The Power of Kindness (First lessons from recovery)

I’m five weeks into my recovery from hip replacement surgery, and things are going well. By well, I also mean SLOWLY. It feels like I’ve been “off-line” forever, with plenty of time to contemplate learnings along the way. My biggest take-away is about kindness. But first, a digression.

In their desire to encourage me, some friends told me, “Hip surgery is no big deal.” But between us, it was a big deal. I realized, later, that my friends were probably saying:

• Hip replacement procedures are more advanced and less invasive than they used to be.
• Hip surgery is less complex than surgeries like knee, shoulder, or organ removal—and the recovery is easier.
• They liked the outcomes of the surgery but forgot about the initial recovery. 

(If and when you encourage friends, remind them that each recovery process will be different.)

Prior to surgery, I fantasized that recovery would be a “staycation”—with time to rest, read, watch YouTube videos, and be waited on. How fun! What I forgot was the pesky part of the process called pain. While mine was manageable, it limited my ability to read or watch anything that demanded thought. I lost my can-do momentum and found myself suspended in a liminal hiatus, not quite sure where I was going.

Yet I was given gifts, and one of those was learning about the power of kindness.

Kindness

Right before surgery I bought the book, Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster: A Guide of Mind-Body Techniques. While I bought it too late to make full use of it, I found its suggestions useful. One was to ask friends and family to send loving thoughts and prayers in the half-hour pre-surgery. Research has documented that receiving positive thoughts can have a beneficial effect on your recovery.

I decided to test the waters. Even though I couldn’t tell for sure whether my healing went faster because I reached out to friends, the act of asking for support felt humbling and gratifying— healing in and of itself. Whether or not folks responded (many did), I went into surgery aware that I belong to very caring communities,

Then, after the surgery, every offering from a friend mattered—whether an “I’ll be thinking of you,” prayer, check-in, meal, visit, or willingness to be of help. I learned at a deeper level how much kindness can matter, and felt charged up to give back what I’d been given. While my soup-making skills are modest, it doesn’t matter. I’ll remember how a simple bowl of soup from a friend meant the world to me.

My humble offering of support may not change the world, but it might change me.

Nice vs. kind

While I appreciate niceness and have often been accused of being nice myself, I’d still pick kindness over niceness.

While niceness can be genuine, it can also be a form of protection or a facade– like the coverlet you throw over a tattered sofa before guests arrive or the cheap automotive paint job that makes a car look better but leaves the underlying rust.

Nice can be a way of not sharing ourselves fully with others.

Kindness feels deeper to me, a little grittier, and capable of including a certain brokenness that encourages us to extend ourselves to others.

Knowing that the world is tough, and acknowledging our own neediness and brokenness, we reach out to make it a little better for others.

Niceness can be passive, but kindness is proactive—as we extend ourselves in service.

Any personality style can express kindness, whether we are introverted, extroverted, quiet, boisterous, or sad. Kindness creates connection, a way of saying “I see you.”

Kindness often creates a ripple effect. Friends who were kind to me helped fill the tank of kindness I can now offer others.

To receive kindness requires humility—an ability to take in and value a gift being offered. Those who have endured major illnesses or losses often speak about how they had to learn to receive—and what a gift that was. I’m on a learning curve myself.

In the circuitry of our universe, giving and receiving are the connecting forces that keep good energy circulating.

Kindness even in politics

Whatever you think of his presidency, Joe Biden is a kind man. In the last presidential race, so many stories emerged about how kind Biden was to a lisping child or a grieving mother when he was not in the spotlight. From what I am seeing, Kamala Harris appears to be kind as well.

Whoever you support, ask, “How would said candidate treat the clerk at the pharmacy, a kid who runs up to them on the street, or an ailing friend—when there’s no political gain to be derived from their response?”

I believe the world is ready for a return to kindness, and I’ll vote for it!

Kindness expands us

My friend Madie was kind. At her memorial, her friends spoke about that special gift she had, and I believe she left some of it for us to share. I miss her terribly, but I feel she lives on in me, as if she seeded the desire to be a little kinder to others.

True kindness is like that. It self-seeds. Even when we can’t be sure of the results of an action, our kindness continues on its own trajectory.

We expand, and so does the light in the world.