Not that I have mastered or perfected kindness, but I have been forced to pursue it more eagerly in the past week. A perfect storm at work left one of my co-workers in tears and hurt from something I said. This puzzled me as it was not a threat, I never raised my voice, it was not said in anger, and it was certainly not meant to hurt her. After praying about this incident, I’ve come see now that the situation required more calm than I had at that very moment. Though I was not angry, my intensity level was cranked up to about 10. I was at no time out of control, but what I didn’t realize is that my high arousal state was being broadcast by my posture, my facial expression, and all my non-verbal communication. At that point, it mattered little what I said. My normal cool energy was red hot and it burned her. Hindsight has enabled me to see that the kindest thing I could have done in that situation was to walk away without saying anything. It would have been far better to confront her later after my normal state of peace had returned.
If there is a key to kindness, it is being sensitive to the needs of others. This is something that has never been easy or natural for me to do. My co-worker has the same need to feel safe at work just like all the rest of us. When I reflect on the incident and try to see if from her point of view, I see how she could have taken my intensity for anger and my posture as threatening. Had I been more concerned about her need than I was about letting my solution to the problem being known, the resulting fractured relationship could have been avoided.
Now my thoughts dwell on how I can make amends come Monday morning.
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