Welcome to this short clip of me,
Relationships coach Nicola Williams,
Talking with somatic therapist and educator Gwen McHale about the courage it takes to be our true authentic selves in our relationships,
And how being nice doesn't necessarily equal being kind.
The full interview is also available.
I notice a kind of mixed response to myself and I hear you speaking about kindness.
And so I think what happens for me is my own conditioning and this is what I see in the world so much is a kind of a false kindness,
Something or an imposed kindness,
Which is more to do with being a good girl and doing the right thing and being nice.
And if often flies in the face of authenticity and truth,
You know,
Again the split,
Right,
That would be even doing the kind of basic split says,
You can be truthful,
Or you can be kind,
And you can be happy both.
I wonder if you would like to say something about that?
Yeah,
Absolutely.
Yeah,
I think truthfulness is kindness and authenticity is kindness.
And there's a sense,
This is why I talk about authentic relating and kind communication because there's a sensitivity that we might need around expressing our truth through expressing in a relationship how something is for us because we do have an impact on each other but yeah,
Definitely.
For example,
Saying no can be really,
Really kind.
Sometimes the kindest thing is to say,
Stop,
No,
This is not okay.
And that may not look kind,
You might think,
Oh,
Well I might hurt their feelings and you think I'm being kind by saying yes or not being clear because I might hurt this person's feelings but we absolutely need to say that no.
So kindness doesn't always look like we might think that we're conditioned to think it is.
I think that we really need to deeply get in touch with ourselves and our own authenticity to understand when we're coming from kindness and what kindness is.
It's a really real journey inward,
Away from the ideas that we've been conditioned with,
And away from what a lot of people might think,
You know,
You really might be taken the wrong way when you're being very,
Very kind because 95% of people would say well this would be the kind thing to do.
So this takes a lot of courage actually to be truly kind.
Yes,
A lot of self awareness as you said,
Yeah,
Really,
You really have to know where you're coming from and your motivations.
Yeah,
And yeah,
A lot of courage and bravery.
Yeah.
Exactly.
We need to seek our truth with kindness.
Yeah.
Truth is in itself an act of kindness.
Yeah,
To the world,
Right?
So,
So if I'm really with how,
You know,
I find it challenging,
I suppose,
In the world,
Something I find challenging about how the world is,
Is that there is a pretense sometimes of kindness or I'm looking for a kind of a people pleasing,
You know,
That I act kind,
But it's so self serving because it's like,
Well I'll act this way and then people will like me and not act fine.
And that's just supporting that egoic separateness.
And which is an act of violence,
Really,
You know,
Like to purport the idea that we're separate and yeah,
To just live from that face,
Whereas actually if I can risk,
I can really risk being truthful,
And as you say setting a boundary,
Even though that's really not okay with me,
Or pulling somebody out on something that's really not an okay behaviour,
Like a colleague who's making racist jokes or something,
Actually that's really not okay I don't think.
It's okay to speak that way.
And then it's really risky and really vulnerable.
And ultimately,
Is a kinder act for myself,
For the other,
Who's maybe a bit unconscious in this area,
And for the world,
And is ultimately going to make the world a better place than if we're all just playing nice.
Yeah,
We're just not being real when we're playing nice,
So we're not actually really meeting,
We're not meeting ourselves,
We're abandoning ourselves because we're not living from our authentic self,
And then we're not offering ourselves to be seen and to be met by others either.
So it can be a real loneliness when that's happening,
And it can be difficult sometimes it takes having difficult conversations and difficult feelings coming up and it's like it can be quite scary to relate in this authentic way.
But for me it's far more scary to stay in the nice arena and never really live and never really meet someone never really show myself.
I like the nice arena that's making me laugh.
I think a lot of people could resonate with that.
I don't know if you've ever said that before that just came up to me.
So it could be a chapter title for a book.
Stepping out of the nice arena.
Yeah.
So instead of niceness you're talking about real kindness,
Which is inherently linked to authenticity.
Yes,
Yeah,
Exactly.
