Podcast 70: Kindness as Power: Compassion, Courage, & Community

Episode 70 is a continuation of our conversation on acts of kindness, but we go deeper: what is kindness, really, and how do you practice it without getting rolled over? We talk about everyday kindnesses, being kinder to yourself, setting clear boundaries with toxic behavior, and why community helps you keep the practice going when the world feels loud, mean, or just plain exhausting.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us: what’s one small act of kindness you did this week?

#Kindness #Compassion #Boundaries #SelfKindness #EmotionalWellbeing #Community #PayItForward #Discernment #Resilience #ChooseLove #FindYourGlimmer #TwoCronesAndAMicrophone

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Two Crones and a Microphone. I am Linda.

I am Betty.

And I’m Sally.

We want to welcome you to this podcast, which is a continuation of our last podcast, which had to do with acts of kindness. As we were recording that, a couple things came up for us. One was: what is kindness exactly? How can we express it? And how do we stand in our own power?

With that, we’ll jump in. Let’s look at this. Let’s contemplate: what is kindness?

Linda: Well, go ahead, Sally.

Sally: Oh, no. I was just going to say, when I think of kindness, I always think about open heart, and approaching things in an openhearted manner, with— I hate to use the word “kindness,” but you know—just with an open space. I don’t know. What were you going to say, Betty?

Betty: I was going to say, for me, kindness is just treating other people the way I would like to be treated, in a manner that is loving, in a manner that is nice, or doing a kindness for someone. There were times I’d go through the line at Dunkin Donuts— I’ll pay for the car in back of me, and hope they pay it forward. And it works. It just works.

Or helping someone who needs help. I see someone maybe struggling with a package—like I have all the strength, right?—but I will try and help them get their groceries in the car.

There are times people have helped me. I checked out at the grocery the other day, and my knee was hurting, and I was like, “Oh, I must have had it on my face that I wasn’t exactly in a good space.” The guy checking me out helped put my groceries in the cart. That was so nice, and he was so sweet about it.

So, to me, it’s those little things that uplift you through the day. You don’t have to do any grand gestures, or donate a half a million dollars to something. That’s a kindness, yes, but to me it’s always the little things that make it nice for the day.

Linda: I completely agree. I think it’s those little daily practices. We talk about going out to find your glimmer, and that’s one way to fill our personal cup, right? Where we go out, we reconnect with nature, or our body, or our breath, or just take a pause in the action and look at that beautiful bird that’s finally winging in. I guess it’s slightly veering towards spring, though we’re going to have a little more winter here in the northern hemisphere right now.

But that’s one way to create a kindness for ourselves so that we can then fill our own cup, to feel a little more grounded, a little more forward-thinking, to be able to notice what’s going on.

And I think we’ve talked about this on other podcasts too, but as an overall theme, we’re trying to figure out: how can we personally, through our own actions and our own benevolence, make the world a better place? And one is through acts of kindness.

And if you’ll indulge me, I did look up kindness in the dictionary, and some of the synonyms: affection, altruism, benevolence, cordiality, courtesy, decency, gentleness, goodwill, goodness, grace, graciousness, hospitality— I like this one—humanity, patience, patience, sweetness, sympathy, tolerance, understanding, unselfishness. These are only a few.

Some of these are action words. How do we show patience toward others? Maybe I’m the one standing in the line and getting a little anxious or a little impatient because someone ahead of me has 50 items in their cart—and thank goodness they can afford it, yay—but that’s where I get to gather up my own patience. Because if I get impatient, that radiates. Why do I want to do that?

It is my own personal practice to come back around and go, “Oh, wait a minute. Okay, let’s stop that right here, because I get to be in charge of my own reaction.”

Betty: Well said. That’s really well said.

Sally: I particularly like your point about finding your glimmer and remembering that kindness is also towards ourselves and not just towards others. What are the ways that we can engage in being kind to ourselves, not impatient with ourselves, not unkind to ourselves, not harsh to ourselves? We all have a voice in our heads. I do.

Linda: Please continue, Sally.

Sally: No, I really was just reflecting on the fact that your point in there about remembering that kindness is also towards ourselves. Some people are very good at being kind to others but maybe not so kind to themselves.

Betty: Well, I think we all have a certain amount of that, because we’re trying to hold ourselves up to a standard that may not exist. It took me many years to get to the point that I’m at today with myself. Particularly when you’re younger, it’s very difficult because you’re always looking at the other person going, “Oh my God, she’s so tall, she’s beautiful, she’s so thin—how come I can’t be like that? Why can’t I dress like that? Why can’t I be smart like that?” You have all that, and this is all part of our development.

But we’re really hard on ourselves. It’s a really good point that you’re making, Linda. And I think unless our tank is full, it’s very hard for us to give it out to other people without totally depleting ourselves.

Linda: I like the fact that I believe this is a core value for essential humanity. We all have the potential to express it in a lot of different ways, but to have kindness as a key virtue, I think, is really important.

Betty: It is. And so then I guess the question that I have is: when I was growing up—now I’m really dating myself—we were taught about kindness. I went to a Catholic school. The nuns taught us about kindness. And why would you be kind to other people? Because, you know, what would Jesus do? They didn’t have that phrase then, but pretty much that’s what they were saying.

And you had people like Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody—do you remember them? They would talk to you about kindness. Roy Rogers was a big one for that—Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and Trigger—and had a little club, and a lot of that was about kindness. Later on you had—oh, and Captain Kangaroo. Don’t forget about him. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

But they all taught us at a young age about kindness. Now granted, you have things like Sesame Street today for the kids. But they don’t have adult people a lot of times. They have the cartoons, right, that help people, like Paw Patrol. How much Paw Patrol did I watch with the grandkids? Oh my God.

They did have examples, but somehow I think that a person talking to you about kindness really does help. And in school, if you’re taught about kindness—which they’ve kind of lost all of that—and school is one of the hardest places to see kindness.

I went to Catholic school, so if a nun caught you being unkind to another person, man, you were called to task. They got you right away. They were watching everything. We always thought they had eyes in the back of their head when we were little, because they could be facing the blackboard and they’d know what was going on behind them.

Little did we know that the seats that we were in—they knew who was in what seat—and we were reflected in the blackboard. So, if any of you ever wondered how the nun knew you were being bad even with their back to you, that was the secret.

Sally: Oh my gosh. Finally revealed.

Linda: I did go to Catholic school, but I was always curious about that. They always knew. But you don’t have that today, right, for various reasons. So there’s this culture of meanness and meanspiritedness that has come to the fore. It doesn’t appear there are any breaks.

When we were preparing the podcast, we talked about this. I believe it started with reality shows where people were encouraged to be mean to one another. Kindness doesn’t sell, but meanness does, or trickery: “I’ll make a pact with you,” and then immediately turn on the other person because it didn’t suit you for what you were trying to get—the prize, or the money, whatever it was. It’s teaching people that it’s okay to do this. I really believe that’s how it started and how it continues.

That is how we treat other people because of what we’ve seen. It’s been given the seal of approval. What do you guys think?

Sally: I think that kind of behavior certainly has been normalized and has increased in the last 15 years or so. I say 15 years because it was about 15 years ago that I first became more aware of social media and its potential impact.

Part of what used to happen for TV shows is they were rated and they had certain standards that had to be applied. They were regulated. And social media became an outlier because it didn’t necessarily have that many standards. It certainly had some, but it was a little different system and a lot harder to monitor.

It’s one thing to monitor a given TV show and say, “Uh-uh-uh, some of those words in there weren’t quite right—we better bleep them out,” versus a platform that has millions of followers. That’s a lot harder to administer standards on.

But I think there have often been people in human history who like to stir the pot, and who really want to stir up the action by flinging about anger or gossip or all those things. Sometimes a juicy tidbit is kind of fun. It makes me chuckle. But when it is mean-spirited and intended to take someone else down, or take various things down, without any care for the repercussion, or how toxic or hurtful that may be—and in fact amping up the hurtfulness to really get your point across without any sense of real personal responsibility for the impact—that’s a problem.

Betty: You make such good points, both of you, that it’s really hard to think about what I might add, other than it’s true: there’s always been the Roadrunner, right? You got Mr. Rogers and you got the Roadrunner.

Linda: That’s true.

Betty: So it’s sort of been there, but the balance seems to have shifted. And I do think with social media—I noticed about the same time you did, Linda—even though I don’t dip into social media the way many people do in terms of having a lot of social media linking.

But I think that’s coming to a head now, right? Because we’re starting to look at, actually, on a national level, how to moderate that. And with AI coming into the forefront, we no longer even know who’s really generating some of the things that are being posted.

With stealing our personas—our names, our faces, our thoughts and words—from AI, we no longer really know: did that person really say that? Is that their real picture?

And when things go across—particularly for young people and teenagers—it’s hard to separate that stuff out. Unfortunately, there have been circumstances where people really have taken their lives because of mean-spiritedness, whatever, and it impacts somebody in such a way that it’s harmful. And people are taking their lives. That’s why these discussions are happening on a national level and an international level: how does one control that?

I don’t have the answer to that. I think having the discussion about how to manage that is really important.

And as Betty said, we had the discussion looking at the podcast and saying, you know, we’re not going to be mean-spirited. We’re going to keep things in the realm of being positive and aspirational, and giving people tools that can help them feel good about themselves, and good about the world, and to walk in the world and interact in a way that comes from a place of love and compassion.

Osha always taught us, the only way to make change in the world truly is through love. And I think sometimes there have been years where you say that to people and they sort of roll their eyes—“Oh, you’re such a silly person if you think love is going to change the world”—but I really do believe that.

We might have more followers if we were being really nasty and saying nasty things about people. We’d probably generate a lot of hits if we were doing that, right? As opposed to saying, “Hey, let’s look at ways we can be assertive in this wild world right now and keep things in a realm that comes from kindness and love.”

There has been a shift, and it’s hard to fight that tide when it’s coming in and go, “No, I’m not going to act that way.” And I’m not going to hang with people who act that way.

Betty: Right, because I don’t think people realize that when you are with a toxic person like that, they’re infecting you—unless you realize what’s going on right away.

We’ve taught you in other podcasts how to put up the shields, how to deflect nasty comments. We have talked about that. You have to be aware of what’s going on around you.

And if you do have a person in your life who’s really toxic, you have to be able to deal with that. If it’s a family member, I’m not saying cut them off because it’s a family member, but you can use verbal aikido and kind of push it back.

Sometimes I think people don’t realize how mean they’re being. I really don’t. I did say to someone the other day—it was going on about something—“Really? Has it ever occurred to you that you may want to forgive this person? I realize they did something to you that’s not healthy for you and not good for you, but this was like 30 years ago. You’re still carrying it around. Let it go.”

Like the song I heard from my granddaughter: “Let it go, let it go.” You have to just push it aside. It’s not serving you well—by holding on to these feelings that are disrupting you. And if you keep doing that, it is going to corrupt you in some way.

Nobody said life is easy. It isn’t. These are all part of the lessons you have to learn, and how to control the meanness, because we all have that side, right? Everybody has a side that is good and everybody has a side that is not good.

What’s the old story—you know, the Native American story—the young guy asks his grandfather which one do you work with, and it’s whichever one you feed that’s going to take you over. So do you want to come through as a nasty, mean person? Which, by the way, very often you have to identify—you may not realize you’re doing it. Do you realize you’re hurting people?

I’ve had that happen to me where I have called someone afterwards and go, “Boy, I am really sorry. I did not mean that to sound the way it did. I didn’t mean that conversation to go where it went. I apologize.”

How many times do we actually do that? It’s an appropriate response to self-reflect and apologize, and that’s a very emotionally mature response.

However, I did want to point out: as seasoned crones—sometimes, and we talked about this on our last podcast as well—sometimes it’s important to just say, “Stop right there,” because I no longer want to engage with this. So either let’s change the narrative, or I’m happy to see you another time. I’m going to remove myself. And straight speech like: “This is toxic. I’m not going to participate in it.”

Sally: That’s straight, and it’s really important to be able to set those clear boundaries.

And I’m going to delve over into the goddess realm for a moment, because I have all this goddess lore that I like to talk about from time to time. There is such importance in love and projecting love, and sometimes it’s important to have a sword of discernment.

Like Kuan Yin, who is the goddess of compassionate love in action. Sometimes she holds a sword of discernment that’s about removing whatever is in our way, removing the obstacle, and also removing for ourselves the attachment to the outcome and the obstacle.

Sometimes, in terms of Kali, who is a fierce warrior goddess in the Hindu tradition, she’s shown sometimes as completely taking over. She’s the one that actually comes in and takes care of the battlefield when all the demons are springing up. She wipes them out entirely.

And why can she do that? Because that is divine embodiment in action—the life force coming through. However, that doesn’t mean she is not stopping. She ends up stopping at a point when it’s clear there has been enough.

So it’s important to understand: sometimes it is appropriate to come in with certain responses. But hers is love in action, and she reverts back to the goddess Durga, who rides the tiger and is all about boundaries, love, and perception—looking out for the well-being of the whole community.

Linda: Thanks. I hadn’t really thought about that, but yeah.

So I guess the next question would be: how do we exhibit kindness towards others?

Betty: And before we jump into that, I just want to say: the assumption that love and compassion means you get rolled over is not—one does not equal the other. Love and compassion is strong and firm and has boundaries and fights for good. That’s really what you said, and I just wanted to highlight that. I think we often think that being compassionate or being kind means you let people take advantage of you. They don’t equal the same thing. You can be kind and firm and loving and strong. In fact, you have to be strong to be kind and loving.

Sally: Thank you. Absolutely true. And to stay in that space—the way the world is right now—it’s really easy to slide out of that space, and you have to be really firm and kind to yourself to bring yourself back to that love and compassion. So I love the examples with those goddesses. That was very powerful.

Betty: But you were saying, how do you do that? So I guess that would be: what are our wisdom practice tips for being kind and loving while also being firm?

Sally: Exactly.

Betty: Well, I think you can do it practically, like I was talking about. Sometimes I’ll go to Dunkin Donuts and I’ll pay for the car behind me. That’s a little—what our Jewish brethren call a mitzvah—you’re doing a little kindness for the person behind you, and hopefully they’ll pass it on.

Or something as simple as helping someone with their groceries. The opportunities are there all the time. I know the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts are always taught about this: to help people.

I’m reaching an age now where people are offering to help me, and believe me, I don’t turn them down. I’m like, “Yeah, okay, fine. Do you want to do that?” Woohoo for me. It’s a big help sometimes.

From struggling to get something in the car, somebody stops and says, “Can I give you a hand with that?” Sure. Thank you so much. And it uplifts you for the day.

Not to get off topic, but loneliness is a big problem today, right? How many elderly people do you see in the grocery store that maybe they can’t reach the top shelf, and they’re asking for help without asking for help? And then you see someone go over and say, “Can I get that down for you?” The smile on their face—somebody saw them. They recognized them. They’re not invisible.

All these things are kindnesses that you can do every day. And if people did that, I personally think they would shift the energy, because our energy today is not in that space.

Sally: So, in the newsletter that just came out—and feel free to sign up for the newsletter, News from Two Crones and a Microphone, if you haven’t already—create a plan that involves others who are interested in the same thing.

While we, for example, the three of us crones, we often talk about those kinds of things. But create a plan with others who are moving in the same direction, because one of our four pillars is community.

There are individual things that we can do that uplift others, and eventually they’ll uplift us as well. But I think about things like the organizations that I belong to, and organizations I’ve belonged to in the past where core missions have to do with helping and supporting and bringing compassion to others. Whether that’s Rotary, whether that’s the professional businesswomen’s association, whether that’s Make-A-Wish—whatever—there are so many incredible things out there where the foundation is to make the world a better place and to operate from compassion and support for other human beings.

And it’s easier to maintain that when you’re not just one voice in the wind, that there are other voices also trying to do the same thing. You get support from other people, which keeps it moving forward.

It’s not that we can’t do it as a solo person, because what we do every day for ourselves, for our families, and people around us is incredibly important. But don’t forget you can look beyond that, and that can be very powerful in terms of the change we make.

Linda: I agree. Those are great examples. Thank you so much. Community-building is certainly something, and identifying—or stepping in even in a small way—to join a community that has efforts that you identify with and want to help with is so important.

What else do you have in the newsletter? I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.

Sally: Oh, man. I’ll do a plug for this, you guys, because we’re doing a crystal series, and we recently talked about rhodochrosite and rose quartz, which are both crystals that help heal the heart, help move the heart, and meditating with a rose quartz.

It just so happens—because we’re doing this class—that I have a rose quartz heart and a rhodochrosite here from the classes that we’re doing on Zoom. Because you can meditate with those things.

Sometimes it’s really hard. I usually wake up in the morning in a really good and positive mood and looking forward to the day. But if I didn’t, or if during the day I found myself going down the water drain, so to speak, you can stop and meditate, whether you have a rose quartz or not, or you Google a picture.

Those crystals can help you heal your heart if it’s wounded, and also bring you to a place of compassion. Our lovely friend Sylvia always said, “Surround yourself with rose quartz,” so that when you go out into the world, you are going out into the world in a loving and compassionate way.

People joke about seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. That’s maybe not such a bad thing. Because if we put that rosy around us and we look at the world in that positive rose-colored way, then that’s the energy we generate, and that’s the energy we bring forward.

And if we combine that energy—paying it forward, smiling at someone in an elevator, helping someone in a grocery store—that’s a positive tool for change.

And let’s be clear on something: even though toxic behavior is magnified through a lot of different systems, and is in some ways overreported because it’s sensational, keep in mind what really holds us together as humanity and as society is the kind of unpaid efforts—small acts of kindness.

That is the core of how community, in a healthy way, gets expressed. It may not be fashionable, but it is the way that many things get supported.

Let’s say there is a giant snowstorm—which hit the Northeast—and two feet of snow in Boston. I’m just reporting the facts here. This is what happened. And then another two feet of snow came down. It’s all those small acts that begin to multiply and create that coherence of, “Oh yeah, we’re here to help each other. Come on, we’re all going through this.” And others coming in to help get the electric back on, doing all those things.

Those are the things that are the basis of community and society, but they get underreported. I want to make that clear.

So if we think about starting with something doable, something we’re willing to make a commitment to—maybe for a day, or an hour, or a week, or a month—I’m going to try engaging in some kind of kindness-generating behavior with myself, or someone else.

And do that. The reason I like making a commitment with someone else is: when I make that commitment and I’m talking to somebody else about what I’m doing, it adds a whole layer of pulling us from loneliness, feeling isolated, and being alone, to feeling connected.

Then I can say, “Oh, Linda, for the next week I’m going to…” fill in the blank. And in a week I want to talk with you about that. Maybe you say, “Hey, I’m going to do the same thing.”

Then we can say, “Hey, how did that go with you?” Maybe it went really well except for one day. Sometimes when you do something kind for somebody, it kind of ticks them off, and they don’t accept it in the way it was intended.

Then you have a chance to talk about that and process that, and look at what that generates. It generates another layer to what we’re doing.

Betty: I love this idea, and I love the idea of partnering up with one or two or three or a group of friends and just saying, “Let’s report in.” Because you can have text chats, you can have social media interaction, all these things where we can use it as a supportive tool for each other to be able to do this. Great idea. Thank you.

And you know what? Because of what we know by energy, things come back to us.

Sally: Yes. Sevenfold.

Betty: So if you walk in the world being kind to others, that’s the energy that comes back to you.

Sally: Yeah. Hear, hear.

Betty: Oh my goodness. We’ve had a lot of really good ideas here. I would love to hear from our listeners. Tell us what random act of kindness you did. Did you join a group of people who do kind things? Did you join a group at the library that is crocheting shawls for homeless people? That’s an act of kindness. There are so many opportunities out there that you just have to look for them, and they’re going to pop up, believe me.

And the more we put that energy out into the world, the more things will shift. And my God, we need this so much right now. We really do.

Sally: Yeah. We’re working at welcoming in the feminine energy through the Venus ray. That’s exactly the shift from the influence of Mars. So whatever we can do to bring that forward, I love that.

I’ve always admired people who get together and knit hats for preemies, all of those kinds of things. That is so uplifting for people who are in really hard circumstances.

Betty: Yeah. There’s a friend of mine who volunteers for the local food bank and shows up twice a month to help unload the food delivery, just to make sure these things get on the shelves and they’re there for the folks who need them. People are really utilizing them right now.

Sally: Oh my goodness.

Betty: Yes, they are. They’ve seen a big uptick.

Sally: Oh, sure.

Betty: So the opportunities are there. Think about it. It gets you out of the house. You can sit in your house and twiddle your thumbs and go, “Oh, poor me, this is terrible,” or you can get out and help somebody. And guess what? You’re helping yourself. So there you go. It goes both ways.

Sally: Exactly.

Linda: Well, this has been really refreshing, and I feel like it filled my cup up just to be sitting here talking with the two of you. This is excellent. Thank you both.

Betty: Yeah, I agree. So Sally mentioned the crystal class, and I would like to invite you all, if you want to know more about crystals, to join us on Tuesday nights at 6:30. You have to sign up, because we have to send you the Zoom link.

You go to manevad.com—m-a-n-e-v-a-d dot com—and we’ll get the link out to you. Just follow the instructions. They’re really simple. We’ll get that link.

You’ll learn about crystals and crystals that will help you with your self-development and help you move forward with these things to help heal you, to help and to heal. Right? So I invite you to that.

I invite you to our web page, twocronesandamicrophone.com. Sign up for our newsletter. Sally writes a really great newsletter. It’s fabulous, and I think you would enjoy it. You’re going to get so much information from there.

And don’t forget, we’re on all platforms with Two Crones and a Microphone, wherever you get your podcasts. And we’re also on YouTube. So if you want to watch us on the big screen, go to YouTube, sign up. Don’t forget: click the little thing that dings there, the little bell, and subscribe, and you’ll be notified every time we put up a new podcast, which we do twice a month.

Sally: Yes. And at this point, we have so much great content. I want to note this: this is actually podcast number 70. If we were a human, we’d be in our seventh decade, but we’re not. But it’s fun to think about.

There’s so much wonderful content that we have. We self-refer back to various podcasts, but take a glance at things, and if there’s something that jumps out at you—maybe it’s grounding, maybe it’s clearing, maybe it’s glimmering, maybe it’s fill in the blank—whatever.

It’s one of our awesome interviews with really amazing women. Not that we haven’t wanted to interview men, but so far we’ve interviewed amazing women. And some amazing interviews are on there. There’s a lot of inspiration and attention that’s put into these.

So we invite you to open up and scroll and see what opens up for you, because we have so much great content out there.

So I’m going to invite you to, as usual, go find your glimmer.

Betty: And Betty usually you lead off.

Betty: Yeah, because you know what are we doing? We’re helping you navigate the muddy waters of our time, which are becoming quite muddy these days.

But you know what? Really, we’re giving you such good information on how to get through all this. So please go take a look at what we have to offer you. You’ve got 70 podcasts, 70 YouTube videos to look at, so have fun.

Let us know how much you liked it. And remember: it’s our choice to surround ourselves in beauty, to walk in beauty. You can choose to walk this life in the beauty way, as Osha taught us.

Kadeeshday. All is beautiful. Thank you.

Linda: Thank you all. Bye.

Sally: Bye.

Betty: Bye. Bye. Bye.