The Skinny – Amy Brunell

kindness_dribbbleKindness Without A Side of Guilt —

I work with hundreds of people who suffer from guilt. It seems for some to be a natural state. To feel “guilty” feels familiar and then in a weird sort of projection, to make others feel guilty for our own sense of “lack.”

The other portion of the population seems to feel little guilt, but going to another extreme, they feel justified in everything they feel and do as a result of those feelings as long as what they do makes them feel better.

Either place reflects a lack of balance in the spiritual journey.

I asked my teacher the other day, “If I manifest kindness towards myself, I will possibly hurt others. I can remain kind, but my changing my choices of how I interact, how I find balance, and how I find peace in my life may make them angry. And then guilt comes.”

His response was to remain kind. Period. People being angry about change comes from their history and their story of how the world should work. Remain kind.

But how do you deal with the guilt of their suffering while you are changing?

It is their journey to choose their reaction to your changes. Remain kind. That doesn’t mean trying to get them to change with you, or get them to “not be hurt or angry.” It means staying true to yourself, speaking without harm, thinking thoughts that bring others up and letting go of thoughts that bring anyone down to a lower place in their spiritual journey.

If you only wish good upon yourself and others, if you only operate for the “highest good,” then your choices will hopefully be in alignment for the best outcome for all parties. But if your wish, especially unconsciously, for yourself and others is to suffer because you need to be punished, or they do, we are out of balance and guilt walks in.

You can’t stop changing because you think others will feel pain when you are being authentic to your journey. Making conscious changes to move forward on your path has to come from a sense of knowing that a change must be made. It cannot be made from a place of avoiding from or running towards something else. Because then guilt happens. The sense of knowing a change must be made comes from a deep inner place. There is no blame, no anger, just the feeling that you cannot contain in the limited box you made so many years ago and now must, must bust out of.

So if you are running away from something, that is not acting out of kindness.
If you are reacting to a situation with anger and blame, that is not kindness.
If you want others to suffer, that is not kindness.
If you think you should suffer, that is not kindness.

What is the most kind choice you can make for yourself right now?

The Actors' Gang

3 Comments

  1. Wow, this really resonates with me. I spend a lot of energy trying to get others to “not be hurt or angry.” So much so that I am sometimes unkind or unfair to myself and to the truth. Thinking about this as a form of unkindness is eye-opening. Thanks for sharing this!

  2. I took a sociology class that called people’s reactions to our change “change-back” reactions. They don’t like us changing because they feel called higher to change themselves. The funny thing is that when each of us decides to change, it wasn’t so that others could change with us, it’s because we want to be better for ourselves. Letting go of other people’s change back messages is one way to know that truly the change is for oneself and no one else but maybe our Maker. That is kindness. And that is our truth.

  3. I have felt guilty all my life, ever since I can remember my sister told me that, as a person, I was not good and that everyone hated me, and that I was bad. Ever since then, I H – A – T – E receiving presents of any kind. My friends and Psychiatrist and Psychiatric Therapist, for years have tried to change my thinking, but, nothing would help. My everyone would tell me that it wasn’t true, but I never believed them. My friends would tell me that I was hurting THEM because they loved me, and wanted to celebrate the holidays and my birthday with me and to give me presents and things. This year I finally changed. Not for me, but, for them. It still upsets me and hurts me, but, my friends are happy. I still feel guilty for receiving things, but, I’m changing with this, and now I have to work on other things now. Thank You, Amy B.

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