Kindness Is Our Superpower

Can we develop the superpower of kindness in all situations, no matter what? After setting boundaries, there is one essential skill we have to build to ensure that kindness is always our response.

(Please note, this is a talk, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Kindness.

It is probably one of the most beautiful emotions that humans can express and yet it seems so hard for many of us to do.

Yet,

We love kindness.

If you go on YouTube and look for videos of acts of kindness,

You'll see these videos get millions of views.

And the truth is,

I think we're all capable of kindness in our lives.

I mean,

Don't we all know people who are really unkind,

Cruel people and yet they can be so loving and caring towards rescue animals.

We all love doing acts of kindness but it's hard.

It's hard to do it consistently.

So in today's podcast,

I want to talk about this secret technique of being kind in all situations so that with confidence,

We can say kindness is our superpower.

And to be honest,

If we develop the skill of kindness,

It really will feel like a superpower.

Let me share a story.

I've been to India a few times and one of my favorite places to go is Varanasi in northern India because it's considered one of the most holy places throughout India and it's right on the Ganges River.

Well,

When I arrived there after a long journey from southern India,

I decided to go right to the Ganges River and sit and meditate.

There are thousands of people along the river but I just wanted to sit and be still.

And as soon as I sat down,

Cross my legs and close my eyes,

Two dogs,

Two wild street dogs came up to me,

Put their head on my lap and laid their heads there the entire time I was meditating.

And I probably meditated for over half an hour,

Perhaps up to an hour.

And when I was done,

I opened my eyes and there they were.

And I petted them for a while and then off they went.

I don't know what drew them to me because there are thousands of people there at the river but I just sat and was quiet.

And even though I could sense that a lot of people were watching me and noticing the dogs in my lap,

They were comfortable staying there until I left.

And I don't know what drew them to me but I remember feeling very peaceful and kind inside.

And they felt safe and they stayed there for a little respite from their very challenging life.

So what I believe is when we develop the skill of kindness,

The acts of kindness so that it becomes part of our nature,

It really does become a superpower.

And it allows us to transform the world around us and make that world that we engage in a better place for lots of people and animals.

Because the truth is a lot of people are having a really hard time in life.

And showing a little kindness everywhere we go can be one of the greatest acts that we ever do.

And if we can develop that skill,

That superpower of kindness,

We'll discover that we can help people all over the world in every aspect of our lives,

Both animals and people.

We have to work at it.

It's a skill we have to develop which is today why I want to talk about the real secret of how to be kind no matter what.

But before I start sharing this real secret of how to always be kind,

I want to qualify it.

I want to say we can set boundaries.

We can walk away.

We can call authorities in to stop the abuse happening from others.

We can tell the person how they're hurting us.

There's many things we can do to set boundaries and address people being unkind to us.

But what we're going to talk about today is how to respond if we are able to with kindness.

And if we're not able to,

We just walk away.

Again,

We may call the police.

We may have them arrested.

We may get a lot of people involved.

We're not going to let people abuse us absolutely positively.

But how we always stay kind no matter what someone does to us,

That's what we're going to talk about today.

So let's start with this.

What do young kids do when someone hurts them?

They'll say,

They hurt me.

So what do I do?

I hurt them back.

It's fairly simple.

Kids say it all the time.

Why did you hit her?

Why did you pull her hair?

Why did you do that to them?

They'll say,

Because they did this to me first and I did it back to them.

It's an eye for an eye mentality.

It's been around forever.

It's very old.

It starts at a young age and lots of people hold this premise.

If you hurt me,

I'm going to hurt you.

It's pretty simple.

But that is not the path to kindness.

If we really want to develop the path of kindness,

We have to take a very different approach because the superpower of kindness requires a definite skill that we have to implement each and every time.

And some of us are not going to like it because the truth is most people really never completely outgrow that sense of an eye for an eye.

I remember reading the Harry Potter series.

It's a great series if you haven't read it.

But in this story,

There's a lot of meanness that goes on.

And Harry is often corrected by his elders saying,

Just because they said that to you,

Don't get mad back and do something back to them.

Stay calm,

Stay cool,

Stay collected.

But none of these adults are able to do it when they're being subjected to the same type of behavior.

The only one throughout the whole story,

When people attack him,

Is able to stay calm and not attack back is Dumbledore.

He's the only one.

And guess what?

He's also the most wise,

The most powerful wizard of all.

It's funny how with kindness can actually come strength.

So if today we really want to develop the skill of kindness,

What is the secret,

The real secret to always being kind?

And here's the answer.

It's completely irrelevant what the other person is doing.

What's relevant is my response to what they're doing.

And that's it.

We don't focus on what other people are doing to us.

It's pretty irrelevant.

I mean,

Again,

Going back to what I started this with,

We may set boundaries,

We may need to remove ourselves from the situation.

But primarily what we focus on isn't what they're saying isn't how they're doing it.

It's how we are going to respond.

And if we're feeling like we want to punch them back,

Like young children,

Or a lot of people throughout the world,

That's when we may need to remove ourselves from the situation.

Because that is not kind behavior.

But what we do is we focus on,

Okay,

This is what's happening.

How do I respond back in kindness?

Because I just don't know what's happening inside of them.

They may be having a bad day,

They may be having a bad life,

I may completely misunderstand what they're saying.

But what I can focus on is being kind back.

And if I do that,

I'm going to find that happiness is going to start permeating my life.

Because the truth is,

We really like kind people.

They're cool.

And we don't like mean people at all.

We really don't.

So if we want to be liked by others,

And equally as important,

Be liked by ourselves,

We have to develop the state of being kind.

And the real secret of it is,

It doesn't matter what other people are doing.

And we just want to fry that in our brain.

Okay,

I get it.

This person is being awful right now.

But what is a good response?

And so often I find just being kind back to people that are being unkind to me is magical.

I can't even tell you the number of times someone is being extremely rude to me.

And then I put on my superpower.

My superpower is,

I'm not gonna let their unkindness ruin my day.

I'm gonna do my best if I can to be kind back.

And so often that superpower melts people's hearts.

It allows them to relax.

They feel they're not in a fighting situation.

And sometimes the two of us develop even a friendship out of that,

At least for the time.

And I'm able to do that because I'm not really focused on what they're doing.

I mean,

Again,

I will set boundaries.

I know I keep saying that because it's important.

And the biggest boundary,

Probably the most important boundary we can use is just walking away.

But a lot of the times if we don't get caught up in what they're saying,

And we just focus on our behavior,

We can actually see it as,

Oh,

This is an opportunity for me to practice my superpower of kindness and see if it doesn't soften them and get them to smile.

I sometimes see it as a challenge.

This person is having a very bad day.

I'm gonna see if I can get them to smile.

And you'd be surprised at how often it works.

The key of it is we have to stop focusing on one,

An eye for an eye,

Which is ridiculous because that does make the whole world blind.

And the second thing is we just got to stop giving other people power.

The power meaning that they're having a bad day,

And we may have done something wrong that offended them and now they're coming after us.

Do we want to play that game?

No.

We can just apologize.

Or if we felt we didn't do anything wrong,

We can still be kind back.

That's the secret of focusing in on our behavior.

How are we acting,

Regardless of what they're doing?

I remember recently I was at the San Diego Wildlife Park,

And it was lunchtime and I went to get something to eat.

Well,

When I was standing in line,

It wasn't a super long line,

But it was moving slowly.

I mean really slowly.

It was so slow that I started paying attention.

And what I noticed was it was taking about 10 minutes for one person to get checked out of this food line.

I thought,

Wow,

This is gonna take over an hour for me to get through the line.

And guess what?

It did.

Well,

As I went through the line,

The first couple of people I got to,

I kind of commented.

I said,

Whoa,

It's really slow here.

I wasn't mean,

But it definitely wasn't pleasant.

Because when I'm hungry,

My superpower of kindness is not at its peak performance.

Well,

After I sat down and ate a little bit of food,

I went back in and actually talked to both the people that I wasn't very patient with.

I apologized,

And then I actually gave them a really big tip.

And you should have seen the smile on both their faces.

They didn't get tips ever,

And I could tell they really appreciated it.

And I felt better because I hadn't been at my best.

And I apologized,

And I even did something that I was able to do to make up for it.

It's amazing the power of kindness.

When we notice,

When we pause,

When we say,

Okay,

I'm not gonna let this person who's having a bad day ruin my day.

I'm actually gonna see if I can make their day better.

It becomes a point where we see other people that are having a rough day causing our day to perhaps be worse.

We can see that as a challenge.

It's like,

Oh,

Okay,

Let's see if I can make this person smile,

Or make them laugh,

Or just make their day a little bit better,

Because I'm not gonna give them power over me.

I'm gonna use my superpower of kindness to get them to smile and find happiness in their heart.

Maybe.

It may not work.

I get that.

But every once in a while,

Actually pretty often,

It does work.

And the times it doesn't,

You never know later if it settles down in their hearts and they reflect on what happened and they feel a little bit better.

I think they do.

I may be wrong,

But I'm always hopeful of other people improving their lives.

We can truly do well with kindness,

But it's hard,

Because the key here is we have to think about our behavior regardless of what the other person's doing.

If we think about,

Well,

They're doing this to me,

So I'm gonna do that back to them,

We're not gonna be kind.

If we think,

I don't care what they're doing,

How do I respond back in kindness no matter what anyone's doing to me,

Because I want to be a kind person and I'm not gonna let unkind people get power over me.

Instead,

I'm gonna be kind in every situation that comes my way.

And guess what?

When I mess up,

If I can't,

I can go back and apologize and say,

I'm so sorry,

I wish I hadn't said that.

And you'll find that those apologies come pretty fast,

Because you don't want to hurt people.

You find,

Wow,

It's great to be kind.

And so if you do mess up,

Which we do,

You're kind towards yourself for messing up,

You say,

Huh,

Is there anything I can do to make up for this?

And there's often so many things we can do with the ones that we love,

With our friends.

We just call them up and say,

Hey,

Sorry,

I was not at my best.

And I apologize.

And most people love apologies,

Particularly when they're heartfelt.

So the superpower of kindness comes from focusing on our behavior,

Period.

We say,

Okay,

I'm in a situation where I'm not feeling that I want to be kind.

What can I do instead?

Sometimes the quickest solution,

The best solution,

Is just to remove yourself from that situation if you can.

But if possible,

See if you can return the unkindness that you're feeling with kindness.

And if you needed to walk away from this situation,

Sometimes you can go back.

Often you can go back and do it again.

Say something in response,

Kindly.

I think a lot of times when we pause,

When we stop,

There's so much we can do later to fix it.

But at the time when we're feeling all that emotion,

All that anger,

It's tougher.

So it's better for us to walk away and then later come back and see if we have something kind to say.

Or perhaps just talk to them about what happened so perhaps it won't happen again.

Again,

This is something that isn't easy,

But if we develop it,

It truly is one of the greatest gifts and the steps towards happiness.

Kindness is cool.

Kindness is great.

Kindness is one of the greatest gifts we can develop.

I encourage us all to work on it,

To develop it so that we can each have as beautiful lives as possible,

One day at a time,

One breath at a time.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Always a pleasure to listen to you
I've been following you for almost a year now

Wonderful! I loved the point you made about Dumbledore being kind in Harry Potter.

We all need these gentle reminders and thankyou for your gentle voice and beautiful smile.

Love the idea of putting on
"SUPERPOWER "
of kindness
Conscientious decision 🌸🙏

Really enjoyed this. When someone is causing me stress/anger, I think to myself, “How can I bring light & love to this conversation?” And usually it works to turn the situation around!