When it comes to love and kindness, the little things are really the big things

If I asked you to name your most meaningful experiences from the past 12 months, you would, I suspect, start filing through your brain for extraordinary events. You would tell me about the weddings you attended, the holidays you took, the babies you met for the first time and the promotions or professional awards you scored. You would not, I suspect, mention the hug you gave a workmate that she really needed but could not find the words to ask for, the time you got the bus driver wait for someone who was running behind, the money you donated to a charity or the delighted smile you received from your grandma when you popped over for a cup of tea.

We tend to think that the milestones and the firsts are the most meaningful moments in our lives, so we cherish those memories (and for good reason). We tend to disregard the brief moments of connection that don’t change our lives irrevocably, but carry layers of meaning we don’t perceive right away. I believe – and I’ve said this many times – that the little things are really the big things.

There used to be a forwarded email doing the rounds (remember the days when we used to forward emails instead of retweeting or sharing on Facebook?!) by an anonymous woman who described how her boyfriend always waved to strangers when he’s driving, even if they look at him like he’s a weirdo. When she asked him why he did this, he told her that he’d read stories by people who had attempted suicide; some had said that if they’d been acknowledged by someone else they wouldn’t have wanted to end their lives. For that reason, he was committed to extending warmth to everyone he saw, to make sure no one felt invisible or insignificant. This is a very small act of kindness, but a very powerful one.

Of course we should celebrate the big stuff, but I wish we could do a better job at recognising the successes that really reflect our job in this lifetime – the times we give love to others, and received it with gratitude. One of the best things that happened to me last week was an out-of-the-blue phone call from a friend in the US who knew I’d been going through a rough time, so wanted to check how I was going. I doubt that was a big deal for her, but to me it meant the world.

Brené Brown writes: “Joy comes to us in ordinary moments. We risk missing out when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.” Sometimes in those ordinary moments, we’re a conduit to other people’s joy – and we may not even realise it. To me, that is the very definition of extraordinary.

I hope you create and experience lots of little wins this week. 

RELATED POSTS: Just listen. It's all anyone needs you to do

I'll sit with you when you're hurting. And I won't try to fix you

A couple of months ago there was a story bouncing around the internet about a woman who’d created a series of greeting cards to send to someone going through cancer. What was unique about Emily McDowell's cards was their raw honesty. Instead of the trite, and frankly unhelpful, standard card messages, they said what someone suffering a life-altering illness really needed to hear. Stuff like: “Please let me be the first person to punch the next person who tells you everything happens for a reason” and “I wish I could take away your pain. Or at least, take away the people who compare it to the time their hampster died.” But my personal favourite was this one: “I'm sorry I haven't been in touch. I didn't know what to say.” I like this because it beautifully captures the helplessness you feel when someone close to you is suffering, and you know there is nothing you can say or do to ease their pain.

I was reminded of this recently when I was spending time with a friend who is healing from a broken heart. Over the course of our conversation she ran the gamut of emotions from rage to disappointment to shame to grief. I wanted so badly to offer some advice or some truism that would help her find peace, even if temporarily, but I had nothing. But that’s not what she needed from me, anyway. It’s not up to me to fix the situation, my job is to be there and listen. Empathy is not a verb, it’s a heart space.

Liz Gilbert wrote a beautiful and moving post a few months ago about the despair she felt after another mass

One of Emily McDowell's beautiful cards.

shooting in the US, and how she attempted to turn that sadness into hope on a micro scale: “When the world starts to feel overwhelming in its sorrows, I always ask myself to look around me – to narrow down my focus – and to notice somebody who is nearby me, who is suffering. I can’t help the millions, but maybe I can help one. Life is hard; there is always someone going through great pain. I tell myself: Go sit with that person today for a while. Don’t try to solve their life, or answer for God [as to why it has happened], or offer dismissive ‘reasons’, or try fix the whole world. Just say, ‘I don’t know. But I will sit with you through this.’ Turn your overflow of sorrow into love.”

When you don’t know what to say or do, it’s tempting to either rush in with solutions or platitudes, or to just back away completely. Don’t do that. Lean in. Sit beside them and listen. That’s how you show love. That’s how you say ‘I hate that you’re suffering and I can’t change that but I will bear witness to your pain and hold your hand when you need me.’ What people need when their world is broken is the warmth of human connection. That is the one thing you CAN do.

How do you get back up when life kicks you down? Start with your words

It’s hard to pick just one standout quote from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, an exquisite book I have come back to again and again throughout my adult life, but this one would certainly be among my favourites: “The secret to life is to fall down seven times and get up eight times.”

In less poetic terms: “I get knocked down, but I get up again.” (Thanks for that, Chumbawamba.*)

Picking yourself up again after failure, humiliation and heartbreak is achingly difficult, but very necessary if you want to move forward in your life. What Paulo Coelho is describing so lyrically is resilience.

So that’s the ‘why’; this is the ‘how’. The words you use are extremely powerful when it comes to getting back up when you are down. I know this because science.

There’s a well-known study in which Japanese researcher Dr Masaru Emoto took two identical jars of cooked rice and wrote “thank you” on one, and on the other “you fool”. He had school children say the labels out loud to the jars every day as they walked past. After 30 days the jar that had received positive affirmation was healthy while the one that was abused had become mouldy and rotten. The conclusion: words have the power to affect us on a cellular level, so it’s important to choose positive ones. In the interests of balance, I should probably point out here that the scientific community have been fairly critical of Dr Emoto’s research techniques. Still, the finding is an intriguing one.

Improving my self-esteem has been a real focus for me this year, but what I’m realising lately is that it’s actually self-compassion which is more beneficial to my confidence levels and life successes than self-esteem. And just like Dr Emoto I’m fascinated by the power of words – specifically, how the language I use in speaking to myself (both internally and externally) could play a key role in making me a better me.  

The difference between self-esteem and self-compassion, explains respected US self-compassion researcher Dr Kristin Neff, is that the former often involves us comparing ourselves to other people. Which no one does, obviously… except me and, you know, every woman ever. (And potentially a lot of men too.)

Comparison might briefly boost your self-esteem if you conclude that you’re better than other people in some way... but when you feel like everyone else is doing life better than you, your self-esteem is going to suffer – badly. (Guilty as charged.) Self-compassion, on the other hand, doesn’t hinge on you feeling special or different – all it depends on is you treating yourself like a human being who deserves love and care.

Here’s what happens: when you criticise yourself, cortisol (the stress hormone) is released in your body. The resulting stress lowers your mood and motivation. So basically, criticism is being absorbed by your cells**. Yikes! But if, instead of criticising yourself, you can pick yourself up in times of darkness and reassure yourself that the failure you’ve suffered doesn’t diminish your value as a human being, you’ll be better able to get back up and try again, says Dr Neff.

In other (my own), words, kicking your own arse only works if you do it with kindness.

Perhaps this could go some way to explaining why so many women struggle to lose weight in the long term. If you slip up with your exercise and diet plan, then start beating yourself up and call yourself fat, you’re unlikely to get back on track with your weight-loss journey the next day.

I don’t know what you guys take from these findings, but for me, it’s made being nice to myself a far greater priority. It’s looking very much to me like being my own best friend is the secret to getting back up again when life kicks me down. This is a friendship worth making time for.

*Here’s a Chumbawamba throwback, because I know you want it. (Let’s just overlook the fact that the song’s about drinking, ’kay?)

**Did you know we have more than 50 billion cells in our body? Whoa! I learned this at a recent seminar by wellness guru Dr Libby Weaver. 

Amazing grace. I want it

For most of my life I have longed to be graceful. I wished I could glide into a room emanating such allure that every man would stop what he was doing to admire me. To dress impeccably and with such class I could have just stepped off a billboard. To hold myself with such poise that there would be no need for me to even speak.

I possess none of these attributes. My sense of style is less about style and more about whatever items I can rustle up that don’t make me look like I’m in the middle of a reality TV home renovation. My inability to match garments is renowned. Instead of sitting neatly in place, my hair behaves like your wild teenage daughter – i.e. it’s never where it’s supposed to be. And despite being blessed with long, slender legs I am unable to wear heels that would gift me the feminine appeal I long for. In heels, I have all the finesse of a newborn foal stepping on butter. In my beloved ballet flats I have good control but the refinement of a truck driver.

What I have realised, though, is that no matter how unruly my appearance and disposition, I can live in a state of grace – although not in the way the majority of people define the word.

Last Christmas I wrote a post about grace as associated with redemption, and my definition of the word has broadened further since. Our society loves to hold up Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's as the epitome of grace and elegance. Yet that role – as a character who displayed precious little regard for other people’s feelings – is far removed from what made this celebrated actress truly graceful. It’s true that she was mesmerisingly beautiful, but her grace had nothing to do with her face or her wardrobe, and everything to do with her heart. 

Audrey worked tirelessly as a UNICEF ambassador, fulfilling the call she felt from within to bring hope and

worldwide attention to the plight of starving children in countries such as Ethiopia – a humanitarian mission I admit I didn’t know about until I read about it on social media. Rather than focusing on looking fair, she implored the world to BE fair… in the way it distributes its resources and opportunities.

This, to me, is grace. No longer do I aspire to be chic or elegant (that’s probably for the best, all considered), but there’s opportunity for me to build towards a state of grace in my thoughts, attitudes and behaviour. Certainly I’ll never reach Audrey’s levels but that doesn’t mean I can’t maximise opportunities to show and feel grace in my everyday life. Grace is gently leaning forward when I want to retreat. Grace is showing kindness to myself and to others even when I don’t feel like it. Grace is finding peace in my heart amid a cacophony of criticism, fear and drama. Grace is gently reminding myself on my bad days that tomorrow is another day and it will be better.

That’s my understanding of grace – and it truly is amazing.

Confession: I struggle to know what to do when I see homeless people. Can you relate?

Two nights ago I was coming home from a group meditation and I experienced something that almost made me come undone. It was 10pm on a bitterly cold winter's night, teeming with rain, and there was a homeless man on his knees proffering a paper cup to the thighs of dallying drunks and harried corporates rushing by for shelter. I crossed the road to give him $5 and, in a soft, gentle voice completely incongruous with someone who is living a hard life, he thanked me and said he hoped I got home safely. I have never felt more guilty for having a home to go to. I had to turn away because my eyes were leaking for reasons that had nothing to do with the rain.   

There are so many homeless people around Sydney – particularly noticeable at this time of year, when it’s so cold – and sometimes walking to work in the city past so many people hiding under tattered blankets is to run an emotional gauntlet. I do give money to a few of them on a regular basis, but there are so many that I have to limit it to only two people, and I have to admit I do find myself subsiding into a state of compassion fatigue.

Basically, I become so used to seeing people in these wretched conditions that it has become normal to me. Which means I do nothing to help, despite my life of extraordinary privilege. Note to self: there is nothing normal about this level of human suffering. 

I know people who refuse to give money to homeless people on the assumption that they will only spend the money on ice (that’s the drug Americans know as meth, and New Zealanders know as P). I have always thought that it’s not my place to judge someone for what they do with their money, and frankly, if someone is on a street corner dressed in rags and reeking of urine, they need my gold coins far, far more than I do. There’s nothing I can do with that meagre amount of money that will hold as much value to me as it will for someone living in the depths of despair, whose entire existence depends on the kindness of strangers. That said, I have no judgement towards people who opt not to give their money to homeless people. Your money is your own, and you’re certainly not obliged to give it to anyone.

I think I harden my heart against the homeless sometimes out of a fear that it will upset me (for good reason). For that reason, my response typically goes one of two ways: I’ll hurry by and distract myself so I don’t look (which makes me feel guilty). Or I’ll give money but practically throw it at them, speeding off before I can hear them speak to me. I know logically that I can only give so much (although I could certainly do with giving more than I have been) and I can’t help everyone, so my guilt is misguided – not to mention unhelpful. I also know that, in truth, kindness isn’t really kindness if I’m giving begrudgingly or defensively. It would probably be more valuable to actually have a conversation with homeless people, ask them questions and listen to their opinions, to remind them that they matter (we all need to be reminded of that, actually), and perhaps bring them a sandwich, a banana and a newspaper. This is one solution I’m considering.

It’s pretty clear by my increasing discomfort levels that I need to change my approach to this morally complex situation, and I don’t think money is the answer.

The ‘how’ is probably less important than the ‘why’. And the ‘why’ is because compassion is one of my fundamental beliefs. Mother Teresa knew a thing or two about kindness so I’ll throw to her now: “I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.”

Quite.