Kindness

skydancer

I just thought I'd open the topic.

NamelessRiver

Kindness as in loving-kindness? Oh I never understood that word. All I know is that recently I have been in contact with the more "primal" parts of myself. My deepest fears, and cravings and whatnot. It made me realize that we might be rational but we aren't beyond nature.

Humans are full of contradictions, so I have been managing to be open to everybody, even the people I used to hate, because life is not always good and everybody deserves a break.

skydancer

I find it most difficult to be kind to myself when my human foibles are evident.

PietroPumokin

cruelty and indifference is like a parasite, and i can't help stop feeding it

NamelessRiver

Honey, I tell you, I have a lot of faults. Some are absolutely stupid. But somehow I manage to avoid being hard on myself. I guess it is because I never forget that I can turn my life around with hard work.

Also because I know it is part of the human experience. I see it everywhere. People do get stuck. It is not like there is me here and there is the rest of the world there and everybody else goes through life just fine, like they were some sort of perfect machine.

skydancer

I keep asking myself, can I just sit with it? Give it my interested curiosity.

skydancer

NamelessRiver wrote: »

Honey, I tell you, I have a lot of faults. Some are absolutely stupid. But somehow I manage to avoid being hard on myself. I guess it is because I never forget that I can turn my life around with hard work.

Also because I know it is part of the human experience. I see it everywhere. People do get stuck. It is not like there is me here and there is the rest of the world there and everybody else goes through life just fine, like they were some sort of perfect machine.

Tell me how you avoid being hard on yourself.

Jeffrey

It does seem to be an 'it' doesn't it? Thats the whole strength of the thinking and how it is so compelling. Its like the tar baby that brer rabbit kept punching and getting even more stuck. You have to work with 'it' in some way. Despair is just another 'it' to get stuck in. Somehow all the urging to burn out experience immediately as it happens doesn't seem to happen. Its so powerful! This one is a real strong one to work with.

ownerof1000oddsocks

Sometimes being hard on oneself is connected with being dishonest with oneself. It's passing off deception as truth...

If it was actually truth then we'd obviously be better off, you can tell it's not because it's actually unhelpful.

You got to not take yourself seriously...

You got to think, I'm telling myself porkies again, because they're making me feel like crap and offering nothing of worth to get me unhinged or otherwise unstuck from this situation.

anyone know what I mean?

skydancer

ownerof1000oddsocks wrote: »

Sometimes being hard on oneself is connected with being dishonest with oneself. It's passing off deception as truth...

If it was actually truth then we'd obviously be better off, you can tell it's not because it's actually unhelpful.

You got to not take yourself seriously...

You got to think, I'm telling myself porkies again, because they're making me feel like crap and offering nothing of worth to get me unhinged or otherwise unstuck from this situation.

anyone know what I mean?

I've never heard that expression 'telling myself porkies' but it makes me laugh. Thank you.

NamelessRiver

I keep asking myself, can I just sit with it? Give it my interested curiosity.

You are what you do, not some list of characteristics you have on your head. That list is false, because your self image is built in evaluating the way you reacted throughout your life to a given context, but in our minds the context is lost. All we are left with is this fixed idea that "I am this" "I am that".

Many people would react the same if they were in your shoes. No particular failing of yours, so no need to be torturing yourself.

skydancer

I appreciate all the kindness of the posters here.

NamelessRiver

Tell me how you avoid being hard on yourself.

It is the hardest thing to put in words. I evaluate myself in a dynamic way, not in a static way, so it is always "I acted like this in that situation, that was wrong", instead of "I am bad".

Incidentally I evaluate other people like that too. I guess I came to the conclusion that we are as hard on ourselves as we are on other people. I do get mad at people, but at how they are behaving, not them as a person. Being compassionate towards other people improves your self-image.

I am rather curious by nature. I always want to know how things work, including myself. What makes this "doll" move. It is like I am my own toy. :P

I don't believe the person I am now is a fixed entity. I have this whole theory of how the mind works, and in that theory self-image is an illusion born out of fear and repetitive behaviors, that are reinforced by the way the brain works. I don't know if it fits with psychology though. :S

skydancer

NamelessRiver wrote: »

It is the hardest thing to put in words. I evaluate myself in a dynamic way, not in a static way, so it is always "I acted like this in that situation, that was wrong", instead of "I am bad".

Incidentally I evaluate other people like that too. I guess I came to the conclusion that we are as hard on ourselves as we are on other people. I do get mad at people, but at how they are behaving, not them as a person. Being compassionate towards other people improves your self-image.

I am rather curious by nature. I always want to know how things work, including myself. What makes this "doll" move. It is like I am my own toy. :P

I don't believe the person I am now is a fixed entity. I have this whole theory of how the mind works, and in that theory self-image is an illusion born out of fear and repetitive behaviors, that are reinforced by the way the brain works. I don't know if it fits with psychology though. :S

Anything hard to put in words is really true. It's coming out of your felt sense or wisdom side.

Believe it or not the mood is shifting. The jaws are becoming slightly less locked into place.

The fog is lifting.

NamelessRiver

Other thing that helps me when I am sad is examine something that I find saddening like this:

*Does this always bring me sadness? (as in the past did it bring me sadness too)
*Is this saddening to other people too?
*Is this saddening to other sentient beings?
*In other words, is the sadness coming from the object or from me?

To give an example I found in one of Pema Chodron's tapes, cat poop for a fly is a banquet, for a human being it has an offensive smell, and for the cat it is a big relief :P

Also when I meditate I get some stupid image in my head that feels good for a while then I don't want it anymore, but it won't go away, just because I try to run from it. If I don't run from what I don't want to think it helps.

jinzang

Tell me how you avoid being hard on yourself.

Try this experiment. For the next week take not of other peoples' reaction to you. Do they more often praise and thank you or criticize you? I think you'll find that the great majority of people think that you are a fine person and that will be evident in how they interact with you. In that case, should you believe your own opinion about yourself or the opinion of others? I think the opinion of the majority is the truth.

Yes, you have a problem, but it's not what you think it is. It's not you that needs changing, it's your opinion of yourself that is in error and needs changing. I find that people drawn to a spiritual path often have very high standards and when they measure themselves against those standards they come up lacking. That's what I think is the source of a lot of these self-worth problems. Lower your standards. Or in other words, relax, everything is fine as it is.