Can Kindness Change A Relationship?

When we see people through God's eyes, do our relationships with them get better?

A few months ago, I was in a rough spot with a friend. The last few times that we had hung out, he had said some fairly nasty things about conservatives; and while I would consider myself center-right at most, I have enough conservative instincts (and friends) that the jokes and insults stung. Each time, I would gently push back on him; but he never apologized or seemed to rethink his insults. I started to feel angry; to start imagining all the ways that I could clap back at him, all the ways that I could pick a fight that my anger told me I would surely win.

Then one night, as I was tossing and turning in bed thinking about the latest thing he had said and how much I wanted to clap back, I felt what I believe to be the voice of God in my ear, telling me that I needed to forgive my friend. That voice showed me my friend in a new light; not as a hateful bigot, but as someone with a good heart but who had a lot of pain in his life, and whose pain sometimes boiled over into outward expressions of anger. Seen in that light, my friend reminded me a lot of the man that I was a few years ago.

The voice in my head pushed me. I wanted to kick my friend. But when I was in that kind of pain a few years ago, did I need someone to kick me while I was already down? Or did I need someone to love me? To be the ray of light shining through the clouds, that could help me find my way out of the darkness of my pain? The answer was clear.

And so I asked God to help me to forgive my friend. Next time we hung out, I asked for help seeing him the way that I believe that God sees him: as His own treasured son. As a man more worthy of love than of condemnation.

Next time we hung out, the difference in our relationship was night and day. Where before our friendship had been on the rocks, that day we had an amazing time. We laughed together, guided each other, and helped each other out. Our relationship changed completely and almost instantly. To this day, it's still very good.

I think our relationship changed for two reasons.

First, I changed how I saw him. Where before I had seen his flaws and his anger, now I chose to see his heart. I took off my blinders and chose to see the beautiful soul underneath the pain. This is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I think our perspective of people exists on a continuum. On the one end, we can see them through the eyes of what my spiritual mentors call Self 1 (other names include the ego, the flesh, the false self, the lower self, etc): the part of us that sees every flaw in a person, that finds everything to criticize, that obsesses over the ways that it thinks that we are better than they are. That's no fun, and in my experience it doesn't do the relationship any favors. 

On the other end, we can see them through the eyes of God (or Infinite Intelligence, the Universe, Infinite Love, Wisdom, our higher self, Self 2, etc). When we put on this other set of goggles, we are blown away by the sheer radiant beauty of their spirit. We don't become blind to their flaws or their weaknesses, but we're able to put those things in perspective: as parts of a person that don't define them and that they may be actively working on. As legacies, not of their inherent badness, but of the pain that they have dealt with that we might know nothing about. Putting on this second set of goggles improved my relationship with my friend because it helped me to see a much better (and, I would argue, truer) version of him.

The second reason that I think our relationship changed is that my new perspective filtered down into my actions. Where before I had been standoff-ish, now I became warm and kind. I tried to love him and help him up, rather than wishing that I could kick him while he was already down. I don't have proof, but I suspect that when I changed how I showed up, he changed how he showed up too. Emotions aren't created; they're transmitted. When I showed him kindness, he responded with kindness. When I showed him love, he responded with the same.

I hear a lot of people talk about the dangers of unilateral disarmament in a relationship. "I'll lower my walls and be nice to him, but only if he does so first." It's a natural desire to protect ourselves. But while I'd never recommend that someone do something that would make them unsafe (say, lowering their walls in an abusive situation) I also think this sort of "I'll do the right thing but only if you do it first" mentality can be wrong-headed. There's a tremendous first-mover advantage, and lowering our own walls can sometimes change the whole relationship in ways that we could never have anticipated. Or to put it another way: if I'm in a rough spot with a friend, then I need to make the first move to fix things because I'm the only one whose actions I can control.

So here's our action item this week as a community of practice. If you have a relationship that's on the ropes, and where you can see yourself judging the other person, practice changing your perspective. Next time you see the person, commit to seeing them the way that God (or the Universe, Infinite Intelligence, Wisdom, your highest self, etc) sees them. More than that, commit to acting from that new perspective. Treat them the way that you hear God saying that they deserve to be treated.

And then, if you're comfortable, let us know how it impacted the relationship.

Note: I'm not recommending that you do anything unsafe, that you lower barriers that are there to protect you (for instance, from someone abusive), or that you relax boundaries that you know you need to preserve. This is just about letting go of our judgments towards other people, about lowering our walls in cases where safety isn't an issue.

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