it’s being kind along the way.

Excerpt from my book,  The Kindness Cure: How the Science of Compassion Can Heal Your Heart and Your World

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

 

If you like what you read, please consider getting The Kindness Cure book for you or a friends. It’s chock full of vignettes offered by people, scientific tidbits, and practices in kindness. Thanks for your support!

 

Love & Resist: Anniversary of Women’s March

by Leave a Comment

As we come upon the anniversary of the game changing Women’s March, I am in awe of what transpired over the last year. The most curious thing of all is what I found so despicable about our elected leader of the free world was, in fact, a very odd blessing. Light was cast on the dark shadows lurking around for so long. Not all my friends might agree with me or hold similar views, but it’s quite hard to ignore what happened over the year. #MeToo, #TimesUp, and Oprah’s amazing speech at the Golden Globes.

The times they are a-changin’.

One year ago my husband and I marched in Boston. It was nothing short of transformative. First, that my man went with me (he got into designing posters and he even gave one away to a mother and her kid on the subway so she’d have something). Second, that we became part of a peaceful tribe 175,000 strong, forming a “radical kinship” as Father Greg Boyle likes to say. Third, that we took tons of selfies together and sent them to our daughters—not only so they can confirm how their “awkward” parents are, but to see their core values in action (and what a good guy is all about).

I still have our posters in the family room and will dust them off this weekend. I didn’t get my hand-knitted pussy hat in time for last year’s march, but that hat has not seen the dust. I still wear it—and I will as long as it’s cold outside and this president is in office.

It’s not a time to be complacent. It’s a time to address the dark side with a legion of light workers. It’s not a comfortable time and nor should it be. We need to feel irritated enough to take action. The other day I was clearing my office and out of a book fell a prayer card my mother had given one of my girls: Joan of Ark. How apt!  The Novena begins: “Glorious St. Joan of Arc, filled with compassion for those who invoke you, with love for those who suffer, heavily laden with the weight of my troubles I kneel at your feet and humbly beg you to take my present need under your special protection.” The image on the front is of the armoured French girl of the 1400s, a spiritual warrior across the ages, holding her flag and sounding the call for compassion, social justice and new leadership. I believe Joan of Arc is at our sides protecting us and emboldening us right now, but mostly we have each other. Saints, angels, whistle blowers, courageous women and men… and those contrarian naysayers, too. We all belong. And we all need to evolve humanity. We can do better.

Be a kindness warrior.

My protest sign last year was on kindness. It’s been my calling and so I’ve been studying it, collecting science and story. The basis for my upcoming book has been the view that kindness is strong, not weak. It is courageous, not cowardly. It is heartful, not heartless. It’s not about being nice, agreeable, or virtuous. It’s about understanding, having boundaries, and taking reasonable action. It’s moving from empathic distress to motivational empathy. Taking a kind stance doesn’t mean giving in. One of the protest slogans seen all over the world last year was: “Feel the Rage, Be the Love.” These six small words perfectly capture both the challenge and the solution when facing difficult persons, places, or things. The meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg asks, “Why can’t we both love and resist at the same time?” This is a perfect question for our life and our times, and it forms the basis for reimagining kindness.

We all have something to stand for. For me it’s giving kindness the gravitas it deserves in the landscape of humanity. After all, we can’t survive without it. I invite you to join me. How are you going to rock your world with kindness?  

Get a FREE Rock Your World with Kindness Guide (PDF).