{"id":4206,"date":"2016-10-09T00:01:49","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T06:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=4206"},"modified":"2016-10-09T00:01:49","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T06:01:49","slug":"kindness-as-a-superpower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/kindness-as-a-superpower\/","title":{"rendered":"Kindness as a Superpower"},"content":{"rendered":"

After getting her graduate degree from Harvard and working as an analyst on Wall Street, Shaunti Feldhahn found herself unexpectedly drawn to the realm of social research. For the past 14 years, she has dedicated her brilliant mind to groundbreaking research on relationships. Most recently, her research has led her to study the earth-shaking power of kindness and resilience, which she writes about in her forthcoming book, The Kindness Challenge.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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What drew you to your research on kindness?\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As I released my book about men, For Women Only<\/em>, I spent time with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. We talked about how we often got asked what men need most from women \u2026 they deeply need to feel appreciated, respected and trusted.\u00a0 Then we would get the question, \u201cWhat if I don\u2019t feel that way about my man?\u201d So Nancy proposed a challenge.<\/p>\n

I started studying her challenge over the course of about 10 years and eventually it evolved into the 30 Day Kindness Challenge. As I saw people participate and got survey responses back, I started to realize that kindness is really a superpower.\u00a0 The research showed me how much change a few simple actions can bring to a relationship.<\/p>\n

I think people want to be kind, but we have no idea just how often we are unkind. That\u2019s what drew me to study this more systematically by doing a national research study on the power of kindness. I started to see this is a very little thing with a very big impact.<\/p>\n

Can you tell me a bit more about the 30 Day Kindness Challenge?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As we started cataloguing what people were and were not doing to improve their life and their relationships, we found that kindness is actually made up of three completely different components. And this is what the 30 Day Kindness Challenge is based on.<\/p>\n

We tell people to pick a person with whom they want a better relationship \u2013 or where they want to make a good relationship great. Then, for 30 days, don\u2019t say anything negative about that person \u2013 either to them or about them to somebody else.<\/p>\n

The second element is finding one thing, every day, you can praise about that person. Tell that person and tell somebody else. Every day.<\/p>\n

The third element of kindness is to act generously. So for 30 days, in addition to not being negative and instead finding things to praise, do one small act of kindness for that person.<\/p>\n

I found in the research that when you do those things consistently, it impacts the other person; but it completely changes you.<\/p>\n

We found your feelings toward that other person start to change. You actually start feeling the things that are positive and praiseworthy.\u00a0 They start shining out like a spotlight; and the things that drove you crazy before diminish because you are not so focused on them. I\u2019ve found that people want to start being the person the other person needs \u2013 being appreciative, kind and loving.<\/p>\n

The power of that was astounding once we saw the results in the research.\u00a0 We found that 89 percent of relationships improved.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter if it was a spouse, child, in-laws, your crazy neighbor who drives you nuts. Kindness is a superpower.<\/p>\n

What part of your research surprised you the most?\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The thing that almost made me cry was something profound we found in the survey results. The person doing the 30 Day Kindness Challenge was the one doing all the work.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Most of the time, the other person didn\u2019t even know they were doing it. At the end of the 30 days, the person doing all the work actually felt more loved and appreciated too.\u00a0 Which is so powerful because they were the one putting out all the effort, but in the end felt like they were far more special to the other person \u2013 even though that person wasn\u2019t part of the challenge! We found that kindness completely melts through walls.\u00a0 And because it melts through walls, it touches the heart of the other person \u2013 whether or not they want to be touched \u2013 and it changes how that person feels about you.<\/p>\n

So, you may be the one doing the work, but the appreciation comes back toward you because it completely transforms the dynamic of the relationship. Ultimately, what we have found is that whether or not you thrive in life and in your relationships is far more related to how you treat other people than how you yourself are treated.<\/p>\n

I think all of us can agree, based on the things that are happening in the world, there is so much unkindness.\u00a0 However, deep down everyone has this longing for kindness.\u00a0 And this is an opportunity for us to step up and restore that in our culture.<\/p>\n

What did you learn about yourself in this research? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I had no idea how unkind I was every day.<\/p>\n

When I started doing this research, I thought, Thankfully I\u2019ve got that one<\/em>. And as I started cataloging the types of negativity, I started thinking, Oh my word!<\/em> I had no idea, for example, exasperation is a type of negativity.\u00a0 Exasperation says, \u201cYou\u2019re an idiot,\u201d without actually using those words.\u00a0 I realized, I get exasperated with my kids ALL the time. There are so many things that we would never think of as negativity, that are.<\/p>\n

Can you tell me more about other types of negativity?\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another one that a lot of people don\u2019t think about is sarcasm.\u00a0 Many people think of it as joking.\u00a0 Like in our family we trash talk a lot and everyone knows it\u2019s well-intentioned.\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t realize that when it happens too much, even if it\u2019s well-intentioned, it gets exhausting and starts to beat people down.\u00a0 I found pretty consistently that, as an unseen, unrecognized negativity, it interferes with relationships.\u00a0 It interferes with intimacy because people use it as a protective mechanism.\u00a0 I had one woman who was going through really difficult times in her family. She used sarcasm to avoid going deep and letting people in.<\/p>\n

Another type, which is more overt, is the subconscious feeling of, \u201cYou hurt me, so I hurt you.\u201d For example:\u00a0 Let\u2019s say somebody hurt you and you pull away. In most cases, it\u2019s an explicit shut down to make the other person feel bad, as opposed to opening up and being vulnerable.\u00a0 The way of improving the relationship is not to shut down. It\u2019s not to say mean things. It\u2019s not to vent about them to another person. The way of restoring this relationship is to do this hard thing of being kind to them.\u00a0 It\u2019s so against our human nature and against what culture tells us to do, but we\u2019ve found that action is what is going to restore the relationship.<\/p>\n

Another type of unseen negativity is venting about that person to somebody else.\u00a0 We don\u2019t realize how much it hurts us. All it does is reinforce in our minds the problem in the relationship with the other person.<\/p>\n

Kindness is not just a nice, sweet, fluffy, vague idea: Kindness is an incredibly strong, almost tangible, superpower that transforms lives and relationships.<\/p>\n

How can women, especially mothers, make kindness a part of their daily practice?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen in the research that in order to do something daily, you have to recognize what needs to be done, and that means you have to open your eyes to the places where you are not being kind. So I would recommend, especially to moms who have so many demands in front of them, to take the time to do something really simple \u2013 like the Kindness Challenge. Do it together \u2013 don\u2019t just try to do it on your own.\u00a0 This is the kind of thing that\u2019s really helpful to do with a buddy, or ten.<\/p>\n

There is no substitute for the benefit of doing something together, purposefully, for a few weeks. It opens your eyes and gives you a path to follow.\u00a0 After the few weeks are over, you can decide if you want to keep going with it.\u00a0 Ultimately, it becomes much more of a habit, and eventually a lifestyle driven by kindness.<\/p>\n

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Pre-order <\/em>The Kindness Challenge at wmbooks.com\/thekindnesschallenge<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"hd_cover_fall_2016_small\"<\/em><\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of\u00a0Hello, Dearest<\/em>. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0Hello, Dearest<\/em>\u00a0in your mailbox every season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0magazines@mops.org<\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After getting her graduate degree from Harvard and working as an analyst on Wall Street, Shaunti Feldhahn found herself unexpectedly drawn to the realm of social research. For the past 14 years, she has dedicated her brilliant mind to groundbreaking research on relationships. Most recently, her research has led her to study the earth-shaking power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":4214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,102,117],"tags":[731,732,598,454,733,734,230,433,735,736,737,738,739,557,740,741,544,692,742,635],"class_list":["post-4206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-relationships","category-wellness","tag-actions","tag-benefit","tag-challenge","tag-change","tag-element","tag-generous","tag-heart","tag-kindness","tag-men","tag-participate","tag-person","tag-relationship","tag-simple","tag-strong","tag-superpower","tag-tangible","tag-thrive","tag-together","tag-touches","tag-women"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}