My personal Facebook bio relays a conversation between two friends, and reads,
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Kind”, says the girl.
I have seen the effect of kindness, the way it values, softens, heals, allows others to stand down from defensiveness, even repent. Kind is who I want to be to others. It is my chosen mantle. Kindness is the goodness expressed of God-is-Love to me, and in allowing myself to receive His kindness, and with the Spirit of Kindness living within me, I can be who I want to be: kind.
I have given permission to be Loved, and that Love sometimes reveals things that I wish He hadn’t or wouldn’t, yet in the bigger picture, I am so grateful. The Gospel is that through the suffering of Christ, resurrection is the outcome if I allow it. I have suffered this week. But I am also being resurrected this week.
I thought my suffering was due to kindness, but a gentle deconstruction of myself by Love revealed it was fear! I had no idea.
It’s what Ultimate Kindness does, and I’m so glad. What a lesson about myself and the nature of fear I have learned. For that, I am grateful. And now in it being identified, I can begin to disarm this shadow-self within that I had hid so well, and the power it had exerted over me.
But it still hurts.
An explanation …
In shifting to our new home, and new town, we live alongside new people. We are making our home here. We are also making our living here with a new business. For the first time, I am in business – something I love, but it also comes with aspects of things I hate. I hate to promote myself. I hate competition. I hate advertising my business: my ‘self’. It took me a year to put a sign at my gate. I still haven’t agreed to a sign written van. I plan the number of social media posts so that it’s not too much, or too over the top, or bothering followers. I have become more proud of the work I create, but have not yet enabled myself to receive well, the credit given. I do all I can to promote others, even those in the same field, above myself. I say to myself that I’d rather fail if it meant someone had to choose between me and the others in this business, qualifying it all with “I don’t actually have to make money, I’m just doing this because I love it”. (This is not actually true. I do need the income). I have stopped following certain others on social media, for the reason that I don’t want to compete with them. I don’t want the feelings of comparison and envy. I don’t want to look at what they do, with the thoughts of how does it compare to mine? I want them to win, so I have this ‘don’t care’ if I loose mindset, in order that they stay more successful than I am. Where some have felt railroaded by others in the same business, I have worked hard to stay out of the competition, if this is even possible.
These are the type of “kindnesses” and “humilities” I have started my business here with, and my life here with.
This led me to actions that I wish I hadn’t, because what I have learned this week about myself, is the driving factors were sadly not kindness and humility.
I was working on a product that was similar to one here already. I feared it would be competition, even if not much, and so I downplayed it, even spoke to her about it to reassure her (or perhaps, to reassure me) that I wasn’t a threat. I wanted her to win. I didn’t care if I failed in my product. True to myself, and my creative nature, what I produced was beautiful. When released, I shared it with her. I wanted her to know it was up and available, I wanted her to also know I supported her, I downplayed my product, I did it all in kindness towards her.
So I thought.
It wasn’t until a while later when I tried to make contact about another matter, and to tell her I was thinking about her, that I realised in thinking through things from her point of view, what I thought was kindness, was received as arrogance, and probably offense. I did not mean too. I was being kind.
Or was I?
In the attempt to make sense of my heart-hurt, over her reaction, I researched “when kindness is seen as arrogance” online, and though this exact search was not there, other revealing things were.
Always, when I deconstruct my actions, attitudes, feelings, heart and hurt, does God allow Love to penetrate. But almost always too, does it reveal things I never knew, and it hurts. But I am grateful today.
“The more attached we are to any persona whatsoever, bad or good, the more shadow self we will have. So we need conflicts, relationship difficulties, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies, or we will have no way to ever spot or track our shadow self. They are our necessary mirrors, and even then, we usually catch it out of the corner of our eye—in a graced insight and those gifted moments of inner freedom”. Richard Rohr
I learned something big about myself deep within. The fact that my action was not received as kind, made my heart hurt. My good intentions were not seen in this act. I was not seen. I had been misread. The result, I was misjudged, and this effected this new relationship.
A particular article I read insightfully revealed that this value I have of kindness, was actually founded on fear. Fear that was founded on the need to be liked. The need to be affirmed. The need to do whatever it takes for people to be on my side. The need to be agreeable in order that I am not a bother, and that people like me.
Fear! Crippling, ruining, lying, ugly fear!
My actions were motivated from fear, not kindness! Whoa!
Was it therefore kindness at all? Or was it a blind spot in my life, covered over by so–called kindness? I am not going to say that my actions were totally void of kindness and that it was all fear. But I am very willing to say that its deep underlying motivation was very very strong. She saw it. She may not have identified it as my need, but she saw it. I did not. And I am to blame.
“The persona [our shadow, or false self] does not choose to see evil in itself, so it always disguises it as good. The shadow self invariably presents itself as something like prudence, common sense, and justice. It says, “I am doing this for your good,” when it is actually manifesting fear, control, manipulation, or even vengeance”. Richard Rohr
It’s very humbling to see this. To have revealed a dark presence of something in my life, so powerful, that it disguised itself in something beautiful like kindness. I feel like I have been unravelled. I feel vulnerable and sensitive towards this open, oozing wound I didn’t even know I had.
I was unable to manage my need to be liked, which is embedded as deeply in my software as the need for food and water.
– I rank high in my personality on agreeableness, which means I hate and avoid conflict.
– I began prioritising the needs and wants of others over my own, not by my own volition, but because of fear of loss and conflict.
– As my actions were tainted by fear, instead of true kindness, the purity of my intentions were therefore doubtful.
– I set rules for myself (and sadly for my family, expecting them to be like me), which allow myself to be walked over, misused, relegated to the lowest place, to not be a bother, elevating this false form of kindness, all to hide, or to be honest, make myself feel better and justified about the mistreatment I show towards myself.
The plain truth of it here is that it was not the pure intention of kindness that motivated me. It was fear of being disliked. That is raw and hard to swallow. I feel like I am grieving the loss of something – a part of my carefully guarded self. And as ugly as it is, it has been ‘me’ for so long, that it is hard to acknowledge that this is who I have been.
I’m not going to say I am responsible for the reaction received, but I am responsible for my part. How easy is it then for me to fall into shame? And yet gratefully, this too has been part of the insight received. The result is a journey of kindness towards myself that God is working out in me – to value myself, to be kind to myself, to see me as He sees me, to find my affirmation in Him, (in Love), to release the fear I have, to inspect my actions and test them for their purity. Am I doing this for my need to be liked, or for the purity of kindness? And keep doing this self-evaluation until kindness is the sole motivator of kindness, and not an action of fear.
Plain and simple: my kindness offered was actually using her. I was expecting her to meet my need. I wanted her to like me. Ouch!
I can still be for others and their success in life. I am competition in this business, and that’s okay. I can be good at what I do, and at the same time genuinely support, and be kind to others, without being unkind to myself.
Graciously, I have felt Love say that I need to cut myself some slack. I could fall to shame, and self-hate, but this is not the reaction God longs for me, or why He revealed this to me. I will make mistakes, I am needy, and I need to be gracious to myself.
Oh God! How uncomfortable this realisation is. How deeply hidden was this, that Your light has now revealed. But how freeing and thankful I am for it! To live from knowing I am Loved to the very deepest need of me, is working within me a better, kinder, more genuine me.
I feel I am free to release the reactions of others. In seeking forgiveness, I now need to be gracious in the most genuine way I can, as she walks this journey resulting from my actions. I don’t need to be waiting around for a reply. It may not come and that’s okay. She knows. The truth is, I don’t really know her well or her journey. I just know I need to cut her some slack, to not feel shame, and allow her the space where she can do her thing. She may not be able to receive my forgiveness, but she knows I have offered it, and it’s all I can do – albeit rough on my soul and heart and mind, but knowing too, one day all will be okay.
Today, though still recovering, I feel safe in God. I am hidden in Him. I am grateful for Love. I have been seen by him – my motives, my fears, my needs, my values – all of it – open and raw, and yet Loved to those deepest parts of me. He knew this all along. His timing and kindness I know, is gentle and gracious, and no matter the outcome, I am safe here. He is guarding my heart. He is loving me forwards.
Intimate, sacred, deep, painful, and holy, are the only ways to describe this undoing and reconstruction within. Love is at work, exposing the truth – and in a surprising way, I feel deeply Loved, awakened, and grateful.
I am in-Love, and out of it I will not go!