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Wisdom and Kindness

by | Jun 22, 2018 | Open Leadership, Self-Knowledge

lao-tzu-quotes-sayings-wisdom-cute-kindness-love

Some of us always like to take time to make reasoned, rational, analytical assessments before reaching a decision. Other typically make decisions very quickly and are thought to be highly intuitive.

For those who make quick decisions, how do we know if those decisions come from Wisdom or come from Fear that makes us decide and act too quickly and sometimes make poor decisions?

Today I muse on both Kindness and Wisdom and hope this is of value in being guided to understand when we are accessing our inner wisdom in our decision-making.

First, leading from the image and quote above, one simple definition is that Kindness is Wisdom itself. As the Dalai Lama said: “my religion is kindness”, and I would put it to you that he is a wise soul indeed.

Another definition I use to guide is “Wisdom is something that, when you hear it, you feel you always knew it.”

I was inspired to write today by a recent article by Michael Neill called “The Hedgehog of Wisdom“. This closing piece of Michael’s article resonated with me as a great awareness tool.

how do I know whether that’s some kind of inner knowing or just fear?’ someone asked.

I offered the following guidelines…

  • Wisdom is ever-present and always kind.
  • Wisdom is sometimes soft but always clear.
  • Wisdom has an obviousness to it when you hear it, even if it’s completely invisible to you until you do
  • Wisdom often comes disguised as ‘common sense,’ but in reality is extremely uncommon in usage.

What really resonated for me here was the first two guidelines.

It is Wisdom informing you and not fear when it feels “kind, sometimes soft and always clear”.  Intuition, for me, is directly connected to feelings, emotions, energy, so having such language in the guidelines is a valuable connection beyond the rational mind.

Michael closes with:

“Wisdom is right there inside you, just waiting for you to allow it to guide you. You need only be quiet and listen. When you relax into it, you’ll almost always know what to do.”