Kindness is close to my heart. I’d rather forgive and forget than hold grudges against others. We all grow and change and adapt to our surroundings, and this, unfortunately, is why some people are unkind. They don’t know any different.
Being kind may not always illicit the response I want or the aim I desire, but in accepting true kindness and letting things go (remember, most things don’t matter anyway) I can live in a way that affords me true peace.
I’m offered challenged on my belief that we should be kind to everyone and I stand firm. I still hold people accountable, and on even rare occasions I let unbridled passion get the best of me and I can come across as not very nice. My intention is never to cause harm to that person though. My intention is to get the best result for everyone, even the person on the receiving end of my passionate responses. (I’m not a swearer, so it’s not intimidation where that is concerned. If anything it’s intimidation based on facts and the gathering of opinion of my peers. I’m speaking my mind, it’s backed up).
Where does this come from?
Where has my obsession with passion come from? From childhood.
I was never the coolest kid. I was the scrawny twin to a confident sister, the youngest of very confident brother and sister. Cystic acne, terrible fluffy hair. Afraid of sports until I realised how beneficial it would be for me.
I was easy picking to be bullied. And I believed every word people told me. I held onto into tightly and it definitely stopped me from realising my own unique talents and attributes. People being unkind to me essentially wrote what my life would be like for the next 10-15 years. I’m still re-writing that history now!
Now, when I look at people around them I don’t just consider the presenting scenario, I try and look at their entire lives in a snapshot. And more importantly I think about my language and my demeanour when talking to them. What impact are my words going to have on this person in the short, medium and long term?
I do not wrap people in cotton wool. Even as a legal advisor I never saw my role as doing something for someone. I aim to empower and build people up to their true potential, regardless of their own perceived flaws.
We are all extraordinary, but it doesn’t take much for us to think differently and write ourselves out of our potential. This is why kindness is so important to me.
#Kindness is for life, not just for #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek
Mental Health Foundation / Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 / Kindness
During #mentalHealthAwarenessWeek we have been on Facebook Live over on the HelloTomDyer Page having our regular 30 minute cuppa’ teas focusing on this years theme of #kindness. More accurately:
Receiving kindness
Giving kindness
Being cruel to be kind
Being kind to yourself
On the Wednesday we focused on being ‘cruel to be kind’ and we ended up with over 200 comments! Thank you to everyone who contributed. There was one watcher who shared her wider story after the live had finished and I think it epitomises what kindness is while also holding people accountable for their actions and helping people become better people.
I don’t know much about the writer. I know that she is predominately housebound and uses a wheelchair. Her daughter has the same health condition.
In this story you will see an act of unkindness, a lesson in kindness, a lesson of self-kindness and the kindness to her daughter through holding institutions accountable for their actions. This act, and the stress that accompanies it, is all for her daughter.
Let me know your thoughts.
You would be amazed of the things that have been said and done to me, staring is just the tip of the iceberg, I have been called names, I was spat-on once.
The other day a young lad came to my wheelchair and kicked it and said “get out of the way Crip!” What he didn’t realise was that I could stand up. He was all of probably 10 or 11 years of age, I was 43 and 5 foot 10. His jaw dropped. We were in a store and I asked him if he was with his parents and he said yes, so I told him to take me to his parents. He led me to them obviously with me in my wheelchair. I then said to them, “excuse me, forgive me for interrupting your shopping but I wanted you to hear the most wonderful thing that your son just said to me.” The parents were expecting something amazing. I looked at the boy who by now had gone rather white and I told him to repeat what he had just said to me. He mumbled something but his dad said what? So he said it out loud. The father instinctively went to smack his son over the head, but I managed to stop him just-in-time.
The parents were full of apologies. They made their son apologise to me, And I said to his parents, please don’t smack him, that will not teach him anything except violence. Instead teach him that we are all human beings. Teach him about kindness and acceptance. Don’t hurt him. And then I wheeled away. Violence is not the answer.
It is hard when people stare and make faces or call me names I won’t lie to you about that. I am kind of glad that I am so housebound and mostly bedridden because then I don’t have to deal the outside world, not much anyway.
Kindness is the simplest gift that we can give away. A smile can touch the saddest heart. Reaching out to somebody just to give them a hug is one of the best gift in the world. When people hug me I always ask (I know I’m about to be hugged) whether they could just come down to my level and hug me from there because for me it hurts physically to hug somebody from above.
There is nothing more that I love than for somebody just to give me a hug.
I know that online I was telling you that I was divorced, I just want you to know that I had been married for over 20 years,very very happily, Or at least that is what I thought, but my ex-husband had a midlife crisis with a 19-year-old girl! And within the space of 20 minutes, 20 years was gone. It took me a long time to come through what was the most incredibly painful part of my life, but now I am free to be able to care for my daughter who has the same disability as me, and to make my own decisions, to believe what I want to believe, and to try to find my own peace.
I won’t lie, my life is extremely difficult because my daughter has been so ill and is still going through hell ironically In a mental health ward. And I am fighting right now to get to the right care what she needs because of this very moment she is not being cared for. I know that mental health week is coming up and I know that there are a lot of people out there who do a lot of good in a mental health community, but sadly where my daughter is, this is not true. And we are having to get all sorts of people involved just to ensure her safety from members of staff! But I’m not gonna say anymore about that now.
Life is hard but I know that there are people going through their own battles and around struggles particularly with COVID-19 raging all around us and there are people in the NHS who are doing an incredible job in the most difficult of circumstances and every Thursday evening I join with everybody else and I clap for those people who are helping those in need but I do not clap for the people “allegedly” caring for my daughter.
Watch this space, she will win a battle and have a life that is worth living and so will I and so will we all. God bless you and keep you safe. Thank you for making me smile every day.
So there you have it. A myriad of acts of kindness and a strength and resolve to overcome them and still show kindness and compassion.
Thank you for joining us on HelloTomDyer Live! Monday – Thursday 1pm Friday 7:15pm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
(P.S. I’ve launched my coaching business and have a free values workbook you might find useful in figuring out what you want your life to be about! You can get it here: https://mailchi.mp/hellotomdyer.com/valuesworkbook)
I hope you’re all doing well and keeping safe during these times. I hope that if you adjusted quickly that you’re still doing well or if now beginning to struggle that it passes quickly. And I hope that if you struggled to begin with that you’re adjusting to some sort of peace.
As you should be aware by now, it has been decided that ACTivate Your Life – Affected By Cancer will not be continued by Tenovus Cancer Care. As a result, I’m being made redundant by the charity and will be leaving by the end of June.
I can’t thank each of you enough for helping me, for helping the charity, for helping people affected by cancer all over Wales come to terms with their cancer diagnosis, delivered in such an inspiring way that will stay with people for the rest of their lives.
The service would be nothing without you. I was only ever one person but with you guys we won the Team Award at the Volunteer Awards last year. I’m so proud of each of you. It wasn’t our course but we gave it life, fire and enthusiasm. We made tweaks and we genuinely helped people.
I hope that being involved with the service has helped you both mentally and practically. Those of you looking to build on skills and wanting to progress in their respective fields and study. It’s been inspiring being around you and sharing your company. As I’ve said during our trainings and emails, each and every one is unique and special. I am very honoured to have shared moments and learnt from each of you.
Here are some highlights. During the course of the service we:
· Held two training courses
· Trained over 60 course presenters
· Delivered 26 sessions all over Wales
· Forged relationships with other charities and worked closely with every health board
· Supported over 250 people affected by cancer
· Reduced their depression scores by 28%
· Reduced their anxiety scores by 32%
· Increased their wellbeing scores by 15%
That’s something to be proud of isn’t it?! We did that!
I know that my journey with helping people isn’t over. If you’ve checked out my HelloTomDyer Page you’ll see that I’m going live every day to help people get through their days with my sister. We’re going live at 1pm today in fact!
I have big plans, I’d love for you guys to be involved with that journey, as you put me on this path in the first place!
If any of you want to keep in touch with me, I’m @HelloTomDyer on all social platforms! Even TikTok (Ask the grandchildren!).
I’m hoping that when we’re able to gather somewhere social again that it would be nice to get a group of together, the following on Facebook seem keen too so it would be nice to do something with that too.
As ever, if you need anything please get in touch. I’ve missed you all so much and have just wanted to change lives with you. We’ll continue doing that on our own paths for now.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I will cherish the last two years forever. And thanks to your generosity I have a trophy to show for it, and a mug to sip out of! I hope you enjoy your mug as much as I do and it serves as a very pleasant reminder of what was an incredible thing.
hellotomdyer.com 