Nice, Kind, and Social Wellbeing

Let’s talk about nice vs kind.

Image found on fb, uncredited. I would give credit if I could.

I was recently talking with some friends who have all been working with and teaching energy work as their business for some time now.

The topic turned out to be about the general misunderstandings around “being spiritual,” and speaking your truth when it isn’t just unicorns and light.

There are so many things going on these days, on so many levels, and the days of always being rainbow and light because that’s what people think being spiritual is, are over.

When you are spiritually aware, energetically aware, you must be equally comfortable with seeing what is “right” and what is “wrong.”

Someone who owns their power, owns their healing, their emotions, life, circumstances and choices, has be to able to see things as they are, “As Is,” which includes seeing the people and the forces at play in the stock market, in the board rooms, in the political parties, whose focus are destruction, and returning to continuing, in every more inhumane and horrific ways, to oppress, kontrol, and dominate huge portions of the population, domestically and in foreign intervention.

These are the times we live in – and that we were born for – and the times need each of us to show up to the best of our abilities, ready to do more than ignore pretend that things have not already irrevocably broken from any worthwhile 3D reality.

What many of my peers were noticing is how there are people who are too afraid and not working with their own energy system enough to be able to see What Is, without commentary and judgement.

Granted, these are all skills from the ancient mystery schools, that take guidance and practice to learn to fully occupy and live from.

And let’s clear up some confusion about “nice” and “kind.”

Speaking your truth may or may not be nice, but it is always the kindest thing to you can do. The kindest thing you can do for yourself, and for everyone else, no matter what they think.

Nice is a socializing coping skill, to make other people more comfortable, or for them to feel better, or for them to think you are a nice person, yet underneath all that, it is a learned coping strategy to take care of others emotionally – so you can be safe. It is a brilliant strategy for your child self to have come up with, but you have more agency now than you did then, and more skills.

Your inner child may hold on to “being nice,” for dear life, but in the present, you could start addressing her, and helping her heal from being stuck in that, and learn new practices with your higher self.

Parts work is invaluable in helping your earlier parts heal, thaw, and let go of old coping patterns that were appropriate and helpful when you were a child but you’ve long outgrown, and now they trip you up and hold you back.

Being kind is something altogether different than being nice.

Being kind requires you to be as kind towards you are you are towards others, equally.

And if you have a history of putting others first, ahead of you 1. That’s a sign/symptom of others being more valuable and real to you than you are to you. And that you believe, deep down, that your security lies in people outside of you, and you have to keep them liking you, or feeling sorry for you, so you can be safe and secure.

You will never be safe or secure as long as your power to be safe and secure is outside your body/system, and in other’s hands.

That is really the most insecure and terrifying way to live.

Being kind involves speaking your truth, simply; to stand up for yourself and others maybe, but not against others, taking them personally, or defensively.

When someone is trying to erase others’ rights, it doesn’t take morality or religion to know that that is wrong.

Taking away other’s rights is wrong.

And if the others are complaining that you are limiting their rights to hurt others, it’s not hard to say – Yes. You do not have any right to harm others.

Their right to open carry a gun is all about not feeling safe.

But my right as a female to feel safe on city streets has never been a consideration, with any depth or gravitas, in this society.

Predatory biases in the culture minimize or negate my statistical unsafety in society and write it off as paranoia or man-hating.

Yet it is equality itself, financial, political, social equality for all that makes a segment of the population feel more unsafe.

Think about that – social equality makes one group feel more unsafe.

Ironically, that group is feeling, maybe for the first time, what all other groups have grown up living within a society that says their experience is a one-off or a personal problem.

In a meta way, they are proving the point the rest of us have been making all along.

Which in time will bring us together in equality, but not before the current war is handled, through participation by all.

Funny thing is not participating IS a form of participating.

Not taking up the cause and supporting women, girls; women’s health, girl’s rights to sports, or the Palestinian’s rights, or the rights of Jews, or the rights of the poor – a systemic, structural creation, not a human failing by some – the rights of all “groups,” matter, and it is absolutely spiritual to acknowledge that.

By not participating with any actions, by not marching, or making phone calls, or sending post cards – nonparticipation is actually condoning all the kontrol, oppression, and deprivation this regime is trying to get away with, even though it is unconstitutional and illegal.

It is not nice or kind to allow the destruction of democracy by oligarchs, for oligarch’s benefits.

It is not nice or kind to turn a blind eye to that or defend it or rationalize it in any way.

Being kind to others at the expense of yourself is not kindness at all. It is manipulation.

Manipulation breaks down relationships. It is not nice at all.

If you want spirituality to be all rainbows and unicorns all the time, you’re confusing spirituality with fantasy.

If you are doing that, either you’ve had a lot of childhood trauma that you have a coping pattern of oppressing and escaping, and you could use some assistance with some parts work, to truly nurture and heal your inner child, instead of only having fantasy to feel better.

Free range spirituality is the freedom to believe what is real and true for you, regardless of what any religion or tradition says.

Free to be you -- and no longer trying to get free from the jails and ties others have set up for you, so long ago you think they’re real.

If you are trying to keep yourself self by getting others to like or feel sorry for you, that is a very scary place to live. You’ll never really feel safe, or secure, or confident that way. However, there are new skills you can learn to own your space and occupy you, and then naturally feel safe, secure, confident – and fantastic, I might add.

If you are being nice or kind to others at your own expense, you’re not being either. You’re practicing the childhood kontrol through manipulation skill, that really does not serve you anymore and is neither nice nor kind to yourself.

It is time for everyone to find their voice, and speak their truth, communicate and cooperate with others working towards the common good again – as the US has, imperfectly but none the less, for the past 249 years. We are still going towards that More Perfect Union, and a government, “By the people, for the people, and of the people,” (participation required!)

The point of healing and spiritual practices is not personal isolationism, but for the good of the many. Because we are built to be social creatures, and joy, vitality, kindness, creativity, ingenuity, and possibilities are just as contagious as all the other stuff, but a lot more generative and liberating than they are.

Delia Yeager
March 19, 2025