Planting Seeds of Kindness with Jeanette Maré

Published Dec 4, 2024, 8:05 AM

What does it mean to be kind? How can we increase kindness in our communities? And what are the surprising benefits of kindness? Jeanette Maré, kindness researcher and Director of the Science of Kindness Community Collective at the University of Arizona, gives the scoop on how we can better implement kindness into our lives. 

Hey fam, Hello Sunshine.

Today on the bright Side, it's Wellness Wednesday, and we're talking about kindness. Sure, kindness makes us feel amazing, but guess what, it's also a secret weapon for our health. Joining us is kindness expert Jeanette Marae. She's here to show us why kindness really is a superpower. She's breaking down how it boosts our happiness, powers up our health and wait for it, how we can stay kind even when life gets messy. It's Wednesday, December fourth. I'm Danielle Robe and I'm Simone Voice. And this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day. Today's Wellness Wednesday is presented by Coli guard.

So.

Kindness is a word we hear all the time.

It's in self help books, it's in social media hashtags, it's even on bumper stickers.

But what does it actually mean to be?

Is it about holding the door open or smiling at a stranger or is it something deeper? Is there something more transformative at play? Here's one thing I do know about kindness. It actually releases oxytocin, which is the love hormone that creates those warm, fuzzy feelings of connection. It's the same hormone that bonds a mother to her child during birth. So kindness literally brings us closer together as human beings.

It's crucial for our health.

Yeah, it turns out there are actual physiological benefits to practicing kindness, both when we extend it to others and when it's gifted back to us. Joining us today is Jeanette Murray, a kindness researcher and the director of the Science of Kindness Community Collective at the University of Arizona. She and her students are on a mission to explore how we can spread more kindness in our relationships, workplaces, and yeah, communities too.

She's also the founder of Ben's Bells, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring and teaching the intentional practice of kindness, a mission born from just the deepest heartbreak. In two thousand and two, after the sudden loss of her toddler Ben to a common virus, she found herself navigating unimaginable grief, and through that pain, she discovered just how life changing kindness could be. That realization sparked her journey to explore the transformative, world changing power of kindness, a mission that continues to touch countless lives.

Today, let's bring her in. Jeanette Murray, Welcome to the bright Side.

Oh, thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.

We're so happy to have you. We're thrilled to have you.

And before we dive into the benefits of kindness, I'd love to start by just defining what it is. Can you tell us exactly from your POV what is kindness? Because it's different from being nice.

Kindness is definitely about behaviors that benefit other people but also benefit ourselves, and kindness is good for people in general for all parties that are involved. Kindness is real, it's honest. Kindness is willing to have a hard conversation, be a little uncomfortable in order to learn and.

Grow and do better.

Whereas niceness is about, you know, not rocking the boat, making sure you know, things look neat and tidy even if they aren't. Niceness is often about pleasing, sometimes martyring ourselves a bit. Kindness will rock the boat right because sometimes we need to say, you know, what is the kind thing to do here? This might be, this might be hard, but we we can sit down, we can trust each other, we can have this hard conversation. And so kindness really ultimately should reduce stress and create strong relationships, whereas niceness can sometimes increase stress and actually hurt relationships. There's definitely an honesty piece, authenticity piece to the difference between nice and kind.

Oh interesting, So in that vein, do you think that kindness can be learned?

Is it a skill?

There are definitely skills involved with kindness, skills like you know, emotional regulation, self awareness, empathy skills, but then also communication skills. So for example, a kind behavior is supporting somebody who's grieving, but you need to have some communication skills in order to do that well. You also have to have some self awareness, some emotional regulation on your own part in order to do that kindness skill well. So kindness is definitely requires a lot of skills, and it definitely has an orientation of solidarity and we're in this together, and you know, humans deserve kindness just by the virtue of being humans.

Jeanette, you have an incredible story that led you right into the heart of what kindness means and what it looks like in an unkind world. You lost your son suddenly right before his third birthday. I imagine a moment like that changes everything.

It absolutely changes everything, And it really did change the way I understood kindness. You know, really, I think people make kindness out to be, especially in our culture. You know, you know, kindness is most people like kindness, but we often think it's kind of soft or nice, or you know, rainbows are butterflies kind of sweet. But after my son Ben died, I experience those kindnesses as completely life saving. And it was courageous for people to come into that painful place and to listen to me and to see what I needed and to see what my family needed, and to do all of those things that are uncomfortable when you're when you're in such a painful place. So I really started understanding kindness differently. I was starting to really see, like, whoa, you know, kindness is. It's hard, and it's powerful, and it's life changing, and we need to be talking about this more. And I was especially blown away that I could leave the hospital where my son died and have had the worst possible outcome, but still have had amazing care and experiences with the humans in that hospital, the way they supported us after Ben's death after they couldn't do anything else to help him. The way they supported us really sort of set us on our recovery road in a different way than if we had, you know, had not had received that sort of support, that sort of kindness, that sort of social support, emotional support, listening care that we received from the hospital employees.

Jeannette, I normally I really cringe whenever people insert themselves into someone else's story, but I have to have to just share this. I have a three year old, and so I feel particularly connected to your story. I can't imagine what that must have been like. Can you give me an example of the kind of kindness you're describing to us right now?

In action? How did people show up for you?

Like, what is your What is the most powerful example of kindness that you can recall from that time?

Well, you know, I hesitate to sort of rank the kindnesses because they're all important, right. They come at with us in different ways, and they communicate this collective you know, support that is so vital.

You know.

I was a faculty member at the University of Arizona at the time, and when I went back to work, I remember, you know, some random you know, nineteen year old college student holding a door open for me, and I remembered wanting to say to him, you know, I know you think you're just holding an open a door, but you know, here's my story. And I didn't do that, but I remember how significant this, This kid who had no idea what I was going through, is just seeing me opening a door and you know, saying good morning and holding a door for me.

It was super important.

That said that, other things like being listened to, is a really big one when you're grieving, right, Having people who will sit and listen and not try to fix, not try, you know, not say things like at least this and at least that, not do all the sort of placating that often happens in our culture when things are hard.

So listening was an incredible kindness.

People did, you know, things like bring us food and help drive my son to school and those sorts of things as well, but really just the showing up, the being with me, the holding my hand, the listening was huge. The listening and sort of trusting that I was processing and that other folks didn't have to try to fix me.

So it's been over twenty years since your son passed away, and now you call yourself a community engaged kindness researcher. What does that mean, especially that community engaged portion.

Yes.

Well, so this nonprofit that I started, called Ben's Bells, I ran that for seventeen years and it grew and grew and doing wonderful work. But I was leading then, leading an organization, leading a business, which is not what I love to do. I'm a social scientist, and so I stepped down from my job there and hired a new person to take over, and I went back to school and actually got a PhD. And because I had so many questions about this work, and my questions sort of land in this space of Okay, kindness is really good for us. We have abundant evidence that kindness is really important. How do we do it better? And so my work ends up landing in a place that we call implementation science, right, where how do we get people to do this thing that we know is important, interacting in ways that communicate to each other that we're in this together, and that we can help create communities, you know, create environments where all of us can thrive. Those in those environments, there are still problems, but we deal with our problems knowing that we're supported by the people around us, and that's a game changer from you know, living in a way where we all feel like we're separate, or you know, there's all these divisions which which are actually there. There definitely are divisions there. There are ways that we are almost engineering ourselves out of connection through technology and through after COVID and through you know, various sorts of discrimination or marginalization, the ways we separate ourselves from each other. But the good news is we can we can do a lot better when we're together, and we can work to come together better. And so that's where our work lands. How do we how do we increase kind behavior? Literally, increase kind behavior in communities? That's the goal.

Well, when you say how to increase kind behavior, you've cited for predictors that indicate kindness.

Can you share those? Absolutely?

So if we want to increase kind behavior, we look at these four things. And the first thing it seems obvious, but it's attitude. You know, what do people feel about doing that behavior? If I do that behavior, will it be good for me?

Will?

You know?

For example, if I think being kind is soft, I'm probably not going to do the behavior right, because I don't want people to think I'm soft. So we have to target people's attitudes. We need to message that that kindness is strong. We need to, you know, do things that say kindness is cool, whatever it is.

We target attitudes.

If people already believe that kindness is great and it's important and we should do it, then we then we don't have to work as hard on that predictor. The second predictor is norms, and that's just what are the social norms? So if you're going to a school or you work in an office, you know, do the people in there believe in kindness? Do they do kindness? Does your boss think it's important to talk about and solve problems with kindness? We really, as social creatures, influence each other in these ways. So that predictor of norms asks the question, you know, are the people that important to me? Do they think I should be doing kind behaviors? And are they doing kind behaviors themselves? So a lot to do with modeling kindness influencers, you know, who are influencers that we can get to really message about kindness and talk about the benefits of kindness and really do kindness in a way that others see and accept. The third predictor is skills, And we talked about this a little bit already that if we want to do a behavior but we don't know how to do it, we're not.

Going to do it.

So if I want to support somebody who is grieving, for example, but I don't know how to do that, I'm not going to do it. We all know what it feels like to avoid a hard conversation because we don't know how to do it. So we were trying to create conditions where learning about this stuff is just something we all do. And then the fourth predictor is what are the systems in place that are either barriers to kind behavior or that are facilitators that help us do kind behavior in an organization? You know, time is often an issue, right or it's a perceived issue. Do the systems allow us to take the time we need to have these kind of conversations to learn the skills we need that sort of thing. So the idea is that if all four of these predictors are sort of in place, then people are likely to do that behavior. So when we want to intervene and try to raise the behavior, we focus on those four predictors.

We have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with Jeanette Murray. Stick with us, and we're back with Kindness researcher Jeanette Mamrae. This is going to sound sort of random, but why are some people kinder than others?

Well, just like most things, we do think that there is some sort of innate part of this, right, that some people are born a little more talented in this way. But like most things, we also believe that there's a lot of context involved with it too, Right, so you know, how are you raised, what are your important people in your life modeling for you, what kind of skills? But also there are contexts that make people have to be sort of self protective. For example, if you are marginalized in any way, if you're in a community that you know is not does not experience equality or whatever, then we get into our a position of self protection or you know, protection of just my family or whatever, and it's harder to look out. So really being able to be kind and look outward and be very other focused is a you know, it's a privilege to be in that position where you can look outward. If you are having to worry about. You know, if you're in poverty and you're having to worry about where Neil is coming, you're less likely to be able to do a whole lot of outward looking. So in this way, we see kindness as actually, you know, a health equity issue, right. We need, we want everybody to be in the position to do kindness because it's so good for us. It is good to do kindness for other people. In fact, the benefits for doing kindness may outweigh the benefits for receiving kindness. And so when we push people into a place of self protection when we feel unsafe, we actually deprive people of the ability the opportunity to connect with other people in such healthy ways.

I was actually reading that even watching an active kindness increases our oxytocin, so you don't even have to be part of the kind act in any way to receive the benefit, which is wild.

Isn't that great? And that just speaks to what a social species we are. There's an emotion called elevation. Do you know this emotion? I think it doesn't get enough press.

I think the people.

Love let's talk about it well.

Elevation is that feeling when you see goodness happening between other humans and it makes you go, oh, you know, humanity is good. People are good, but it's not always happy. It's not happiness is not the right thing because it may be a sad situation. But you feel that feeling of oh, that is so good that they did that. That feeling of elevation is such a good emotion. It's so connecting to other people. And you're absolutely right. You can be not even involved in the immediate kindness that's happening and have some really amazing effects from it. That feeling of solidarity and humanity and we're in this together is really healthy for us as a as a social species.

So all of the dog videos that people watch online are actually not a waste of time.

Is what you're saying.

Now, All things dog are just good for us. That's good, it's good. Those are good relationships to encourage.

Definitely, I'd love to learn more about the health benefits of kindness. How does being kind affect our physiological responses?

Yes, there there.

You know, there's a lot of research in this area. So to make it a little bit simplistic, but we think that when we engage in kindness and again, we can we can be experience kindness as the giver of kindness, the receiver, the witness of a kindness. We can hear about kindness on a podcast. There's these different ways we can experience kindness. Those experiences increase our connections, our relationships. They improve our interpersonal connections and again not only our strong connections like friends and family, but certainly you know co workers, you know the person at the coffee shop who you see every day, that even people walking down the street. Those connections are important communicators again of safety for us, which reduces our stress. Reduced stress, we believe is one of the reasons why we have that are health. Physical health outcomes from kindness because those relationships are so important for keeping us healthy and emotionally well. So when we feel unsafe, and it's not always conscious that we feel unsafe, and I'm not only talking about physical safety, but you know emotional safety, you know, identity safety, cultural safety. We have a vigilance in our bodies, a stress in our bodies that we may not even be aware of. And when we feel like when what kindness is around us and we feel safe, we can let down that vigilance, which is which is really really good for our health.

Well, you also came up with a clever way to increase our daily dose of kindness and combat unkind behavior. Would you tell us about the green dot red dot system?

Sure? Absolutely so.

One of the things I've learned over these I've been working in the kindness world now for twenty something years, is that it's not that hard to get people to the point of kindness is good, yay kindness, But how do we get people to actually increase their kind behavior? Right, Because we're looking at the behavior that we want increased, not just the feelings inside that may motivate that behavior. So this intervention is called more green dots, and the idea is that we need these kind interactions in our lives. And in this intervention, a green dot is a kind interaction. So if I do a kindness for you, I get a green dot and you also get a green dot. So we're sort of adding up and it becomes a math thing. Right, So we actually need a quantity of green dots in our day in order to look back on our day and say that was a good day. This actually, this idea came out of patient experience and healthcare. The barrel Institute is an institute that works on patient experience and healthcare, and they define patient experience as the sum of all interactions that a patient has in the hospital or the clinic or whatever, the sum of those interactions. So this is this idea that if we don't have kind in our actions in our lives, we're not getting those important health benefits right, We're not creating those connections that lead to better relationships. So the idea that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables, we need to get worsely, we need to move our bodies. We need to get more green dots. And we can be intentional about creating those green dots for ourselves and each other, and we can work to reduce the red dots in our lives, which happen to be usually worth more than a green dot because negative experience is sticking our brains easier. We have a negativity bias, so when we have a negative experience and unkind experience, we're going to remember it more. So we may need three, four, five green dots to cancel out that one big negative experience in our brains.

It's time for another short break. We'll be right back with kindness. Researcher Jeanette Marae and we're back with Jeanette Murray.

I think because of your work, your mind is so oriented around kindness. For people whose work is not oriented all around kindness, what do you do when you don't know what the kind thing is to do?

Like?

What is your matrix for that?

Yeah? And my my job is not rainbows and butterflies at all.

I work out a university that's going through such a crisis, you know, so very much. In real life, we work in healthcare a lot a lot of suffering, you know. I live in a city where we have a lot of poverty. So so, and what you just asked, I think is the bottom line question, what does kindness look like in this situation? And that when they're dealing with something hard, which we are doing every single day, we say, what what? How do we do this with kindness? You know, we have our reactive ways of doing things, but what would kindness look like here? Remembering that kindness isn't just rainbows and butterflies, right, it means you know, saying I think we need to sit down and talk about this, and we need to talk about it honestly because we trust each other to do that. So kindness really is about all the hard things. You know, equality is kind, Taking care of each other is kind. Making sure people have opportunity is kind. So this isn't just about the easy stuff. In fact, it's the opposite of that. It's about the hard stuff too. Knowing that the way we interact just in everyday ways. You know, we're in this together, we're in this town together, we're at this university together, we're in this neighborhood together. Whatever, how can we help take care of each other? And what does that look like?

The way you are describing it makes me think of the imagery of soil and seeds, like there's so many different levels of this that all act together to make the plant sprout.

I love that. That's a great image.

I think that in social science we would look at that as what we call a social ecological model, which is where there's the individuals sort of at the center. But individuals don't live just as individuals floating around in the world. We're nested in our families and friends and our workplaces, in our schools, in our communities, and then we're governed by laws and when we want to try to do something we have to sort of intervene at these different levels. Like you said, it's not just one one simple thing. We need to look at what individuals need to be kinder, What do institutions need to do to be kinder, How can our policies and our laws be kinder? And that kindness really again is not this soft thing, but it's about how do we take care of the people the best way.

How do we do things that are equitable, How do we make things fair?

How do we set the stage for people to you know, do their lives, to work hard and take care of their families and have some fun and you know, grow a garden and do these things that all of us want to do, you know, and we get we get so there's so much negativity that that those of us that are really working towards positivity, we just need to get a lot louder. And it's not this toxic positivity where just like just be nice and just pretend everything's okay. It's like, how do we how do we use this in the real world to increase these behaviors that support each other going through all this hard stuff.

I learned so many terms from you today.

I wrote down social ecological model, kindness is salient. I love thank you so much. This has been so enlightening. My last question for you is does it pay to be kind? Is it financially advantageous to be kind?

I think we're getting some good evidence that it is.

You'll see businesses, you know who we can be a little cynical about, right, big businesses starting to realize that, you know, treating your your employees well, treating them with kindness, making sure that they're that they have what they need, that they get some rest, that they have benefits, that we're not overworking people.

Is it pays off?

You know, people are happier, more satisfied in their jobs, they stay longer, they work better. And so that's a little bit of a cynical view where that kindness affects the bottom line, But we do have some evidence that it does. But just in our lives, you know, there's there's this huge Harvard study it's eighty five years old, about what makes a happy life. This and the bottom line is relationships more so than all of these material things that sometimes our culture says we need in order to be happy. We're in this together, and together we all do better. It sounds Pollyanna, but it's actually true.

That's the best part is when the Pollyanna is true.

I love.

That's my favorite.

Exactly exactly know it's true because you taught us about the emotion elevation and that's yes, that's true, that's a real thing.

I'm so glad that you shared that with us today because I did not know that that was an emotion.

Yeah, I love.

I remember back in the day watching the Oprah Show, Oprah Winfrey, and that was that was an emotion I felt regularly watching Oprah Winfrey's show, right elevation seeing the stories and as you know, the stories you all share here and that you know that we're sharing around they're not but they're not just so that we can all go you know, oh, but rather it's like, oh, yeah, humans, we're supposed to be doing this for each other. This is where we thrive when we're together like this.

That's so beautiful. Thank you, good stuff, Jeanette Murray. Thank you so much for joining us on the bright side.

Thank you for having me. It was so much fun talking with you.

Jeanette Moray is a kindness researcher and director of the Science of Kindness community collective at the University of Arizona. She's also the founder of Ben's Bells, a nonprofit that inspires and teaches the intentional practice of kindness.

That's it for today's show.

Tomorrow, we've got marketing executive and newly minted real housewife of Beverly Hills Bosama Saint John. She's telling us why she decided to join the franchise and which housewife she thinks benefits most from an edit. Thank you to our partners at Couligard. A kind way to screen for colon cancer in the privacy and comfort of your own home. Talk to your doctor or healthcare provider, or go to colligard dot com slash podcast to see if you're eligible to order online. If you're forty five or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for colon cancer with Coligard. You can also request a Coliguard prescription today at colligard dot com slash podcast. Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok Oh, and feel free to tag us at simone voice and at Danielle Robe.

Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

See you tomorrow, folks, keep looking on the bright side.

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