Kindness Is Not a Technique
I have little dogs for the first time in my life, and occasionally a larger dog gets loose, jumps a fence, or comes after them. Once the immediate danger is under control, the first thing I do is check on my little dog. I pick them up or get close, make eye contact, and let them know, “I’ve got you. I’m here.” I do not pretend that nothing happened or demand that they stop shaking. I help them reconnect with me and feel safer before I deal with the other dog or its owner. One day I realized that this was exactly what I needed to learn to do for myself.
We hear a great deal about pausing before reacting. Pema Chödrön teaches the practice of taking three breaths, which is a wonderful beginning. But when I am deeply triggered, the pause alone is not always enough. I need to use that pause to go inside and make contact with the frightened, angry, or overwhelmed part of me. I need to say, in some form, “I’ve got you.” The fear may still be present. I may still be shaking, furious, or tempted to run. The purpose is not to make the experience disappear. The purpose is to stop abandoning myself while it is happening.
Who is the “I” saying, “I’ve got you”? The answer may change. It might feel like a healthy adult self, an inner parent, a higher self, or Spirit. Sometimes it is nothing more than a sentence I say even though I do not yet feel it. The words create a small opening through which something steadier can enter. Instead of being completely taken over by the reaction, I am now in relationship with it. That shift may be subtle, but it changes what becomes possible next.
I make a distinction between getting grounded and getting centered. Grounding, for me, is a connection with the earth, the body, and the physical world. Centering is coming back inside this particular incarnation and reconnecting with myself. I sometimes describe it as putting down the telephone, becoming present, and allowing the line to Spirit to open. We do not center ourselves so Spirit will remove every painful feeling or solve the situation for us. If that happened, we would never grow. We center ourselves so that we are not facing the experience alone or acting entirely from panic.
I had a meditation in the 1980s that I have never forgotten. I was raised as an atheist, and angels were not part of my usual spiritual language. During this meditation, however, I suddenly found myself surrounded by what looked like a large family of blue angels. They told me, “We’re always here. We’ve always been here. You just have to let us in. You have to remember to ask us.” The experience was not especially long, but it changed something fundamental in me. It reminded me that connection is available, but we have to become present enough to receive it.
This inner connection is what makes authentic kindness possible. Kindness is not a collection of correct phrases spoken in a calm voice. People, like animals, read energy whether or not they know they are doing it. You can learn communication techniques, say all the approved words, and still transmit fear, resentment, superiority, or the desperate need to be liked. You can also say something as direct as “Get the hell out of my way,” and if the energy is genuinely protective rather than punitive, the interaction will be different. The words matter, but the place inside us from which the words emerge matters even more.
Years ago, when I worked for the Quakers teaching nonviolent conflict resolution, I heard a story about an elderly Quaker woman entering her apartment building in New York. She was carrying groceries when a young man approached her from behind in a way that suggested he intended to rob her. Instead of panicking or confronting him, she turned around, put the grocery bag into his hands, and said something like, “Oh, young man, I’m so glad you’re here. Please hold these while I open the door.” He was so startled that he simply stood there holding the groceries. She thanked him, took the bag, and went inside.
This was not a clever self-defense technique that someone could reproduce by memorizing the words. If she had tried to manipulate him while radiating terror, it probably would not have worked. Her response came from decades of Quaker practice—sitting in silence, listening inwardly, and recognizing what Quakers call “that of God” in every person. Something centered in her reached something human in him before either of them had time to enact the expected roles of victim and attacker. We cannot guarantee that such a response will always protect us, and we should never turn it into a rule. What matters is the level of inner preparation that made such a response available to her.
This is also the deeper principle behind the nonviolent work of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolence was never simply passive niceness. It was disciplined action that refused to become the same thing it opposed. If we want to challenge cruelty, racism, sexism, coercive control, or other forms of dehumanization, we cannot depend entirely on shaming and frightening people into reciting the approved words. Fear may create obedience, but it does not necessarily create understanding. Education happens through relationship, curiosity, and questions that allow people to hear themselves think.
Most of this work is profoundly unrewarding to the ego. You may ask someone a question that begins changing them, but they may not recognize its importance for another ten years. They may never come back and thank you. If we need immediate evidence that we were brilliant, spiritual, helpful, or right, we will be tempted to force the outcome. Authentic kindness plants seeds without standing over the ground demanding that they grow on our schedule.
One way I teach people to loosen that need for control is through a simple intuitive exercise. I ask them to let an animal spontaneously come to mind for another person and then notice what impressions arise. The animal might be an elephant, an ant, an earthworm, a lizard, or a praying mantis. In class, the impressions often sound strange or irrelevant, yet they repeatedly carry meaning for the person receiving them. The person offering the impression is not allowed to chase praise or demand confirmation. The exercise teaches intuition, surrender, humor, and the ability to connect without controlling what happens next.
You can try this quietly in ordinary life. When you are standing in line, working with a difficult person, helping an older adult, or interacting with a child, ask inwardly, “What animal comes to mind for this person?” Do not analyze the answer to death. Simply notice how the image changes the way you experience the person. You may find yourself becoming less rigid, less frightened, or more curious. You are practicing stepping out of your established story long enough for another kind of perception to enter.
The purpose of spiritual practice is not to make us sound spiritual when life is easy. It is to make connection available when we are hurt, frightened, angry, or under pressure. That is when we need the many hours of meditation, recovery work, self-examination, and learning to listen. Kindness becomes real when it has been practiced deeply enough that we can find it without abandoning ourselves. It allows us to act strongly without becoming cruel and to remain human while confronting behavior that is not.
My private work combines health psychology, Parts Work, psychic perception, energy work, and more than fifty years of spiritual practice. Much of that work involves helping people find this internal connection rather than simply giving them another technique to perform correctly.
If you would like to explore how this works in your own life, I offer a complimentary 30-minute phone or Zoom conversation.
Dr. Marie | Life Path Healings
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