In a world where you can be anything, be kind

Photo by Maria Thalassinou on Unsplash

Over many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true – the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker

Yesterday I was walking to my local yoga studio, enjoying the sunshine, bopping along, humming a tune, as one is wont to do when spring finally happens. I came around a corner and stumbled into a well-known yoga instructor in our neighbourhood. She had in turn just bumped into one of her students, who happened to be enjoying a cigarette.

As you might guess, yogis and cigarettes don’t generally go hand in hand.

Immediately the woman with the cigarette began explaining. “I hardly ever have one of these, and now of course I see you! I’m sorry! I needed one! I’m sorry”!!!

You can probably picture this part – a yogi, a respected teacher, and the smoking gun, so to speak. Most of us would feel like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Meanwhile, it’s possible (even likely) I thought something along the lines of ‘What is she thinking?? She’s standing right outside the studio’.

Then something surprising happened.

Ally – for that is the teacher’s name – reached out and touched the woman’s arm. Kindly, gently, and with a genuine chuckle, she said “No judgment. I will never judge you”. It stopped me in my tracks because I could tell she meant it. I half expected this sparkly, lovely, vibrating-with-health-and-wellness guru to light one up herself.

Sometimes we’re unexpectedly schooled just by turning a corner and witnessing an interaction. This was one of those times. No judgment. Ally had none whatsoever. But she had kindness in spades. It was a lovely moment in that spring sunshine, and it was a lesson.

When was the last time you thought or uttered something judgmental or unkind? For me, that was yesterday. Okay, possibly today.

Judgment, in all its forms, is a vindication that I am right. You are wrong. I am superior. You are inferior. We do this all day long in tiny, nuanced ways, seldom consciously. I’m capable of scattering judgment like confetti.

I heard Governor Pritzker’s inspiring speech to graduates this week and it struck a chord,

“The best way to spot an idiot is to look for the person who is cruel.

Let me explain. When we see someone who doesn’t look like us, or sound like us, or act like us, or love like us, or live like us—the first thought that crosses almost everyone’s brain is rooted in either fear or judgment, or both. That’s evolution. We survived as a species by being suspicious of things we aren’t familiar with.

In order to be kind, we have to shut down that animal instinct and force our brain to travel a different pathway.

Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being. They require the mental capacity to step past our most primal urges.

I’m here to tell you that when someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct. They never forged new mental pathways to overcome their instinctive fears. And so, their thinking and problem-solving will lack the imagination and creativity that the kindest people have in spades.

(watch Governor Pritzker’s whole speech to the graduates of Northwestern University here)

There’s the little, everyday stuff that happens all the time. The knee-jerk reaction to the homeless person is quickly followed by a quiet talk-to-self. “She didn’t choose this path” - but then you cross the street.

It becomes a little more complicated with individuals and systems with whom we strongly, vehemently disagree. What then? Dehumanization, other-ism, righteousness, shaming. Judgment and fear at their most extreme, as we well know, result in cruelty, genocide, and war.

I think we can all agree it’s a fraught period in history. Talking heads talk to us non-stop, and they want you to know that this soapbox is RIGHT. Everything else is dead wrong.

Could it be we might all benefit from a little less name calling, a little less drama, and a lot less judgment?

Rarely can we change the big picture, but we can all choose how we walk out the door. The next time you head out into the spring sunshine, consider substituting a smile for disaffection, empathy for indifference, and - what the hell, why not - throw caution to the wind and commit a radical act of kindness.

I’ll do it if you will. That’s how we change the world.

I’m Heather.

I’m a licensed naturopath, an unlicensed free spirit, an author, a mother, a yogi, a mystic, a goofball, an average but enthusiastic dancer.

Most of all, I’m curious.

I’m on a mission to bring you on a magical mystery tour of wellness, whimsy, and wanderlust. Thanks for tuning in.