Tag: kindness

Be honest

Posted on by philipdodson

When we are honest in our relationships we stop the other person from having to wonder. When we withhold the truth and we conceal our true feelings and thoughts, the other person will sense something and because they do not know the truth, they will fill in the blanks. Our mind has to have the answer, the beginning, middle and end. When it does not, it fills in the blank and always in a bad way.

If we share our truth with others we free them from the suffering of not knowing and it enables us to truly connect in a very deep way that is not possible when we put up our shields to hide the truth from others.

Being honest with others stops us either building up and resenting others, which usually leads to an explosive outburst and hurt for all, or we say nothing and suffer because we did not speak our truth and we did not respect ourselves.

The only ingredients that we must not leave out ever from speaking our truth are kindness and empathy towards the recipient of our truth. If we leave them out we will only hurt and damage our relationships.

Zealots

Posted on by philipdodson

When we become super enthused by something, especially when it makes a big difference to us, when we feel like it is a great revelation…like the eureka moment that answers everything for us, we then become evangelical.

However, often and with good intentions, we want to bring this to others so much that we lose sight of that just because it was our revelation or realisation that it must be for others too. We make the assumption that others are experiencing or needing the same as us.

What can happen is that our fervent desire to adhere to something can lead us to become a zealot. Our zealous beliefs lead us to become completely inflexible, we lose the ability to understand others and instead of being inspiringly evangelical about something we become harsh and repel others. 

When we lose the ability to see others and accept that they are on their own path and journey, which is not ours to alter, interfere with or judge, then we lose connection and our inflexibility becomes an inhibitor to ourselves.

When we become zealous we lose our ability to be compassionate and most importantly with ourselves, which is then reflected in how we treat others.

Often the resistance that we receive from others only magnifies our own zealous and inflexible behaviour further. We must learn to be compassionate with ourselves if we are to break out of this cycle.

Kindness to ourselves is vital otherwise when we become a zealot with ourselves we significantly impact our self-worth.