Kill them with kindness

Struggle can find no foothold when confronted with gentleness, because conflict can only exist when fed by two opposing forces.

I read that quote recently, and couldn’t find who it was attributed to, but it certainly got me thinking about gentleness and kindness.

Covid has raised so many issues for people that perhaps were slightly under the surface but come home to roost eventually. For me, it’s been missing my family deeply, dealing with some ongoing health issues so needing to be very mindful without going into fear about contracting Covid. These are all things I can learn to deal with over time and with grace when I give myself space.

However, what I’m struggling with and what’s broken my heart recently has been reading comments on social media; whether that’s linked in or Facebook and the vitriol and divide between people depending on ‘what side’ they are on regarding for example the vaccine debate. At the extreme end, there seems to be a narrative that you are ‘selfish’ if you aren’t vaxxed, or that you are a ‘sheep’ if you are. This ‘splitting’ as it’s called in psychology is a mechanism which enables the individual to deal with difficult emotions by making them good or bad.

An alternative to this might be to cultivate empathy. One of the ways we can do this is by playing with a concept called ‘three alternative possibilities’ for example; let’s say you’re walking down the street and see Mary and let’s imagine you say hello and she doesn’t answer, what might you think? Well, you may think, you’ve done something to upset Mary. However, when we sit with this enquiry a little longer, and ask ourselves ‘what’s another possibility?’ – maybe Mary forgot her glasses and didn’t see you, or maybe Mary has a lot on her mind and was oblivious to who was around her. This can take us out of right/wrong, good/bad and into more curiosity which can help to regulate our nervous system.

I’ve seen a lot of people over the past few months with varying forms of anxiety around getting Covid, getting over the border, out of the country, getting to see family etc, the list goes on, I can certainly tell you one thing. Everyone is dealing with something with this current situation. The question to pose is, who do we want to be when we are faced with difficulty? Do we want to be stuck in our ways, do we want to assume we are right, do we want to allow fear to drive our behaviour?

I’m suggesting a different way - ?‘kill them with kindness’ whether ?that’s to yourself or to another. As an example, I had a recent difficult interaction with someone at my gym who is very single minded in his views and was telling me how it ‘should be’ in the world with this particular topic, that you don’t have to guess too hard to know what it is, but it’s super controversial and in my world of work, we call that a heat filled topic or a high stakes moment. I found myself getting caught in my emotions and responding in a way that created shame for me afterwards.

I had a chance to redeem myself when I met him the following week as I was reminded of my Dad’s words. My Dad was a man who went through some very hard times as he was from Northern Ireland and had to battle a lot of discrimination in his life, including going to London looking for work and seeing signs that said ‘no blacks, no Irish, no Pakis’ – he used to say to me when I asked him how he dealt with this, he’d say ‘kill them with kindness’ – and that phrase really stayed with me. I’ve got to be honest; it’s taken me a lot longer than it took my Dad to learn this.

In the face of being triggered, we have choices available to use, do we go to judgement and fight, or run or freeze. Or can we somehow learn to regulate what we are feeling and get curious about what our reaction may be telling us? Perhaps there may be fear there and what is required in fear is gentleness, but most of us haven’t been taught how to be gentle.

So, my question is, who can you kill with kindness today? Let me know down below……..