Last month I had to write a post on the fly, as I didn't know the prompt until after the link up was posted. This month I had a whole month to think about it, yet here I am rushing out a post.
I am in a choir, and we sang Mamma Mia. I've never been an ABBA fan, so while I knew the song, I'd never paid attention to the lyrics. They are terrible. Total red flag relationship with the singer accepting cheating behaviour because she loves him, and they both having fights knowing they will be back together for more of the same. So when I started thinking of Kindness, I thought of this song, which I loved as a kid.
He gets it's bad but he doesn't say 'Enough, I deserve better!'. It's just sort of left open.
In the 70's (probably before no fault divorce or just when that came in) there were a lot of songs about accepting terrible relationships. Yet now we know the grass is always greener where you water it. I'm not going to repeat myself too much, but people often save their best self for work and friends (and even strangers) but have nothing left for their partner. As Nietzsche said "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages".
However, the kindness I want to talk about to day, is the kindness we need to show ourselves. So many times I've had to pull up friends who can't accept a compliment or whose self description doesn't match what I see in them, or when I look at them. But even I, when asked to write a letter to my enemy, knew it had to be to that little voice in my head!
As I have mentioned before, as children we are born with self love and confidence, or at least self satisfaction but very quickly, as early as the age of 4 or 5 (probably when we mix with other kids at school or preschool) it gets whittled away. The 'shoulds' and comparisons take on a weight that for many of us, especially women, crushes us. How it gets to be so loud and so mean is beyond me. And yet it does. Why do we let our inner monologue treat us in a way we would never treat anyone else? It says things constantly to us that we would never let someone say to a friend without jumping in to defend them! There is a saying 'you are not your thoughts' but you are the one that hears them.
The good news is that it can be dulled. It can be ignored. Most importantly, it can be rewired. The brain believes what it hears - that's the thinking behind affirmations, that it rewires neural pathways auditorily. For me, I'm not so into affirmations but my enthusiasm for quotes I think is a similar thing. Most of my posts these days have quotes in them, and I think my subconscious likes seeking them out and grabbing on to them. Clever little phrases that stick in my mind. If you're friends talk themselves down, interrupt it. It's habit forming. The more you stop it, the less they will do it. And the same applies to you. If you interrupt the negative self thinking, it disrupts the habit.
You can also just say 'not today' as Amy Poehler discussed in her book. I am much better at that. When I decide I look stupid or too fat in an outfit, I often just think 'I don't have time for this' and wear it anyway. Usually a stranger compliments me, which shows that the mean voice was distorting my vision.
Years ago, I wrote about my Epiphany (dated badly with all the red flags Kanye now is but ignore that part) and when I read it now, I barely recognise the person. You can't turn a freight train around in a single moment, it takes time. But as the mean voice has had years to chip away at yourself esteem, you may be surprised that after a year of arguing back, you need to do it less and less. Don't give up, thinking it's not working. Your active thinking just needs to be louder. Most importantly, don't give up on yourself. "There is only one you for all time Fearlessly be yourself" - Anthony Rapp. That post covered shutting down the little voice in detail (and again with more Kanye - so just remember, don't go full Kanye. Or only go old Kanye, not 2025 Kanye).
Ultimately, we are the only people that we spend our whole life with, so be kinder to yourself. You don't have to believe everything you think, and you certainly don't have to listen to someone who is trash talking you, especially when the call is coming from inside the building!
I leave you with a song about kindness. At the moment, think of how all the LBGT people and migrants must be feeling with all the negative talk in the newspapers and media in the US and UK (shame on you both, and in Australia, the Indian community in particular but all non white migrants to some extent - shame on us). That's not 'debate' or intellectual for them. It's a avalanche of hate that must be crushing so as the song says, be the beacon reaching out in the world that's lost it's mind.
