Written by: Heather Madden, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Being kind to self is an intentional choice and honours the need for space, time and breathe within the pace of life. Small acts for you each day embed a truth about kindness: its ability to soothe in fragments of time, an automatic switch of perspective and a baseline of your continuously learning mind. Kindness is a hard boundary for mental health, a respite from stress and overwhelm and instils a deep understanding of emotions. As the simplicity of practice builds within, it brings a stark and often confronting understanding about precisely what is and what is not kind. Injustice and immorality; pain and trauma: issues we recognise within and outwith bring a form of sorrow that is part of the fabric of life. As the private narrative of your kindness progressively enlightens, it brings a loss of apology for your need, receiving and giving becomes a silent homage to belief. Kindness brings strength to see people for who they are and increases your influence through compassion and connection, sparking inclusive, sustainable change.
Confusion about kindness is understandable. The near universal struggle to define kindness is intrinsically linked to the rapidly eroding definition of ‘success’, the latter shaped by stress addiction and the toll of cumulative trauma positioned as necessary. In this context it is weak to be kind, it is a negative label and we tend to attach kindness primarily to actions we do for others. Unfortunately, the pace of change works against the idea of winning at all costs, do-what-it-takes and being kind the second mindset. In the era of perpetual change working with a dominant emotion of uncertainty, we must lead and navigate systemic evolution across our lives. The frame of reference for survival is altering and mental health is number one.
Burnout is like a match, it ignites in an instant, catalysed by an unplanned stressor on any given day. Apart from the physicality of burnout, some of the warning signs exist within your ability to tolerate too much stress and process this in purely analytical terms, without disciplined respite from the toll on your body, mind and spirit. Humans have become far too good at functioning with stress, we are deeply unkind to ourselves, and it is a hard road back to unlearn this form of coping tolerance. The effort of kindness to you is an essential relearning of our own fragility.
In the cacophony of vibrational pressure to redefine kindness, we are let down in a world skewed by The Kindness Paradox. This is a term I use in my teaching and refers to the disconnect between our quiet personal truth about kindness versus the polarising ideological iterations of kindness warping our sense of safety and morality on social media platforms and campaign-led narrative. The Kindness Paradox causes humans to get blind-sided by a proclamatory justification for kindness. Breathe. It is through chosen moments of kindness, that these moments become welcome beacons of respite from overwhelm and stress. These set a hard boundary for mental health and weave a deep base of resilience.
Kindness, practiced fully and without apology within, raises your vision, your belief and the light you share with others. It releases your mindset to the unknown and finds currents of accessible change through the unexpected interconnectedness of life: change is constancy of human connection and emotional engagement. When applied as a consistent reset it raises your ability to live with uncertainty and accept the ongoing presence of emergent variables and constant evolution.
Kindness is a position of personal strength and influence because it fills you with acceptance of self and the imperfection of this life right now. The stronger your kindness, the greater your connection to life and people; for each failure or setback, you know there is a place of retreat and calm from coping too much. Here are five non-negotiables of kindness to counter The Kindness Paradox and know the quiet truth of your kindness:
1. Be kind. Not cruel.
Unlearn the adage. The rules of human survival are changing and necessitate a metaphorical turning away from the pressure to be switched permanently on. Stress addiction and work addiction have positioned routine, location and systems of belief about what is right, often masking the reality of over-functioning and complex lives. Unkind behavioural norms and attitudes are pervasive as we expend more and more energy to keep going. The pace of change brings unavoidable contextual disruption with major consequences, reflected in choices for future work, skills, learning and lifestyle. Perpetuating a belief in the necessity of being cruel to be kind is morally harmful and inexcusably blinkered. Your internal barometer of kindness is an urgent, abject choice that takes effort and persistence, the benefits of which are your mental health and identity.
2. Kindness keeps you safe
Life is a daily equation of change, often unexpected and constantly in kaleidoscopic motion. Interrupting pace and the stress of constantly moving variables is a boundary of comfort for your mindset to create personal strength and remain mentally agile. Interrupting moments of time is an essential practice for psychological safety and instils a sense of who you are at any given moment in time. Kindness is redeeming in its connection with your authenticity and this solace keeps you safe.
3. Interrupt the pace of time: practise the reset in seconds, minutes and hours
Kindness within is intentional and your mindset learns to recognise the effort. Implement small acts throughout your day to interrupt time pressure through action. Shifting your chair, looking at a favourite photo or painting, staring out a window are all acts of quiet kindness, as are bolder efforts taken in blocks of time, a walk or getting a coffee. Factor this effort into your mental schedule and focus on releasing breathe and slowing down your body in moments. Anxiety and overwhelm are universally felt and you have the ability to reshape your life in the nuance of light and celebration that comes with the ups and downs of the world through patient, small actions every day.
4. Impact and influence are skills of kindness
New skills and ways to learn are major transitions for leadership development and mindset transformation. Learning your narrative for mental health and kindness, and sharing your understanding, translates into a currency of emotional connection. The ability to engage in ways that transcend linear rhetoric is underpinned by the ability to stop, listen and respond to people in compassionate and respectful terms, with an intentional removal of your conscious and unconscious labels and awareness of bias. Such openness raises impact and influence and reflects our shared imperfection, opening the door to powerful engagement and collaboration.
5. Kindness is a position of strength in leading change and being human
What is kindness? This very question is at the heart of our choice to be kind. However, the truth is that kindness does not need to be perfectly defined, to improve your mental health and mindset: you need to commit to the act of kindness and be consistent. The personal application generates massive self-awareness of the benefits of kindness and starkly illustrates its truth. By being kind to self you appreciate the diverse perspectives and realise the opportunity to take the next step forward, without having all the variables or certainty.
We don’t know what we don’t know. This is one of the great truths of our time and it is bringing a paradigm shift for new thinking, new ideas and new leadership. Being kind to yourself radiates out into the world and sees uncertainty as a form of grace that supports evolution, change and moral justice. We are in a social era of inclusion and belief, and we all share stories of life. Kindness helps you see the world through seeing eyes and remain present for the light and shadow of all we are.
Live Life Limitless.
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Heather Madden, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Heather Madden is a leader in mindset transformation and personal development. By challenging coping modality and building a lifelong commitment to managing stress, Heather helps others to break through barriers and achieve limitless life transformation, emotional core wellness, and values alignment. Heather founded the Live Life Limitless movement following her self-managed recovery from burnout and breakdown, triggered as a result of stress addiction, over-functioning, and multiple health setbacks including a chronic, sight-threatening eye disease and life-changing preventative surgeries following diagnosis of the BRCA1 genetic mutation. She hosts "The Interrupt Series: Stress, Overwhelm and Emotional Wellbeing", Interrupt Stress for Life live events, and regular Limitless Leaders and Live Life Limitless meetups. Her mission: Live Life Limitless: Choose, positive, make the choice. Mental Health is Number One.
