K is for Kindness (Inwardly)

K Is for kindness, but not the kind you think.

I’ve spent most of my life being kind outwardly. Kind to patients, students, family and kind to strangers who look like they are one hard sentence away from tears. Kindness for me has usually meant showing up. Even when I’m tired, especially when I’m tired. 

Lately I’ve been wondering what it would look like to turn that kindness inward. Not indulgence, not excuses, not quitting when things get hard. Just gentleness, bause to be honest I speak to myself in ways I would never speak to someone else. Such as looking down on myself when I’m forgetful or Mike makes negative comments on the way I do some things, some days I just ignore it, other days I take it to heart and get down on myself too. I’ve always called my self fat, I mean I am, but I don’t do myself any favors by reminding myself of it. I often make negative comments about my hair or new wrinkles or how I’ve been beating myself up for not finding the time to visit my sister who just had surgery, or my Sheila (the one I was named after) who hasn’t been feeling well with a cracked pelvis. I expect more of myself, I replay mistakes in my head, and notice many of my flaws.

If one of my students, or friends came to me carrying what I carry, the caregiving, the working, the loving, the worrying, I would sit them down, look them in the eye, and say “you’re doing the best you can.” But when it’s me, I don’t encourage myself as much or give myself the grace I would give someone else. 

Somewhere along the way when referring to myself, I think I confused kindness with weakness. I thought if I let up even a little, everything would unravel.

In Romans 2:4 it says “his kindness leads us to repentance.” It doesn’t say his harshness, his disappointment or his judgement, it says “his kindness”. If that is how God deals with me, with all my shortcomings and sharp edges, then maybe I can learn to soften toward myself too.

Maybe kindness looks like 

  • Going to bed instead of pushing through one more thing.
  • Laughing at my mistakes instead of rehashing them in my head.
  • Asking for help without apologizing or feeling I owe them.
Admitting I am human and not the glue holding the world together.

So maybe K isn’t just for the kindness I give, maybe K is for the kindness I finally show myself.

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