You’ve got all the kindness and goodness in you that you need already, Brantley says.
You can work on cultivating it more, but you’ve already got it innately in you. “Just think about anything you did in the last 24 hours that was kind,” Brantley says.
1. Recognize the Acts of Kindness You’re Already Doing
Did you hold the door for somebody? Did you smile at a stranger? Did you water a houseplant that looked like it was thirsty?
Even if you feel like a novice when it comes to, say, loving-kindness meditation practice, he says, “you’re not a novice to kindness.”
2. Try a Kindness-Centered Meditation Practice
One way to cultivate kindness is to try the loving-kindness meditation practice Brantley started doing begrudgingly at that retreat decades ago.
Start with a short, online-guided loving-kindness meditation, such as one found on Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center’s website. The instructions suggest lying down or getting into a comfortably seated position while doing this type of meditation. Once you learn how to do it, you can use their written script to practice it on your own.
“If one is feeling kind of numb,” Brefczynski-Lewis says, “such as with empathy burnout, connecting with the warmer feelings of loving-kindness can help in really seeing the humanity of the person in front of you, whether they are your family member, a customer, a patient, or a grocery clerk.”
She recommends that if you’re just starting out with the practice, go slowly, and don’t choose people you find very difficult to send kindness to until you build a bit more confidence in this particular meditation skill.
“I've even done the practice right before meetings with people I've had some difficulty with, and find they go surprisingly much better than expected,” Brefczynski-Lewis says.
3. Start With Gratitude
Researchers of one study also suggest that expressing gratitude toward someone else for something kind they did may be a good way to kickstart your own kindness efforts. They theorize that gratitude toward others may encourage people to “pay it forward” with kindness.
4. Begin Big
If you’re just starting out your journey in doing kind acts for others, set aside one day to focus on that kindness. One study suggests that picking one day a week to carry out five acts of kindness provides larger increases in well-being than if you were to perform five kind acts over the course of several days.
That doesn’t mean you should stop there — kindness can be practiced everyday — but honing in on your efforts over the course of one day can show you how good it can feel to reach out to others, inspiring you to make it a regular part of your life.
5. Show Yourself Kindness
Being kinder to yourself is a huge component of being kind overall, and practicing self-compassion has numerous wellness benefits, researchshows.
This can be tough to do, especially if you’re often self-critical, but a few exercises for starting a self-compassion practice can be found on the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion, cofounded by Kristin Neff, PhD, kindness researcher and associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Some include: talking to yourself as if you were talking to a friend, using writing to release feelings of shame, and repeating a kindness mantra during difficult situations.
