Kindness

What’s the first impression you want to give people?

That they’re safe with me.

In my early years it was never safe for me to be me, I used to adjust myself for those I was with just to stop being hurt anymore. It didn’t work because:

It was never about me it was about them

I know this because I have the right people in my life now who are willing to see me as I am. Who are okay with me being human.

Obviously I have faults, I have that in common with over 7 billion other people. Our senior Bishop in the UK has just had to resign because he let people down in a bad way. He’s a good man who has done his very best in life, he’s been a lovely comforting presence, especially when the late Queen died. Anyone can get things wrong.

Everyone can

So I treat others with kindness. If they’re shaky when they meet me I want to know why. If they feel lost, alone, afraid, that matters to me.

I don’t question it and tell them that they’re wrong. I respect that their life path has caused this.

Something that feels like nothing to you can be huge to another person because of their very real experiences that you don’t have

Imagine, for example and a rather extreme one that still doesn’t show on the surface, a person who has been raped. If someone of the gender that did that just approached them to shake hands, wouldn’t that feel different for them? Threatening for a fraction of a second before they took a breath?

I’m acknowledging that men are raped too.

If a child has been abused and can’t even remember it, could they turn out to be a ‘nervy and hysterical person’ in the eyes of some? People who never stop to wonder why?

I do them the respect of wondering why.

No saint and no fool

I’m not as soft or ‘good’ as I might sound. You hurt an innocent or animal and your life experience won’t wash. I try to be understating but I’m afraid I fail. It’s one thing to be understanding, but there have to be red lines in life or where will humanity end up?

At the moment, exactly where it’s going, and I hate saying that, but the decent among us urgently need to become a lot louder and more determined.

If people talk and listen rather than take refuge in violence one side and judgement the other, it can be different.

Heartbreak and respect

A while ago one of our news teams did a piece on gangs, which are prevalent in the UK now. They spoke to some wonderful young gang members. Intelligent, thoughtful, helpless.

They said that if you weren’t in a gang all the other gangs would gang up on you. So you had to be in a gang. They focused on staying out of trouble, and every hour one of them went around and let all the mums know they were okay because “you don’t want your mum worrying do you?”

I pray that those young people are not letting the violent change them, because I would have been proud to have any one of them as my son.

So

The journey through this question has clarified why I am the way I am.

I’m not a saint who wants to, or thinks they can, save the world.

I’m a person who wants to be the solution not the problem.

Hence kindness and everything that comes with it.

Have a wonderful day. Get to know people, they’re extraordinary if you listen and get to know them.

Deb xx

Just move quietly away from those you can’t reach.