The book The Kindness Challenge continues to challenge me. The author suggests finishing reading it before starting the clock, or rather the calendar, though it has of course made me mindful. I am not part of her study group, but I do intend to upgrade my behavior.
She told a story about unkind thoughts. When her husband is away their
daughter likes to slip into their bed. One night she heard her girl being uncharacteristically rude. Yet her eyes were closed. She was talking in her sleep.
In the morning the mother asked about it, and her daughter sheepishly admitted to thinking those things, though she would never say them out loud. Perhaps it behooves us to clean up our inner world as well as the audible one, if only because it muddies our state of
mind.
There was a fascinating vignette about botox. Apparently the process blocks muscles that enable you to frown, and in the absence of that physical sensation, women report smiling more, and as a result feel happier. But we need not turn to a plastic surgeon to change our countenance.
Another participant admitted that her group of friends had elevated criticizing their husbands to an extreme sport. They actually tried to outdo each
other.
One section describes the superpowers of kindness:
- Makes a force field around you
- Disarms the attacker
- Gives you x-ray vision
- Melts through walls
- Springs open locked doors
- Makes the invisible visible
There was a woman in the project who after a week of cleaned up conversation said her husband
confronted her.
"Did the doctor tell you I have a terminal disease?"
How tragic to think that the only motivation your spouse could have for being gentle is because we are about to die. How about treating the people we love generously because they are going to live?
