Per your many requests, please find my March 23rd Tedx Talk below! It is also available on YouTube under the Tedx Channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEAzWD3038Y .
Thank you for your kind and enduring support, Deidre
I was asked to speak on the subject of kindness this week. To do so, I realized I had to first wrestle with the meaning of kindness. How can it be applied not just to those easy moments when a friend calls in need of compassion, but when you are maneuvering through a working day? 
I used to see kindness as simple and fun. It was bringing soup to the neighbor with the cold or buying lottery tickets from the 8th grader raising money for a school trip. As I dig deeper, I realize that kindness requires courage and often a ferocity that feels antithetical to a trait that seems soft and sweet.
Here’s a common example, a business colleague makes continued interpersonal errors. What’s the kindest action? By keeping noble silence, am I being kind? Or, telling him what I am witnessing, would that be kinder? Kindness in this instance is not simple and it may not be remotely fun especially if there can be negative repercussions for whatever action you take.
To ferret out an answer to this polemic question, I look to the practices of full-court empathy, looking for the bigger picture and how to tell the truth.
Finding the kindest action is clearer when I can drop into another’s shoes while standing at the same time in my own. An act of kindness needs to support both the other person and me. If I forget either of us in the equation, I am being unkind. Kindness is the resolution of what appears to be irreconcilable opposites of competing needs. What will truly support us both…not to make everyone smile, but truly improve our situations?
Focusing on the bigger picture also creates clarity. I see this with parenting. Teaching our children to be responsible citizens may involve some tough feedback as they grow. Is it kind to discipline a child after she have been caught trying to steal candy? For the whole, the tears and internal struggles are ultimately compassionate as the child learns how to navigate society’s rules. So, to find the answer to “what’s the kindest action?” also involves thinking of our larger context.
Last, counsel on how to tell the truth cuts a path through my brain thicket. Cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien says to “tell the truth without blame or judgment.” Another cross-cultural rule of thumb is to tell the truth from a place of “I.” So, “You are offensive and cause problems with your peers,” in the above example is not fully true nor very kind. That’s just my opinion. Using a non-judgmental I statement like “I am picking up discord in our interactions and am not sure how to proceed,” could be kinder and more truthful.
Kindness is not easy, yet when it comes my way it is a balm for the soul. How can we each bring more kindness into the weeks ahead?
My mother-in-law Jinny Combs taught me many things. 
As one of my most formative bosses, I probably model my leadership style off of hers more than I recognize. I know that I rely on two pieces of constant Jinny advice, “Look for people with good attitudes, you can teach them everything else,” and “You gotta be flexible!”
After running a guest ranch in southwestern Montana for fifty years, Jinny could have easily written a long book on leadership, but instead she penned three cookbooks and a collection of funny stories about life at the Diamond J.
Jinny taught that you could use writing to foster flexibility. When we would lose a pet or a person, my mother-in-law would write a poem. Sometimes a haiku composed at 4 am fit the bill and in other cases, a prose poem was right. Really anytime life surprised her, Jinny took pen to paper and reframed the situation into one that had value and, most often, a whole lot of humor.
These poems were never just for her. Once the story was captured in verse, it was typed, copied and sent out to a large distribution list of friends and family. An envelope with Jinny’s distinctive writing was a harbinger of news that although it may contains some sadness would always have us giggling.
Each piece would also end with an “ole!” Since my in laws spent their winters in Mexico that felt fitting, but this now feels like a constant call to get back on your feet and cheer that you are still here. Jinny was never one for focusing on loss or grieving, at least around us. There were guests to meet in the summer, or to correspond with off season, and more fun to be found.
Jinny read whatever I wrote loyally, including this blog. The videos were her favorite and, before she got sick last spring, they always engendered calls and emails. It should be no surprise to me that I have been putting off composing a post after losing her last August. I would like to chalk it up to too much work, but if I am honest, I have been avoiding the pain of writing without her reading.
But, you gotta be flexible — is not following our mentors’ advice is one of the ways that we can honor them? Jinny often said that her mother-in-law created the most brilliant sunsets. Following her tradition, maybe it’s time to believe that Jinny is out there watching in the vast worldwide web. She’s sending along her favorite emails full of animal photos and waiting for me to get back on my feet. And so, I send this far and wide, just as she would have, and end this post with a rousing, but I must admit teary “OLE!”
The fool who thinks he is a fool is for that very reason a wise man; But the fool who thinks he is a wise man is rightly called a fool. - Dhammapada 63
Last week a friend suddenly disappeared. Like magic, one minute she was engaged and providing her perspective in a meeting we were attending together and the next minute she was gone. Her body stayed at the meeting, but she had left.
My car battery also went on “walk about” last week…twice. Like my friend, its essential spirit took off and I was left searching for alternative transportation. 
When I dropped my daughter off for a soccer game on Saturday, I noticed that I returned to the same mind set that had appeared during the earlier described disappearing acts. My mind raced like a train on an oft-used track clicking past scenarios of where we stood and what might happen next. My thoughts sped along with:
Earlier in the week, my mind-train visited its usual stops:
That last one always gets my inner conductor yelling, “Next stop…Let’s Try To Control The Future…all aboard! Getting off that station, I’ll be sure to try to fix whatever is worrying me, whether it is a friend’s silence or a child’s potential disappointment.
Sometimes trying to control outcomes makes sense, like getting the darn car fixed. However, my “control the future” reaction is far from appropriate when it comes to wanting to shift the mental or emotional states of others.
Being a control-focused leader — be it as a manager, friend, parent or instructor — is not very attractive. While the conductor is calling out that next station, it is important for me to consciously decide if I need to disembark at “Control!”
In my examples, I had no need to intervene or control my friend or daughter. My friend, it turned out, disappeared because she was preoccupied with worry about an ex-boyfriend was very ill. My daughter did score and they won that day. Their experiences and emotions were best witnessed and left to unfold as needed, whether they were painful or pleasant.
Meanwhile, we are wired in such a way that just watching can be really difficult. Latest brain research seems to show that we are each equipped with “mirror neurons,” that mimic the emotions that we witness in others. You are sad, and I have a good set of mirror neurons, I will feel your sadness. You feel pain and I’ll register it too. Thus, when those I care about are on the way to tough emotions, I might wish to circumvent their route so I don’t feel discomfort.
I have been trying out a new approach to scoot me right by “control the future” land when the conductor calls. When another looks like they might experience pain, I first check if they are in true danger. If the answer is “no,” I begin repeating silently, “Allow.”
“Allow” reminds me to let go of needless control. It’s my code word for allowing others their own experiences; to let them feel sadness, anger or disappointment. Saying, “allow” to myself calms. My body relaxes as I become more focused what’s occurring now instead of pushing to shift the future. It is a practice of recognizing that I don’t necessarily know emotions or situations are best for others and in repeating “allow” I place a bit more trust in those I care about, and in life.
Notice this week, what supports you moving from a quick “fix it” reaction to a more centered response?
Note To Self – Always remember how you can still recall your parents’ off handed comments from childhood…
As an example, my father, an outplacement counselor, lodged this memory in a still accessible mental file cabinet. Recounting the highlights of a client meeting with my mom over dinner, he explained, “I told him to go out and do something good for someone else. It would decrease his depression and get him moving.”
Perhaps this snippet stuck with me that I was privy to inside information about my father’s work life, but regardless, it was sage advice that has come to serve me well.
This week, my friend Deborah, doing something nice for another, sent me a New York Times article that provides scientific backup for my dad’s derivation on the Golden Rule. This seemed especially appropriate to share after last week’s Thanksgiving and the Islamic world’s celebration of Eid — two holidays which focus on the giving of food to loved ones and those less fortunate. 
As Tara Parker-Pope writes, “An array of studies have documented this effect. In one, a 2002 Boston College study, researchers found that patients with chronic pain fared better when they counseled other pain patients, experiencing less depression, intense pain and disability.
Another study, at the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, Calif., also found a strong benefit to volunteerism, and after controlling for a number of variables, showed that elderly people who volunteered for more than four hours a week were 44 percent less likely to die during the study period.”
So, how do we kick ourselves out of our house of struggles and do something good without an outplacement counselor or parent urging us on?
We can make giving a daily practice like making our beds or brushing teeth. A young woman with MS, Cami Walker, followed this tenet after one of her spiritual teachers pushed her to give something to another for 29 days without fail. You can read her story at her website 29gifts.org.
I had read about Cami’s commitment to give a gift for 29 days and visited this site as she was just beginning this practice for the first time in 2008. It was a simple website, just a couple of pages, documenting what she gave each day and how it might be helping her cope with her illness. I appreciated her authenticity and courage as she faced the challenge and MS.
Reading Parker-Pope’s profile on Cami, I returned to 29 Gifts and was struck by how much positive change she has manifested in the past year both in her own life and beyond. It’s worth a visit.
So, whether it’s just for today, for 29 days or every day, what might we do to lighten another’s load? What simple gift can you give? How can we be selfishly selfless and prove my father right? As a loyal advice giver like his daughter, he’d appreciate that I’m sure.
Life is movement. The more life there is, the more flexibility there is. The more fluid you are, the more you are alive. – Arnaud Desjardins
Ask a Buddhist what we can count on and he will probably explain that nothing is permanent or, as Desjardins says, “life is movement.”
Sometimes that precept is welcome news. It’s great to know that homesickness or a sore back will eventually end. That your toddler will someday not need diapers and will learn how to dress herself brings a smile to your lips. Yet, as you look across a table at a dear friend, at that beloved toddler or at an aging parent, you’d probably rather forget that everything changes including our favorite people.
So, how do we come to terms with the axiom of constant and sometimes heartbreaking change?
This question has been accompanying me closely as our cousin Charles Bach passed away from congestive heart failure last month. Six months my senior, Charlie assumed the role of elder brother by providing relentless teasing and instruction throughout my childhood, which I usually resisted. Our extended family’s favorite memories include Charlie and me arguing for hours rooted literally and metaphorically in the spot where we began.
Charlie
So, fast-forward to today, I’m still balking at the presented topic — I’m not a big fan of impermanence right now, thank you very much. I would love the opportunity to battle with Charlie over introducing it. “Sometimes people need to leave,” I could hear him saying…
Some of Charlie’s last words were, “Yes, yes, yes!” and “It’s an amazing world of yes.” I am told that he died happy and very much at peace. As one of my lifelong teachers, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he left behind answers on how one is supposed to cope.
Since he was a gifted musician and actor, Charlie’s statement reminds me an improvisation rule — “say yes to whatever appears.” For example, what if on stage your partner suggests making spaghetti on Mars? Go along with the program. And if the clarinetist wants to riff in a new direction? Follow her lead. The scene calls for you to now to be ninety-year-old hip-hop star? Fantastic – start dancing.
Patricia Madson, author of Improv Wisdom
A deliciously talented improv actress, friend and teacher Katie Goodman reframes this concept in her book Improvisation for the Spirit
Not only opening us to exciting new opportunities, saying yes is an act of recognizing reality. We accept even that to which we want to say no. On stage it might be easy to say, “yes, we eat spaghetti on Mars” and yet in real life we are called to say, “Yes, atrocities are being committed against innocent people in the Congo,” “Yes, you think I’m a jerk,” or “Yes, there is racism and misery in the world.” We see what is, we center into the facts, and then can decide what must be done.
A fighter by nature, I was never happy when it looked like Charlie won an argument. But here, yes, he gets the last word (Charlie would have teased me for choosing that figure of speech so I’ll leave it.). Yes, I stand silently vanquished not only because I admit that he made another excellent point, but also because as Seneca once said, “Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb.”
The 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony occurred last Friday. That’s a point to which I wouldn’t have paid much attention — if you ever saw me try to play basketball you’d understand why — except that this year Michael Jordan showed up to model how to play well, this time off the court.
Jordan used many of the playing well techniques of which I have written here throughout his speech, but I have included just the last nine minutes below to highlight the skill of appreciating your enemies.
Jordan began his address by describing how others thankfully threw wood on his internal competitive fire with the challenges they presented. One of his first examples was the high school coach that cut him from the varsity team. He said, “I wanted to make sure you understood: You made a mistake, dude.”
Jordan was clear, it was his adversaries that made him great. He reminds me of the martial artist who in her opening bow when stepping on the mat affirms, “Thank you for being my opponent. I know you have the capacity to hurt or destroy me. Teach me what I need to learn.” I appreciate that with both humor and humanness “MJ” presented that his opponents weren’t usually initially welcomed by him, but over the long haul he understood that they each were essential in his development.
Again, Jordan displays how the game might be played; this time it’s the larger game. He is setting a standard on expressing sincere gratitude and how we might confront our opposition, be it in the form of a loss, an illness, an uncomfortable situation or a difficult person. May we each see our challenges as just good kindling for our internal flames.
As I read about the world’s mourning rituals I notice that you can catch a cold, you can contract the flu, but you can also get a case of sadness or joy from another. Emotions are contagious, which is not such a bad thing.
Burkina Faso traditional home
When I was pregnant, I didn’t think that the viral nature of emotions was good. I couldn’t watch intense dramas; “Shindler’s List,” “The Joy Luck Club” or “Life is Beautiful,” were far from my viewing list. I could bearly watch a happy sitcom on TV since there might be one of those “times of your life” commercials that could set me into tears. In that state, my emotional radar was so strong that I could sympathetically cry about just about any moment. It was embarrassing.
Now far away from the prenatal stage, I recognize that there are still times where being exposed to another’s grief or hardship can get me weeping. For example, when I’m struggling, I’m leery of situations or films that will bring up sadness. I want to hide out and be entertained with fluff. Yet, I am hiding, not truly coping, and in that lies the core reason for communal grieving.
Around the world, we can find long lasting rituals that push us to face and move through the sadness of loss. In Ireland and Scotland for example, the practice of keening or a vocal lament over a corpse was popular from the sixteenth century on. Women, often paid for their services, would recite list the lineage of the deceased, poetically describe those left behind and literally sing his praises. This practice continues in parts of rural Greece where elder women of the community sing laments at funerals, memorial services and during exhumation.
These songs appear to have the same effect as watching “P.S. I Love You.” Those grieving are moved to tears. Yet, they are expected to stay relatively under control so they can follow the singing. In Greece, if a widow were to lose control and begin shouting for example, the rest of the mourners would move her back to her seat so that she can listen to the laments and quietly weep.
In tribal culture of western Africa, communal grief rituals are created when a major loss occurs. Meanwhile during the ritual, others in the community are expected to describe their own tragedies and sadness so together the tribe can move to the other side of mourning. You might begin by recounting how you miss your deceased aunt, yet I would be expected to add how I am suffering with the loss of my grandfather and the sadness I feel that life is so short. Here too people lament until they are moved to face the source of suffering and allow it to be seen and processed.
Ritual seems to be created to keep the grief on track. We are required to stay with our sadness instead of being distracted by the injustice of the loss and running down the path of rage or blame. What is gone, is gone and we are to simply face it.
So how might I translate this knowledge to my drama vs. romantic comedy dilemma?
Lately, I have been watching what type of emotion I am trying to avoid. Is it I don’t want to witness sadness? Do I want to run from others who are afraid or anxious? Struggling with facing the reality of injustice in the world? Starting there, I try to identify which emotion has me on the run.
Then I attempt to just allow that feeling to be within me. For example, I was avoiding the natural sadness that comes with sending another son off on an exchange program on Friday. It didn’t seem right, since it is mixed with huge joy for his next adventure; I didn’t want to be sad and happy at the same time. However, I noticed that I instead had been wanting to hide from anything emotional…generally, not a good practice.
I realized I had some internal clean up to do. To push myself along, I looked at pictures of when he was a toddler and thought of our dear boy as a baby…a bit masochistic I know, but it really helped. Essentially created my own little lament. After allowing happy/sad/nervous to be fully present, I now find I can better participate in his last week home.
What is equally important for me is to be comfortable enough with my own grief, so I can show up for another in a similar circumstance. We really need community when we are struggling. As in my last post on Job, it is when we can stick with someone as they experience scary emotions that we shine as friends…and as parents.
Last week I had dinner with Job.
Book of Job by William Blake
Thousands of years after the legend was born, the biblical character Job continues to incarnate in my pedestrian life. On Friday, he visited in the form of a father whose twenty-year-old daughter recently died of a brain tumor. I also met him last month as a young woman about to lose her home. He shows up from time to time as a friend who after being fired cannot find a new job.
To recognize him, let me pass along Job’s story:
Once upon a time, there was a successful father who was a respected member of his community. He had land, possessions, a big family and a wife who loved him.
Then things began to fall apart. In his times, it would have been the gods, or God depending one’s religious background, who ordained the mess. Regardless, Job loses members of his family, his business bankrupts and the good stuff he owned is taken away.
At first, he is tough and takes the setbacks gracefully. “It is the will of God,” he proclaims. But then things go from really bad to worse. He becomes ill and is covered with oozing sores. Then, he’s had enough.
Depending when you meet Job, you migth find him yelling at God or not believing that there is anything remotely divine in the universe. At this point in the story, he hates life and wishes he could die. If we harken back to my post on the four seasons of tough times, Job experiences one of the coldest and cruelest winters of his life.
As I sat at dinner with the deeply suffering parent last weekend it was to Job’s story I went for guidance on what to do. Three friends visit Job at his lowest point. They model both how to support another well and how to really screw it up!
First, the three friends sit in silence with Job for a week. This has been carried forward in the Jewish ritual of sitting shiva where a grieving family stays at home for 7 days and friends come to support them. During these times, we are to witness the other’s suffering and not try to fix it. The three friends shine here as they love Job enough to allow his pain to pierce their hearts and feel compassion.
But, next the friends fail. I try to remember them as a cautionary tale. It appears they couldn’t take the depth of Job hating God and turning away from life. It was just too scary for the three. So, they try to figure out why all this bad stuff had happened to Job. One friend tells Job he must have sinned and God was punishing him. Another adds that he must be a bad person. As you can imagine, this does not make Job feel better. Trying to figure out why a friend is suffering is generally a bad idea. For example, if I had followed these misguided souls, I might have mistakenly stammered, “Perhaps your daughter was only supposed to be here for twenty years,” or “Now she is in a better place.”
The story of Job reminds me that we don’t get to understand the full “why” of a situation and, as Buddha agreed, that life contains suffering. It is very uncomfortable to sit with someone who is miserable. I always wish I could help. I would love to relieve the pain not only in the one suffering but also my own sympathetic sadness. Yet it doesn’t work like that.
I can remind another that I care about him and I would miss him if he wasn’t around. I can say I’m sorry that he is going through terrible times. In the depths of another’s misery, that’s all I know to be absolutely true.
A half a dozen years ago, I found myself in a rough patch. Looking at the four seasons of tough times, I had a good four to six months of what in my last post I would have called “winter.” I wasn’t happy with what life had dished out in the early months of 2003, nothing was earth shattering, but nonetheless very disheartening. Discouraged and unsure of the future, I was weathering tough times’ dark, messy middle when luckily, I received some good advice. ”Even if you don’t want to, do something that you enjoy each day,” my husband told me.
Children Playing 1941
He had reminded me to play; to do something that might not have any obvious purpose other than to make me smile. Trusting him, I took his advice and made sure I did something that had before brought me happiness. I ran around the neighborhood, spent time with friends and danced around my kitchen. I played games with my children and traveled with them. Play time helped me to recover my bearings and after studying tough times for the next half a decade, I understand why.
As expert Dr. Stuart Brown explains, play keeps us healthy and thriving. “By its nature it is uniquely and intrinsically rewarding. It generates optimism, seeks out novelty, makes perseverance fun, leads to mastery, gives the immune system a bounce, fosters empathy and promotes a sense of belonging and community.” The following video clip from a three part PBS special describes the importance of play:
I now try to remember to log in some good old fashioned fun whenever I can. So, please play. Play hard and play often, and I hope it will allow you to “play well.”