drahomir-hugo-posteby-mach-__Hw50q04FI-unsplash
Picture of Guest Post
Guest Post
Exponent II features the work of guest authors writing about issues related to Mormonism and feminism. Submit a guest post Write for Exponent II.

My Story of “Radical Kindness” (And Common Sense)

Guest post by Amy. Human Being. Mother of Two. Deep Thinker. Granddaughter of a Philosopher.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted…” – Aesop

My story of “Radical Kindness” is about “being kind to myself” in a foundational way.  Changing my narrative to be “kinder” to myself was both very, very radical (coming of age as a hyper-religious LDS female in the late 1990s), life-encompassing, and life-giving. This story is very “I-centric” because it is my story – but it is not arrogant because I literally didn’t have enough space to be concerned about myself to be actually arrogant.

I stared at my phone, dumbfounded. There, in black and white – some random individual had just passed this gem of wisdom along the internet like trash (and messages in a bottle) washed up on shore. 

“If we don’t say “Yes” authentically, we say “Yes” resentfully, and that leads to far more problems than if we’d said “No” in the first place” – Nat Lue

  • Saying Yes Resentfully = More Problems [I already had the laundry list of problems, no thank you].
  • Saying Yes Authentically = Less Problems [How? Just How?]

I knew for myself, within myself, when it felt like my decisions were authentic decisions and when they were “performance” decisions foisted on me like a blackmailer’s bid for a precise, parsimonious payout to be doled out slowly, impartially, and scornfully in an inhumane transaction. 

After reading this meme, I kept a mental tally of the times I was “Performing the Yes’s” (with varying degrees of resentment) and actually “Saying Yes” because I meant it. While I didn’t have a notepad where I was busily entering tallies into a “Comedy” or a “Tragedy” column like Harold Crick did in Stranger than Fiction – I was that diligent and methodical about making observations and passing them along to myself. 

About Me:

My attention was divided like light exploding out of a prism in all directions by a job, a house, a parade of 1-2 pets at a time, a husband, 2 kids, 2 callings, some volunteer work, poorly managed postpartum anxiety, and a carpetbag of unprocessed trauma, I knew when I could say “Yes” and I could say “No” on a fundamental level.  

At the time, I was about 10 years into our marriage.  In all compassionate honesty, I was so far into burnout that the entire house should have been on fire. My husband was in a confusing and painful physical health space that required more mental health resources and creativity then he had access to, so he was burned out too.  Our oldest at 8-9 years of age was disconnected from herself, from us, and from humanity in general – and was dealing with a scope of problems we were beginning to find a framework for. Our baby was around 20 months old. 

We were in the “phew, – the worst is over – holy cow, what’s that?” cycle. We had our heads above the metaphorical waterline, but just barely and we knew it wasn’t sustainable. My immediate family was in a dynamic space of diagnostic work to figure out “What was wrong with us” which actually kicked off a chain of events more accurately labeled, “What accommodations and strength-based tactics are life-giving for us in a sustainable niche lifestyle?”. 

What Changed?

Some “Yeses” were required – people need calories that they can eat, our house needed to pass basic standards of cleanliness, I needed my job.  But I could no longer afford all the additional “Yes’s” being assigned to me because “I gave a care” and they didn’t, and it was showing. 

I immediately stopped doing the unsustainable “Performance Yes’s”. You know the ones – that one if you do “that one thing”, you immediately long for a hole to fall into, a teleportation circle to “elsewhere” and a new life in the witness protection program (not knocking it – in a sense this is a request to be protected as “someone else” actually).  I started curating my attendance to activities in the community and requesting that more information be sent my way via email then phone calls.  I started to be honest about the times when “saying Yes” would cause me personal resentment at home. I started to be more upfront about what I “could give”, what the “upper limits” of my participation budget was. 

My volunteer experience shifted from healthcare support and church callings to mock interviews and church-related service projects – and it was good:)

What Happened?

The sky didn’t fall down entirely because of my decisions. The universe didn’t collapse on itself (mostly because it wasn’t actually balanced on my shoulders – who knew?).  Some of them shifted into the “Good Enough Performance Yes’s” (like when you shove everything into a cute bin because someone is invading your house as an act of social charity and connection, and you want them to be there AND you want them to think that you aren’t a disorganized mess.  There may be recovery ice cream in your future after they leave.) Our situation had acquired enough luck, desperation, poverty, privilege, good sense, or love that my marriage survived (and eventually thrived because of) the radical compassion I applied to myself. 

There was an immediate outpouring of anger though.  I got angry at myself for “being a doormat” at times. My family got angry at me – they had gambled on me saying “Yes” in different ways for so long that they had to scramble to adapt.  I got angry at them too for feeling entitled to rely on me for physical, mental, and emotional labor without contributing. I got angry at the situation where it was more cost-effective for me to solve their problems and clean up their situations rather than assigning me a role as “mentor” to provide information and moral support in a space where they practiced solving their problems or “expert mourner” sitting with them in discomfort and suffering. Again, my situation had enough luck, desperation, poverty, privilege, good sense, or love that the physical safety and main mental safety of each family member was mostly protected. 

“And They Lived Happier-ly Ever After”

However, within weeks of starting to say “Yes” authentically, I started thinking about looking for a counselor for us because of the anger in the situation and I didn’t want to “push our luck” from a literal perspective. It took another year of sitting in an “almost healing but also self-destructing” space before we got into family counseling, and then individual counseling for the 3 main family members. We spent 4 years in that counseling space, veering away from annihilating each other and our relationships over and over again as we eased into to using different ways to access, perceive, and collaborate on each other’s narratives. 

“Saying Yes” without resentment eventually led to me demanding “Win-Win” situations where I have to “win” something for myself too. It has led to situations where I argue with my girl- children when they leave their “winnings at the table” and try to martyr themselves to prove a feminine point. My husband and I wound up creating an entirely different framework for our relationship because we both needed the “Wins” – the accommodations, compassion, and authenticity that resentful decision-making had been robbing us of.

Pro Tips:

If you are going to start this radical kindness of “Saying Yes Authentically”, stock up on food and drink staples first.  When you start to do the “emotional work” of personal reconstruction (which this a core feature of) – you need the food, possibly the ritual (if cooking is a life-sustaining/meditating ritual for you), and the relationship protection that throwing food into a situation brings (seriously, my teenager cannot argue with me nearly so well on a full belly – it’s magical). So many fights are triggered needlessly by being “hangry” that protecting yourself from that is a pretty useful short-term tactic. 

I’d also recommend using the “Tree of Contemplative Practices” to figure out what you as a person says “Yes” authentically to so that you recalibrate your time/attention/resources budget to reduce “Yes with Resentment” waste. If your family members would like it and/or can be compensated fairly for devoting attention and mental resources towards it, I’d share it with them too and start those conversations.

Find external support/” your tribe” for this endeavor sooner than later.  I regret not finding a professional counselor earlier than we did to help me with this.  I found a collection of memes, research, and women’s support research that acted as a north star to guide me.

*Photo by Drahomír Hugo Posteby-Mach on Unsplash

Exponent II features the work of guest authors writing about issues related to Mormonism and feminism. Submit a guest post Write for Exponent II.

2 Responses

  1. I love this! I think so many women (especially Mormon women at mid life) are realizing how many times we’ve reluctantly said “yes” throughout our lives to everything and everyone. It’s time for a revolution! Thank you for writing such a meaningful post.

    1. I consider it a form of “repentance” involving changing my mind (and choices) about a few things. It’s tied to the “Heroine’s Journey” sorting out male and female role models in part.

      But the “Me Too” conversations reframing sexual consent as an “Enthusiastic Yes” are equally applicable thematically to all other areas of our lives where we give consent. Some instances will be “meaningful Yes’s” where we don’t “win” anything else directly.

      My personal areas of greater growth include redefining, reframing and re-working “Anger” and “Nurturing”. “Anger” is not petty (even if it is triggered by small things). Anger is deep and visceral – and when it shows up on women – in women’s words and prompts women’s deeds – it deserves Respect (if for self-preservation purposes if nothing else).

      There is a ton of unappreciated connection work, emotion work to show up for someone whose mad (the main example we have is Pahoran and Captain Moroni actually – Moroni had several hundred miles and a strong connection to his friend Pahoran so he could deal with Pahoran’s anger safely and respect it).

      As for showing up for ourselves and our own anger – In “A Christmas Carol”, Scrooge gets a crash-course in “Anger” and “Mourning”. Every visitor (Past/Present/Future) introduces a topic and/or character that is dealing with Anger and how most problems (individual and community) are based in avoiding doing that anger-work. While Scrooge’s problems stemmed from “emotional repression”, and women’s problems extend from “anger repression” – I have learned a lot from Scrooge about the subject.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Our Comment Policy

  • No ads or plugs.
  • No four-letter words that wouldn’t be allowed on television.
  • No mudslinging: Stating disagreement is fine — even strong disagreement, but no personal attacks or name calling. No personal insults.
  • Try to stick with your personal experiences, ideas, and interpretations. This is not the place to question another’s personal righteousness, to call people to repentance, or to disrespectfully refute people’s personal religious beliefs.
  • No sockpuppetry. You may not post a variety of comments under different monikers.

Note: Comments that include hyperlinks will be held in the moderation queue for approval (to filter out obvious spam). Comments with email addresses may also be held in the moderation queue.

Write for Us

We want to hear your perspective! Write for Exponent II Blog by submitting a post here.

Support Mormon Feminism

Our blog content is always free, but our hosting fees are not. Please support us.

related Blog posts

Never miss A blog post

Sign up and be the first to be alerted when new blog posts go live!

Loading

* We will never sell your email address, and you can unsubscribe at any time (not that you’ll want to).​