Are you being too nice?

Do you ever feel like;

“Whenever I am nice, I get burned.”?

I've been trying this;

Be nice, run away quickly & don’t look back to see what just happened.

Or is this you?;

“I show love, they don’t give it back.”

Show love, run away quickly & don’t look back to see what just happened.

Or how about;

“I try to tell someone something, but they won’t listen.”

Do what you can, run away quickly… and...you get the point.

The reason for my response is because for me, I have been trying to figure out why I need their response to be different. In some of my cases, I was trying to control. In some cases, I was hurt by them.

Sometimes I was exhausted that my energy had been dispersed but in other times, I felt betrayed.

I am by nature a justice-seeker, so I had the tendency to be mad when something wasn’t reciprocated.

Is there such a thing as being too nice? Hmmm, I do know there is too mean…but not too nice.

Mom used to say planting niceness and showing love was like a mustard seed. They are known for lying dormant for years and then just decide to grow one day. The idea is you may plant a nice hello or show love and that could grow in minutes, days, hours or even years. Most things with me have taken years to marinate on account of having my judgment clouded at the time, was too physically exhausted to hear kindness or just didn’t notice because of depression or stress. What I am trying to do now is realize that there is ALWAYS a reason why someone won’t take my kindness and it’s usually due to something extraordinarily sad in their life. Therefore, it’s best not to compromise my character and since when is it my job to teach anyone a lesson? Plus, I am seeing a real need these days to start cutting each other a bit more slack.

I feel very fulfilled when I can look at myself in the mirror and know I did everything within the true nature of my character to interact with others in a loving way. Is it hard? YES! Sometimes you wanna smack someone. But I wage that most of the people who have needed a good smack in my life, were smacked very early on and their numbness won’t take the lesson anyways.

I would also bet most people haven’t the foggiest idea how to receive love. Knowing that, I can take their negative reaction and chalk it up to confusion instead. ‘Oh, they must not know what kindness is, that’s cool, I will try again tomorrow.’

The people in my life who have had the most significant impact on me were the ones who didn’t give up on me EVEN when I treated them so terribly. I am humbled by those people. I almost can’t look at them in the eyes when I see them and there are a few who I wouldn’t know where to begin. I would just say thank you and hope to improve my character into someone who can impact someone else the same way.

The reason I say, “Show love, run away quickly & don’t look back to see what just happened.” is because it focuses what I do on my motivation and not on the response I may or may not get. It keeps my mind focused on giving love unconditionally where I used to have a laundry list of conditions on love.

My experience of truth is, if love doesn’t have the word unconditional in front of it, it’s not love. It’s a different word.

Love used to be puppy love, high school sweethearts, crushes, dinner and movies…

I realize now love is meant to be given as a free gift. You don’t even have to stay in the room…you can grab your bag quickly and go enjoy the sport’s game on TV or work on music.

I am trying to not allow my disappointment in others ruin a good night of screaming guitars and string arrangements. If I stew over whether or not I was burned, if I got something back or didn’t get the ear of someone out there, I missed both my creative time and even bigger, missed the point of what it means to give.

And if you feel like you have nothing left to give, maybe it’s time to fill up your spirit again. But that also means running away quickly and finding someone good who you can use to fill your tank. :)

Much love on you!

Karen :)

“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.” ~Saint Basil