Benefits Of Kindness

Kindness is one of the noble acts we can do. We can do random acts of kindness, and sometimes we can even respond with compassion when others are treating us poorly. But besides the benefits of helping others with kindness, do you know who else benefits? Come and explore the secondary benefits of kindness. (Please note: This is a talk, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Kindness is cool for so many reasons.

Kindness just makes our world a better place.

Kindness can be shown to people that are struggling,

But it also can be a great way to respond to people that are angry.

That's a harder one,

But it's also a beautiful act because when we can be kind to someone who is struggling,

Who is having a bad day,

We have a potential to make their day a better day.

And more importantly,

We stop the unkindness,

The cruelty,

The anger that is being exposed to our world by not participating in it,

By not making it worse,

By not keeping it going.

What keeps us from acting kindly are two things.

One is we don't like people to get away with stuff.

We believe in justice.

And when someone is doing something wrong or unkind,

We want to react.

We want to put them in their place.

Stop them.

The other thing that can happen is we don't want to be seen as weak.

Kindness can be perceived as a weakness.

We want to be strong.

We want to be tough.

So again,

We react intensely towards others because we don't want to be seen as weak or we want to stop the abuse occurring.

And though these positions seem reasonable,

I do want to talk about the benefits of kindness.

And you know who benefits from kindness?

Obviously the people that we are kind towards.

They benefit from our kindness.

But the one thing that may surprise you that I really want to emphasize today is when we are kind towards others,

We benefit.

We get to experience the beauty of kindness in our hearts.

Life can be so hard for some people.

It really can be.

And in my course of what I do for a living,

As a clinical psychologist helping people get better that often have had very difficult lives,

I'll ask them,

How did you survive?

Your childhood was so difficult.

There didn't seem to be any love coming from your family.

And yet you've turned out pretty well.

Your heart's in a good place.

You don't have hatred towards the world.

How did you do that?

And they'll tell me they had perhaps a grandparent,

An uncle,

Or a neighbor who showed them some kindness in all the hate that they were exposed to.

Those little acts of kindness that were shown towards them made all the difference in the world.

And it changed their life for the better.

I'm not sure how they would have turned out if they hadn't had a little act of kindness here and there to get through the horrific ordeal.

But those acts of kindness changed people's lives.

Recently I heard a story about a woman who had three young children and her husband had a heart attack.

And with the children and taking care of him when he came home,

It was a full-time job.

But what did her friends and neighbors do?

They brought her food every single day for months as he was recovering so that she could focus on raising her children and helping her husband get better.

Again,

Acts of kindness are thankfully plentiful in our world.

And thankfully they really make a difference in other people's lives.

What is a harder form of kindness is when someone is lashing out at us or being cruel,

Particularly a stranger,

That we know we didn't offend or if we did it was a minor offense and they're coming at us very aggressively.

What I sometimes do and find quite successful is I'll ask them in a kind way,

In a gentle way,

If everything is okay.

And they'll say,

What do you mean?

I said,

Well,

It seems like things maybe aren't going well right now.

And I was just checking to see if everything was okay.

And you would be surprised at how often when I do that,

I get a response like,

Well,

My husband just asked me for a divorce and it's so hard for me because I still have children at home to raise.

Or my father is in the hospital and I don't know how he's doing and I'm just struggling.

Or the person before you was just really vicious and I'm upset and I'm tired and I'm exhausted by this world.

And showing them kindness when they aren't being kind towards us is both courageous and something wonderful that we can all do.

I know this one is harder and sometimes it can even backfire,

Meaning that even when we show people kindness,

They may not receive it and they may even get angrier.

That happens sometimes.

So we just walk away.

But what I want to talk about today is what I feel the really big benefit of being kind is.

Besides helping others,

Which is huge,

There is one other very important benefit of being kind and that's it creates a sense of happiness in our hearts.

You may be asking,

How's that possible?

How could being kind towards others help me?

I'm helping them.

Let me explain.

We all have an ongoing commentary about our external world and about ourselves going on in our heads throughout the day.

It's there.

It's repetitive.

It repeats itself over and over again.

It comments on other people and it comments on ourselves.

And here's a bold statement that I want to make.

If we interact with the world through unkindness,

Whether we feel it's unjustified or whether we feel it's justified,

Because most people when they react to another person with unkindness feel justified at that moment.

When someone cuts us off and we lay into our horn,

We feel justified when we're honking at them.

Or if we've been online waiting for customer service,

Say for two hours,

And then for whatever reason we get disconnected and we call back angry and mad,

Letting that person know what they did or what their company's doing is utterly ridiculous.

We say a lot of expletives letting them know what we feel at the moment.

We feel justified.

But later what I want to argue is this leads to internal dialogue that is not going to lead us down the path of happiness.

It's going to cause us to look in the mirror and not like who we see.

Here's another example.

Something happens between someone that we love,

Let's say it's a child or a partner or a spouse,

And there's an argument.

And they say something that seems unkind to us,

That seems mean or cruel.

And then we lash back at them letting them know that they're such a loser and they're such a blankety blank blank.

Fill it in.

We know the words that some people say.

And then we feel justified at the time because we're just defending ourselves.

It's an eye for an eye mentality.

And we go through life that way.

But what I'm going to argue is going through that light that way,

When the dust settles and there's no one around but us,

That internal dialogue that I mentioned is going to be aimed at us.

And we're going to say you're an angry person,

You're an unkind person.

It doesn't matter what the other person did.

You did what you did and we know it.

Because you didn't have to react but you did.

You couldn't control yourself.

You're such a blankety blank.

We're going to hear that talk in our head and it's going to be harsh and it's going to be cruel.

We have a couple options.

We can numb it.

We can start drinking,

Turn to drugs,

Turn to things that distract us,

Watch endless television shows,

Play video games and not think about it.

But the second those things are turned off,

We're going to hear it.

Or we're just going to hear it and we're going to feel a lot of self-loathing and unhappiness is going to pursue.

So I'm going to argue that when we are unkind towards our world,

Regardless of what our world is doing towards us,

We are going to find that that is the path of unhappiness.

And if you don't believe me,

Because you may not,

I would challenge you to find anyone who truly has a sense of peace and happiness in their heart,

That is a cruel person,

That is an unkind person,

That does acts of meanness towards others,

Whether it be animals or human beings,

That you will not find happiness in their heart.

Anyone.

You may challenge me on this and we can disagree but in my line of work helping people for years and years now,

I have never found an unkind person a happy person.

But now I want to go to the good news because there is good news about kindness.

There is a really big benefit to being kind is that when we are kind,

Guess what?

We'll begin to like that person.

We like kind people a lot.

I know I mentioned Mr.

Rogers often because I think everyone liked Mr.

Rogers because Mr.

Rogers was a really kind person.

And guess what?

If we're kind,

We'll like us too.

And that's what happens.

That's the big benefit of being kind is that we're going to begin to like that person.

Yeah,

We'll set boundaries because boundaries are important,

Particularly if people are abusing us.

Absolutely.

But even there,

We can do it calmly.

We can do it kindly.

We can ask that person,

You need to leave.

Or guess what?

If you don't stop this right now,

I'm going to call the police.

But even that can be said calmly or at least not in a cruel way.

We can just protect ourselves and then go on with our lives.

But as we live our lives,

We will have lots of opportunity to participate in random acts of kindness.

And what will happen is when we do that,

When we speak with people respectfully with kindness,

We're probably going to make their lives a lot better.

But what's going to happen,

Particularly,

Which you may not know,

It's going to make your life a lot better.

Because as I said,

We like kind people a lot.

And if we're kind,

When that quiet inner dialogue is going on throughout the day,

It's going to be words like,

I like you.

You're a kind person.

You're cool.

You're nice.

And those words lift our hearts up.

When someone says,

I like you,

It makes us feel good.

What if throughout the day we're hearing,

We like ourselves.

We like who we are as human beings.

We see ourselves as kind,

As caring,

As loving human beings.

It's really hard not to like a person like that.

And if that's what we hear,

Then what will happen in our hearts is there'll be a gentleness.

There'll be a peace.

There'll be happiness throughout the day.

Kindness is the path to happiness.

I would argue we cannot be happy unless we are kind.

There are other factors involved,

Yes,

But kindness is critical.

It's like we can't live without water.

We need other things to live,

But we definitely need water to stay alive.

Kindness is like that.

We must have kindness in our hearts towards others,

Towards ourselves,

Towards those who are even unkind towards us.

And if we do that,

What we will find is that happiness will become far more of our natural state because throughout the day now we're hearing good things in our head,

Good things about ourselves,

And we're interacting with the world,

Not with defensiveness,

Not with anger.

Yes,

With boundaries.

Boundaries are important.

I do want to emphasize that,

But most of the time with kindness,

With gentleness,

With just interacting with the world in a way that makes the world a better place for all of us to live in.

We can do that and it will make a difference,

But what I'm arguing today is one of the biggest differences it's going to make is in our own lives we will find that we're going to like that person,

Ourselves,

A lot more when we participate in random acts of kindness.

And then when we're ready,

Because this is going to be harder,

We can even respond back to people that are being unkind towards us with kindness.

This one is harder,

But we can work on it.

But once we really believe in the benefits of being kind,

Then it's going to be a lot easier to hold our tongue when someone is doing something that we feel is unjust or unkind towards us.

And then we'll find that when we get better at being kind towards others,

Even when they are unkind towards us,

Our lives will become so much better,

So much more beautiful,

And filled with happiness that truly is hard to explain.

Because we have learned to love ourselves,

Because now throughout the day,

Instead of hearing self-criticism,

It's replaced with words of affirmation,

With words of support,

With words of love,

Because we really do like people that treat us kindly.

And if we are that person,

We're going to begin to like that person.

And when we like that person,

Ourselves,

We're going to find our hearts so much more at peace and so much more happier.

I know what I'm presenting today is challenging,

But if we really believe in the benefits of kindness towards others,

Even in the face of things that seem unjust,

I believe we'll find that kindness is the path towards happiness.

And I do wish that we all truly can find peace and happiness in our lives,

One day at a time,

One breath at a time,

Through kindness.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Wonderful Dr Puff! I do love what you shared and I do love you ! Thank you. I appreciate all your Happiness and Kind guidance. ❤️✨🌟💫❤️

Thank you 🙏

One can sure get a peaceful heart with a random act of kindness every day ❤️

Excellent. Thank you

What a great reminder. Especially now. I have found this to be true as well. Being kind always makes me feel better. Thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Kindness is important. I needed this on my drive to work on Tuesday. Thank you!!