Kindness

Well, I'm sitting here with a sore throat, stuffy head, and a general desire to go home and sleep. Luckily I don't have class tomorrow night. Unfortunately I have 2 classes tonight. So, I'm slogging through. But a thought occurred to me as I considered what I needed to do to gently push myself to keep going today. One of my vendors said I was "too kind" this morning. Really? That's pretty cool. I've been working on that...

One of the hardest things for me to do used to be expressing kindness. I could be polite and funny, respectful, formal, but you couldn't have called me kind. I was too harsh, too abrasive. I'm sure I lost friendships over my Brillo pad personality. But I was determined to learn. The shocking part was when it came to how hard it was to be kind to myself. I didn't give a damn if I was sick, hurt, or worn down - I'd just keep going to the point of breaking. Well, I broke. For good reason, too. So I had to learn how to take care of me, hold myself when things went bad, and take it easy on my expectations for myself. Sure I still shoot for huge things, but I line up my troops beforehand and prep what I need to get there.

But being able to do that started with learning to be kind. And once you're kind to yourself, it's vastly easier to express to others. Am I overdoing it? I dunno. I could be too kind - too easy to take advantage of? But then I'm paying attention now. As Mr. HeadBiter said, I've got boundaries. It just takes longer for folks to walk all over them to the point that the annoyance registers. I'm too busy enjoying what I've got to need to exert control over things as strongly as I did before. I don't need to control, I'm good where I'm at. And thus, I'm kind. Or at least I try...

Off to pick up Green Curry Kindness for my sinuses and see how long I last. Blame the deep puddle gazing on the cold meds....