Tara Cousineau, PhD

Clinical Psychologist, Kindness Warrior

compassion

Lead with Love

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There’s a funny thing that happens when you start walking the kindness talk.  People seem to crave it. Recently, I’ve been asked to speak at various companies and organizations — from accounting companies to human services, from high net worth investment firms to public schools.  What’s the common denominator? I’d like to think this trend is about how we each can be more of the human we want to be: caring, wholehearted and generous. That’s part of it, of course. That’s the bright side of such a talk. But underneath is a deep need to understand what gets in the way. That’s the shadow side. 

We need to become friends with the shadow side. 

This is easier than you might think. The dark side of corporate culture reveals itself in the face of fear and threat — meeting deadlines, KPIs, profits, career advancement, and all the usual suspects that arise when real or imagined survival is at stake — at the expense of human connection and compassion. 

The paradox at the heart of this matter is that it’s okay to be competitive AND cooperative at the same time.  It’s more than okay. It’s necessary. It requires awareness in how humans respond to the world, through three emotion motivational systems espoused by the British compassion researcher and psychologist Paul Gilbert. I wrote about it in The Kindness Cure in chapter 10 (Emotional Paradox).

The paradoxes you can experience in your own mind are clashes between the “old brain/mind” and the “new brain/mind.” Your “old brain/mind” is the “base model” of human emotional regulation and hasn’t changed much over millennia. Its job is to serve your basic survival instincts as soon as possible and to seek out pleasure and comfort. It is speedy and reactive. The three main emotion regulation systems operating within it are:

• A threat and self-protection system that senses threats quickly and activates the fight- flight-freeze- faint response in your limbic system. This is like your home surveillance system.

• An incentive and resource-seeking system that propels you to seek pleasure, consume, play, strive/achieve, and mate. It’s like an Energizer Bunny scurrying about, looking for fun or success in life.

•  A soothing and contentment system that seeks balance, rest, and connection, and is strongly linked to affection, bonding, caregiving, kindness, and compassion. This is the calm and connect system, and it is a bit slower to come online, but when it does, it gives you a sense of overall wellbeing—like a baby’s snuggly or a rocking chair.

Your “new brain/mind” developed later in human evolution. It’s really smart. The newer model is more complex and allows you to work things through, compare, contemplate, mull things over, create, innovate, imagine, seek knowledge, strive for goals, and develop an identity. This allows for quick learning, exchanging information from among groups, and passing on these adaptive genes to future generations. Importantly, this sophisticated upgrade allows you to be aware that you exist and have a sense of self. Thanks to your “new brain/mind,” you can be aware of your awareness, unlike any other animal, and observe your own mind. This is, of course, both a blessing and a curse.

When your “new brain/mind” is pulled by the fears and passions of the “old brain/mind,” you can get stuck in unkind behaviors (toward yourself or others). This is the unfortunate bug in the system, so to speak.

Workplace Woes, Compassionate Action

This came up in a recent conversation. I was a guest on a podcast summit created by Mari-Lyn Harris, founder of Heart@Work, who I met via Linked In through what I call kindness spotters.  (We kindness warriors just find each other.)

Mari-Lyn has been figuring out ways to share the news about leading with kindness, to assist leaders in cultivating better productivity, profits and a happier workplace culture. She created a Virtual Kindness Conference and you can watch it (it’s free). The interviews include short and sweet conversations with experts about workplace culture. You can watch the interviews at Heart@Work or on YouTube.  I talk about befriending the inner critic at work and gathering positivity allies to counteract the negativity that even one nasty person can evoke. It takes commitment.  Of course, it helps when leadership/management adopts and embodies the values of caring and compassion as integral to company goals, even if you are selling widgets or crunching numbers. You might enjoy the series and have something you would like to offer to an ongoing conversation on kind leadership.

Here’s to growing a kind mind.

21 Days of Kindfulness: Get daily notes to your inbox for just three weeks — which is about the time it takes for a new habit to take root. I invite you to kickstart kindness in your life and share with a friend. It’s free. 

A Little Deck of Kindfulness: The card deck is here! (See the sample image above). Cultivate more kindness and compassion for oneself and for others. Order now! (in continental USA).


Finding Inner Momentum

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If you are human, and I imagine you are, there are times when you have just really had it.  With a friend. A family member. A co-worker. The world. You may even get judgy. Like, why can’t he just move on? Why does she make it so complicated? Why are they doing this?  As if, somehow, they can magically read your mind and do the right thing.

Yeah, well. We can get caught under our own spell. And the truth of the matter is you will miss out on the things that are actually ok, the tiny beautiful moments in a day, and noticing that right now you are fully alive. I have found that one of the most helpful things with life’s hassles is to simply breathe. Breathe in some peace and quiet. When you notice your reactivity, try taking a deep inhale for yourself and a long exhale for the other. 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.” Remember, even the difficult, exasperating people in your life are struggling. This doesn’t mean it’s ok to be on the receiving end of an insult. Boundaries are important. But it can help to imagine this person when they were small, maybe before their own challenges or conditions took hold. Glimpsing a sweet soul, deserving of love and belonging (as we all are).

The image I like to hold in this mini-meditation is of a see-saw or swing, with a childlike quality of putting in the effort to get going and then relishing the momentum.

It takes a few tries for the rhythm to kick in. And then… freedom.

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.
Then 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.
Then switch back 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.

Give it a try. Peace.

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

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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

Empathy Hurts. Empathy Heals.

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“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

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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

Love & Resist: Anniversary of Women’s March

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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). 

 

 

After The Storm A Kinder Tomorrow

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I really can’t complain that my Leo has that wet dog smell. In fact, I’ve been happy for some rain up here in New England. Even a bit guilty. Watching the news about one weather calamity after another evokes in me both awe and fear. The aerials are eerily compelling. Almost hypnotic.

Hearing the name of the next storm is like learning the roll call of a kindergarten class… in the 1920s. Harvey, Irma, Maria. It makes the storms feel somehow personal, like the friend you just made on the first day of school and who turned out to be a bully. And maybe if you mustered the courage to stand up to him, he’d just go away.  That is until you see trees eviscerated, roofs blown off, and people suffering. These are no schoolyard antics.

Weather scientists have predicted between 11 and 17 storms this hurricane season for the Atlantic.  In an article on LifeScience.com it seems we should brace ourselves, “As of September 18, the Atlantic has experienced 13 named storms (Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irma, Jose, Katia, Lee and Maria), way above the total typically seen over six months, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association [NOAA]. Already, seven of those storms have been hurricanes, exceeding the seasonal outlook’s forecast.”  Of course, there are another 13 letters in the alphabet and I wondered what names they’ve come up with.  (In a search the next up are Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rina, Sean, Tammy, Vince and Whitney).  Apparently, at one point in history tropical storms only had female names as if the the wrath of nature must be feminine. The weather people have evened out the playing field. I confess, the naming convention has a bonding effect. A sense of common humanity. A befriending of those in the wake of the storm.  I hope this anthropomorphizing of the elements is good for relief efforts.

I cant’ remember Nor’easters having names, those nasty ice storms more typical of where I live. Every year I say, “It’s time to move south.”  And then…. “No, it’s not!”  It wasn’t long ago that 8 feet of snow trumpled us in a matter of a few days, creating icicle dams, and cracking open our roof.  In the aftermath there was terrific snow for sledding and snowboarding. Kids toppled out to frolic. There was a whole week of snow days off from school. A 5-year old girl was struck dead by a heaving branch in her backyard.

Every region seems to have forces of nature that seem beyond comprehension. Earthquakes, fires, mudslides, tornados, tsunamis, pestilence.  As I write I see news of a second devastating earthquake in Mexico in just two weeks.

It is as if Mother Earth is in a constant state of heartbreak somewhere. She is. We are.

Just today I heard the haunting song Tomorrow Will Be Kinder, which was inspired by a tornado.

Today I’ve cried a many tear
And pain is in my heart
Around me lies a somber scene
I don’t know where to start
But I feel warmth on my skin
The stars have all aligned
The wind has blown, but now I know
That tomorrow will be kinder”

Yes, I thought: Hope is an aspect of kindness, a faith that brings us together and carries us forward. And the question remains: where in the world do we start?

Anywhere we can be of service is where. And that may be right where you are.

 

Resources

Make plan for hurricanes using a simple guide at Ready.gov.

What’s the difference between a hurricane, cyclone or typhoon?

Learn what to do before, during and after an earthquake using a simple guide at Ready.gov.

Tomorrow Will Be Kinder by  the Secret Sisters

 

Current Natural Disasters: Help out 

American Red Cross Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund

American Red Cross Hurricane Irma Relief Fund

CruzRoja Mexicana Earthquake Relief Fund

Unicef Mexico Child Victim’s Relief Fund

 

Latest News from the American Red Cross

Stay informed on the latest Red Cross efforts HERE.

Image credits:

Daiga Ellaby

NOAA

How to Be a Kindness Magnet

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Recently featured on The Huffington Post on September 29th, 2016:

Sometimes it takes a child to teach us about our natural instinct for kindness. Something we could all use a little more of these days.

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One late summer morning I was making a cup of tea in the kitchen. Thinking I was the first one up I was surprised when I spotted my daughter, about 12 years old, sitting stock-still by the bird feeder like a garden gnome. Oddly, she was wearing winter boots. They were sprinkled with birdseed. Sure enough, a chipmunk scurried over her toes and a bird paused momentarily on her knee. She remained stationary. This lasted a good 15 minutes, which is a long time for a kid who can’t sit still.

“What was that about?” I inquired when she came in.

“I was waiting for Charles” she said.

Charles?

“The woodchuck.”

I often reflect on my daughter’s focus that morning in her attempt to befriend the garden creatures. It was if she was experimenting with a combination of being mindful, curious, and kind. Short of being a Snow White, she was like a kindness magnet. Ever since then I have held the image of the garden as a metaphor for growing a kind mind.

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(C) Steve Cousineau

It’s not a new way of approaching the mind, of course. Sages, poets, mystics, and scientists have been drawn to the natural elements to render our subjective life, too. It’s apt. We all have a natural capacity to cultivate empathy, love, generosity, kindness, and joy. In fact, we are wired with a caring circuitry from our head down to our toes.

Kind by Nature.

Discoveries from a broad range of disciplines including neurobiology, evolutionary sciences, psychology, and education have now shown that not only are we wired for kindness and compassion, but that we can foster this natural circuitry with our mere desire and attentiveness to do so, just as we can cultivate a garden to grow through attention and care. I call it kindfulness. And in today’s world, ripe with blatant negativity and meanness in the public discourse as new kind of normal, fortifying our compassionate hearts really matters.

Dacher Keltner, a social psychologist and director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, has devoted his career to bringing attention to our kinder nature. In his book, Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, Keltner highlights a lesser-known aspect of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, namely, that sympathy is our reflexive social instinct, and it is stronger than self-interest or self-protection. This compassion instinct developed out of the necessity for the constant caring of human babies, who require years of nurturing before they are launched into the world. Keltner writes:

Our babies are the most vulnerable offspring on the face of the Earth. And that simple fact changed everything. It rearranged our social structures, building cooperative networks of caretaking, and it rearranged our nervous systems. We became the super caregiving species, to the point where acts of care improve our physical health and lengthen our lives. We are born to be good to each other (Keltner, 2012).”

But while kindness, sympathy, and compassion are a natural part of our evolution, the new neuroscience of neuroplasticity teaches us that every experience we have results in bursts of neural activity that fire in different parts of the brain, strengthening various connections.

Any positive or negative mental activity – sensations, thoughts, and feelings – that you habitually focus on eventually shapes the inner landscape of your brain.

That means as you engage in your day-to-day life and expose yourself to new learnings and ideas, neurons will fire and new connections will grow; conversely, neurons related to the things you no longer pay attention to will be weeded out and recede. While it is also true that paying attention to negative impulses, such as the emotions arising from stressful situations – anger, irritation, or numbing – can similarly strengthen neural pathways you may not want to empower, it’s helpful to know what we can control where our attention goes and focus more on the positive behaviors that lead to calm and happy states, healthy bodies, happy relationships, meaningful work, and caring communities.

So how does kindfulness apply to everyday life?

Cultivating kindfulness is a continual practice for everyone, even for the most well-adjusted and happy person you can think of!

If you want a kind mind and a kind life, don’t wait for the world to change, start with your own actions.

Here are a couple ways you can start:

1. Surround yourself with kindness.

This could mean establishing safety and support in your living environment, talking to a trusted friend or family member, setting personal boundaries, practicing mindfulness and meditation and other self-care activities, finding community, or doing things that inspire you. Tending to yourself in the company of other compassionate people amplifies the caring circuity.

2. Be kind on purpose.

Do something intentionally kind every day. The more kindness you exude towards the outside world, the more you’ll cultivate in your own heart and mind, and the more will come back to you in return. This could mean volunteering, calling someone out of the blue to say hello, smiling at strangers, spending time with pets, donating to charity, or even picking up a piece of trash that isn’t yours. After all, kindness is contagious.

3. Let kindness sink in.

Sometimes we take for granted our own generosity or that of others. Take a moment to acknowledge the tender, thoughtful, and kind moments and let them imprint in your brain. If you make it a habit of asking yourself every day “How did kindness show up for me today?” then you’re more likely to see positivity, health, and happiness thrive.

The heartening news is that the mechanism of positive neuroplasticity and our innate wiring for sympathy and caregiving provide all the necessary ingredients for living a happy life. It is up to us to transform these raw materials into moment-by-moment kindfulness. Over time, that process will become second nature, and life itself will flow with greater ease. Wait and see: One day you’ll wake up and be a kindness magnet.

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