Kindness training—encouraging people to actually treat each other well and having some skills for doing so
Interestingly, this is more of a negative skill: people don’t so much need to learn how to be nice as how to stop being not-nice, especially to themselves. I’ve observed that whenever I stop judging myself negatively in some type of situation, I find myself spontaneously being much nicer to other people in the same sort of situation.
For example, after learning not to judge myself for having made a mistake, I find I’m nicer to people who’ve made mistakes. Previously, I had tried to “learn” the “skill” of being kind to people when they make a mistake, and had failed miserably at it. Assuming I remembered I was supposed to do it, it felt awkward and unnatural and my mixed feelings were probably quite transparent, even though I sincerely wanted to be nice.
Now, there are a wide variety of situations in which my natural inclination is just to be kind, nice, playful, or any of various other attributes, and I didn’t need to learn any specific skills—just getting rid of the emotional judgments I’d attached to specific situational or behavioral patterns.
Interestingly, this is more of a negative skill: people don’t so much need to learn how to be nice as how to stop being not-nice, especially to themselves. I’ve observed that whenever I stop judging myself negatively in some type of situation, I find myself spontaneously being much nicer to other people in the same sort of situation.
For example, after learning not to judge myself for having made a mistake, I find I’m nicer to people who’ve made mistakes. Previously, I had tried to “learn” the “skill” of being kind to people when they make a mistake, and had failed miserably at it. Assuming I remembered I was supposed to do it, it felt awkward and unnatural and my mixed feelings were probably quite transparent, even though I sincerely wanted to be nice.
Now, there are a wide variety of situations in which my natural inclination is just to be kind, nice, playful, or any of various other attributes, and I didn’t need to learn any specific skills—just getting rid of the emotional judgments I’d attached to specific situational or behavioral patterns.