I think you love me, I don't think you like me.
“I think you love me, I just don’t think you like me.”
I can still picture the look on my husband’s face as he honestly and vulnerably expressed those words to me in early spring of 2021. My heart sank. My throat and stomach clenched. I welled with tears—feeling broken, angry with myself and concerned all at the same time.
How could this person, my favorite person, feel this way? How did we get here? And what could I do about it now?
This is where my kindness experiment began…
What you may not know about me is that the ‘fierce’ in Fierce Loving comes quite naturally to me. Growing up I learned how to fight for what I wanted. I developed a hard shell with a very sensitive underbelly. To this day, many parts of that underbelly rarely see the light…and when they do, it’s with me and me alone.
Deep, honest, intimacy continues to be my growth edge. I don’t like feeling that vulnerable. I grew up as an only child and find comfort in being by myself. What I’m discovering, however, is that comfort is different from fulfillment. And, if I want deeper fulfillment in my closest relationships then my well-honed coping mechanisms for keeping people away—criticism, biting sarcasm, passive aggressive digs, withholding, looking like I have my *ish together—must change.
Like many people in 2020, my husband and I suffered a number of significant losses. My biological father died from Covid-19 complications. My husband’s second father was diagnosed with an aggressive form of gallbladder cancer, passing away in February 2021. We returned our third rescue dog due to a change in his behavior towards our other dogs after we moved into a smaller rental house…that unbeknownst to us had fleas and mold. There were a few other major occurrences I can’t speak about yet.
It was a lot. Too much for my sensitive underbelly to process. So, my well-honed, hard-shelled fighter showed up to “rescue me” from the pain. (I have rescued in quotes because there is no rescuing that occurs from avoiding pain. The pain is either delayed or exacerbated.)
Fast forward to the moment my husband spoke his truth—a truth that shook me to my core and woke me up—I knew it was time to change. Less fierceness, more loving. Less criticism, more tenderness. It was time to soften—and to see softening as a strength instead of a weakness.
Kindness—the highly under-rated quality that it is—became my starting point, my commitment. Kindness in my thoughts. Kindness in my words. Kindness in my actions.
As I developed this practice, little by little things started to change. I began to see the “push away” pattern in real time and sometimes (not always) interrupted it. I intentionally focused on the good that my husband was/is and does. I expanded that to myself. I even started exposing the soft underbelly to more light—with myself, my coach and Vince.
I’m still very much a work in progress. Creating kindness as a habit in our most intimate relationships takes patience and practice. So does rewiring our programming. And, what I can say is that my life is better. My marriage is better. My relationship with myself is better.
I believe so strongly in the power of kindness—that I’ve decided to lead a month-long program on the topic: The Kindness Experiment.
Over the course of four weeks we’ll take the relationship in your life where you are most critical (your spouse, parent, child, boss, body, work) and transform it on the inner and outer levels—utilizing kindness as our foundation.
There are only 22 spots available and three are already taken.
To learn more and sign up, click here.
Our world today is suffering. It’s easy to feel helpless and hopeless. What can one person do to affect great change?
I don’t know what the remedy is for healing on a global level—and I can’t help but believe that kindness is at its core. And that kindness starts within you and in your life.
With Fierce Loving,
Amber
Photo by Courtney Lindberg.