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As the winter season unfolds and the holidays bring their usual whirlwind of activity, it’s easy to lose sight of what truly matters. Amid the gift shopping, party planning, and packed schedules, the essence of connection and kindness often gets overshadowed. Yet, this time of year offers a unique opportunity to refocus on the deeper values that make life meaningful.

In 2017, a 5-part series titled “How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love” introduced a new take on the traditional Advent calendar, encouraging readers to practice one small act of kindness each day in December. This season, the focus returns to kindness—not just as a gift to others, but as a transformative practice for self-compassion and relationship growth.

Research shows that the key to lasting, fulfilling relationships isn’t extravagant gestures—it’s simple acts of kindness and generosity. Studies reveal that kindness, along with emotional stability, is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in relationships. What's more, giving kindness often benefits the giver even more than the receiver.

In this episode, we dive into the power of kindness and how it creates a ripple effect, spreading positivity and inspiring goodwill. We’ll explore how kindness strengthens relationships, nurtures emotional well-being, and can be cultivated like a muscle to improve our connections and our lives. Join us as we reflect on how kindness can be the greatest gift we give this holiday season—and beyond.

In this episode

06:31 Making a habit of spreading good vibes.

08:08 How kindness benefits both the giver and the receiver significantly.

14:51 Understanding emotional awareness in relationships.

19:26 The impact of gentleness and compassion in communication.

21:26 Navigating intimate dynamics with increased mindfulness.

27:21 How kindness transforms perspectives and priorities.

32:56 The science behind kindness and personal Well-being.

38:41 Kindness as a path to sustainable happiness.

41:40 Strategies for integrating kindness into daily life.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Download the “31 Days of Practicing Kindness Challenge” and follow along with the challenge.
• Begin each day by selecting one of the kindness practices from the PDF and commit to completing it.
• Each evening, share your day's “highs and lows” with your partner or family to boost positive neurochemicals and foster connection.
• Dedicate undivided attention to your partner during conversations, by putting away distractions like phones and making eye contact, ensuring they feel heard and valued.
• Add positivity to each interaction by genuinely praising and acknowledging your partner’s efforts and achievements.
• Recognize when your partner needs time alone and respect their personal space to nurture their well-being.
• Take interest and support your partner’s hobbies and goals to show you value their individual growth and happiness.
• Regularly affirm your partner’s worth with kind and supportive words, reinforcing their value in your life.

Mentioned

ERP 125: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love

• Guided Meditation – “Loving Kindness” by Tara Brach (audio)
• Loving Kindness Meditation, by Great Good In Action (article & audio)

ERP 128: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Two

ERP 129: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Three

ERP 130: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Four

ERP 131: How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love – Part Five

The 31-Day Kindness Challenge (free guide) (pdf)

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Email: [email protected]

About this Episode

As we turn towards the topic of kindness, this is kindness for ourselves and kindness in the way that we interact with another. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that here.

Here in the States, it's approaching the winter and holiday season, and this can be an opportunity to put focus on aspects of life that really matter. Often, I think, in our heart of hearts, we want to connect with the people that are near and dear, whether or not it's family, chosen family, friendships, bonds and relationships that really matter. Or perhaps even wanting to volunteer, or being in the spirit of showing up and being in a present connected space. Yet, with the hustle and bustle of this season, we can often easily get stressed and distracted or even overwhelmed.

So one of the things I would love to encourage all of us, and I am very inspired to do this myself, and I'll share a little bit more about that. But it reminded me, in 2017, I published a five-part series with a topic of How Kindness Can Strengthen Your Love. My intention at that time was to give an alternative to what we might know as the advent calendar, which is a special calendar that counts the days to Christmas. So starting with the month of December, December 1st, and then it's a 25-day calendar, and Christmas being the 25th day. Now, not everyone celebrates Christmas, and I do think, as we close in on 2024, that we can be in this space and practice of kindness. And I, in 2017, created this opportunity.

Well, the five-part series gave examples of different things that could be done to build the muscle of kindness, to be flexing those muscles as a practice and getting a rep for that. The focus was on relationship, and it was like a PDF. One side had all the different 25 opportunities and the examples that I had given in the five-part series, and then the other was blank. So viably, you could fill in the ones you did do, or perhaps even getting creative and adding your own.

Well, this season, I felt inspired to revamp this, put my attention on kindness myself, and also encourage you all to join me if you're interested. That the focus, yes, to be on relationship and the primary bond and adding the intention of kindness, to offer that generosity, to offer that compassion, that peace, that goodwill, and also just to be in the space of kindness. So this could be for, as I mentioned as we were just doing our centering exercise, for the self. It could also be for others in the world. Or as I just said, relationship.

It's an interesting experience for me, in that, oftentimes, if I'm very focused on what needs to get done, I may not feel that I have the capacity or the time and space to be in the practice of developing kindness. Yet, ironically, when I do practice or put my attention on kindness, it's almost as if my other goals and priorities fall into place, or at least will be made more possible by the practice. It's this almost elixir or something that basically offers more opportunity for me to be in flow.

Two other points of benefit of practicing kindness, that are research-based, are: one from the Gottman Institute. The key to lasting relationships comes down to kindness and generosity. And to quote the Gottmans, kindness along with emotional stability is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in a marriage. The second benefit that I want to emphasize, is that while we may think that we are giving to others when we're in the practice of kindness or acts of kindness, the research shows us that the person giving the gesture or the act or the word of kindness benefits more than the receiver. It's almost as if it's generative, and that when we participate as the giver, we benefit greatly.

I do think, as we're talking about kindness, it can be easily dismissed as a soft skill that perhaps doesn't have measurable results, and I think it is hard to estimate the impact of kindness. Yet, I do think we could, perhaps if we paused, reflect on a time personally, or where we've heard someone we care about share a story of how kindness made a difference in their life. Whether or not it was a smile, or a warm welcoming interaction that made a profound difference, giving a sense of goodness, connection, or even hope in the world. Or when we're talking about relationship, if there's been a time where your significant other has been unexpectedly kind or generous, what that promotes. Again, I do believe it has this ripple effect that it's really hard to perhaps emphasize the importance of.

But in this winter season, as we approach the end of the year here, I want to acknowledge that kindness contributes to a positive cycle of goodwill and generosity. Again, the person receiving a kind word, act, or gesture will likely feel more inspired and motivated to reciprocate, participate, or pay it even forward. As positive emotions increase, so do relationship satisfaction and fulfillment. As we engage with the practice of kindness, it strengthens our ability. It's like a muscle that gets built with exercise. 

One of the things that inspired me to revisit this and do a 31-day challenge was, I've been in process of a new website, honestly since 2022. Some of you may know, I had a very unfortunate circumstance, where my husband and I were living in a highly toxic mold environment and it was affecting our health. We chose to get rid of everything that was porous, which ended up being probably 90% of our belongings. All that to say, we had a couple year journey, and we landed finally and bought a home, our first home, in San Luis Obispo, California, which is 90 minutes north of Santa Barbara where we were living. This is all between, if you're familiar with California, it's between San Francisco and LA about halfway.

I did new branding last year, and I am crossing my fingers, hoping to release. Hopefully by the time this airs, the new website is already live. One of the things, with many, many other things that were required for the website, I wanted to do my best to categorize all the episodes. So we're at over 450 here. So when one goes to the website, not that I think very many people utilize this or will utilize it. But then, instead of scrolling through all of the episodes, that one could choose on a particular topic and have a bit more organization in the episodes. Well, all that to say, I did this by hand. I had tried to get some support through a plugin or even OpenAI.

I don't really use OpenAI or AI very much at all, and I thought this could be a good way. It's something that I've already done all the work around, and could I get support to categorize? Well, ended up being that I did it all by hand, which was great, I revisited all the episodes. And one of the things that I want to say, that there were several guests that talked about the importance of having positive interactions and positive associations with one's partner. This is critical, I could go on and on about this. But even from a nervous system, neurological, brain physiological functioning, that when we associate our significant other with positivity, that's going to be more encouraging us to come close, to feel more desire. Versus feeling aversion, and even if your tendency is to turn towards and really wanna be responsive, you might have to feel some obstacles internally if you're feeling off-put or feeling as though the interactions have become negatively laden. That can make it really difficult to naturally be open and want to have connection. It seems like an obvious.

Personally, I can say, as I just stated, the end of 2022 and the crisis that my husband and I were in, and then the uprootedness and the dislocation and the journey of the last essentially two years, and then purchasing the home was extremely stressful. I could go on and on about the different layers that activated more stress for us. But it has been challenging, and I can see inside myself and inside my husband, ways in which we're responding that are triggers. And it can feel like our interactions are now heavy with that stress, with those triggers. I'm really grateful that we've landed, and now we can really focus on rebuilding in many ways. So in support of that, I wanted to bring to you the challenge of 31 days of practicing kindness.

Now, I do not think that this has to be anything effortful or change your lifestyle or how you're going to allocate time. This is intended for you to be able to access easily. If you're interested in going deeper, of course you can visit the five-part series and listen to those episodes, and I'm going to share a little bit more and revisit a couple here. This is, again, intended to be light. It's intended to support you, elevate you, add resource to this December, the end of 2024. And also hopefully add positivity to your interactions with your loved ones, and hopefully, most notably, your significant other, if you are in relationship. The PDF is a simple one-page, I think it's attractive, and it gives you an opportunity to either print it out or have it on your device so that you can reference. It essentially lists the 25 original practices of kindness, and then I'm going to offer you the additional six. There's a white box so that you can check off the ones that you do do. Now, they don't have to be done in the particular sequence that I have them listed. But this could be a way to gamify, for you to just notice, put your attention and your focus on kindness.

It might be that you are practicing kindness frequently and perhaps just don't maybe notice it, because it's such a habit and a part of your life. That would be wonderful. If by chance you have been focusing on other things and it's something you do care about, but perhaps have fallen out of being explicit about, this can give, again, a little bit more opportunity to bring this more into center focus. Again, I will put the link to downloading the 31-Day Kindness Challenge on today's show notes, which can be found on the website DrJessicaHiggins.com, and you'll see the 31-Day Kindness Challenge.

I am going to be doing this challenge. It'll be interesting what my experience will be. Will I stay with it? Will it be easy? Or are there things that I'm already doing and it's just a no-brainer, or does it challenge me? Or do I have to work hard at some more than the others? I imagine there will be a little bit of everything here. Yet, this is something I very much want to prioritize.

I won't list every 31 kindness action here that I've listed. Again, I want to encourage you to check out those other episodes. You could also get the transcript or just look at the show notes, you don't have to go through. Actually, you know what I'll do? On today's show notes, I will pull the show notes or the summary of all the 25 and put them on today's show notes. It'll be long, but at least that will be a quick short note reference tool. If you want to go deeper, of course I'll have the links to all of those episodes. Then today, I'm going to revisit five that were original, and then I'm going to offer you six more.

The first one I wanted to share is my favorite, and it's number two, which is: be a person of increase. This is pretty general, but it's an attitude. It's a vibe, if you will. It's bringing good to an exchange, an interaction, or a situation. So if there's a way to add positivity, to generate a sense of goodwill, it's finding a way to bring that value, to bring that increase. So when you're thinking perhaps about your significant other, what could support them, the interaction, or what could help be improved? Perhaps it's offering affirmation, encouragement. It's sending a thoughtful supportive text, knowing that they might have something that they're going through, a challenge. Thinking about you. You've got this. Or I can't wait to hear how it went. Keep up the good work. Those type of things. Or just even letting your partner know you're thinking about them, or if there's a way to contribute or help, or perhaps even doing something out of the ordinary. That's a way to bring, again, positivity. Now, many of the other ones that are discussed can likely go under this broader category. But again, it's the mindset. It's approaching an interaction from this place of looking for: how can I be a person of increase, how can I offer improvement and goodness here?

The second one that I wanted to share, which is actually number one, it's powerful, extremely powerful. Every time I've done it, I have been appalled and astounded by my experience, and yet I do not do it very often at all. It's doing a loving kindness meditation. On the show notes, you'll find an excerpt from Meta Meditation by Meta Institute, and it's talking about how to do a loving kindness meditation and giving you instructions. Then I actually list, in short, what it is. There may be a few different ways of doing it. However, in its essence, it's focusing on others, focusing on even maybe somebody you have a difficult time with, and then focusing on self. The essence of it is: May I be happy, may I be well, may I be safe, may I be peaceful and at ease. Then also: May you be happy, may you be well, may you be safe, may you be peaceful and at ease. 

Again, as you say these phrases and really connect with the intention and the heartfelt meaning, you may feel those loving kindness sensations arise. So this can be a very strong practice as you repeat these words. I also will list resources that give you the guided meditation that would be facilitated. So you'll have both the instructions and the write-out, if you want to self-lead. If you want, you can reference, I put Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, and also another loving kindness meditation by Greater Good in Action, which is an article and an audio.

The third original kindness recommendation, out of that five series, is something that my husband and I try to do on a frequent basis. I would even say, in some ways, it's become a bit of a ritual. It was really cute. Last holiday season, we visited my husband's brother and sister-in-law, and they have three boys, three children. And his mother or their mothers were there too. As a family, we were all together, and he was teaching his nephews the experience of celebrating wins, and one of the other things that we do is to do high and low. Like, what's a high and a low for the day? Now, the celebrating wins is an aspect of this. Sometimes when we do highs, it's celebrating a win or something that went well. 

These neurochemicals can also support the oxytocin, especially when we're sharing it with our loved ones. So how couples or people in relationship support each other when things go well is really notable. I'm not going to go into great depth. Again, if you want to hear more about this, you can visit the previous podcast episode. Also, in today's show notes, I'll put the summary which references the psychological study that goes over four ways that partners respond to each other's good news. The title is: Will you be there for me when things go right? So this is a sense of like, do we respond positively, or are we passive about it? Or are we even destructive about it? Essentially, when we can celebrate in the good and in the win, it can be incredibly bonding. I also referenced an article titled Why You and Your Partner Need To Celebrate Each Other, this is by Linda and Charlie Bloom. An active constructive response, I would also say active positive response, shows generosity of spirit, eagerness to hear more about the good news. Celebrating triumphs in life, from small seemingly trivial ones, to those that are more significant, strengthens the bond between two people.

The fourth that I want to share with you here today is actually number nine, and it is: treat your partner with manners. Now, I don't find myself or identify with being super buttoned up or formal. Yet, I think this is incredibly helpful, surprisingly helpful. 

So when we can continue to consider someone's preferences, like if you want to turn on the light and they're already in the room, perhaps asking, would it be okay if I turn on the light? Or perhaps you're wanting to share in a hug, and it is maybe unclear if your partner is open to affection at that time. Saying, can we hug? Or I'd love to give you a hug, would that be something you're open to? This is something we can fall out of practice, and yet we're two people in relationship that are having a unique experience, that I think is really important to continue to treat with that civility, that respect.

I will say, there's a fine line here. I don't think we want to be in a place where we can't be at ease or we can't relax. I am very much a fan of being comfortable, and really giving time and space and room for leisure and restoration, which means I might not have my hair done or I might be in sweats. My husband often is very casual and comfortable in his attire as well. We do a lot of outdoor activities and are very physical on the weekends. So often, I don't wear makeup on the weekends. Or if I'm on vacation, sometimes I'll put makeup on if we go out to dinner. But there might be other times where I go to work and I'm like: Oh, I haven't put makeup on in a while. So I do think there is something to be said about being in that place of comfort and being in a natural state. Yet, again, where are we being mindful and considerate? Do we bring the best to others, or are we also bringing that conscientiousness to our relationship? Again, not to run the risk of feeling too formal or on our tippy toes, or having to watch our P's and Q's, so to speak. But that we have that care and we're offering that to our partner, which can be a real act of kindness.

The fifth kindness gesture or action that I wanted to revisit from the original five-part series, which I find harder to do at times, and that is number 16: accept your partner's perspective. Now, this is easy enough to do when perhaps they have something to contribute that you maybe didn't think about or hadn't really considered, and they're offering perspective and it's an opportunity to learn. But when it potentially conflicts with something that you're wanting or needing, or perhaps their experience is very different and they're perceiving you in an unfavorable or negative way, it can be really, really difficult to stay open. 

I have heard so many people, and at times, myself for sure, feel that even listening or accepting my partner's perspective means that I am endorsing or condoning or agreeing with them. I can find in my relationship with my husband, if he's describing his experience, now sometimes he does it where he appears or sounds to me as though he's describing the facts, not his experience, then I want to rebuttal, or I would say even sometimes argue with him, that that isn't my experience. He can really feel that I'm not hearing him, I'm not understanding or really validating or respecting his experience and his perspective. Because it conflicts, or I feel as though he's seeing me in a negative light or negating what's true for me. So this is where it can get off-track pretty easily. Maybe even couples will start getting into this place of talking louder because they don't feel heard, or wanting to talk longer so that they can explain more, and then people just feel more and more unheard. That's where it can even escalate to an argument.

I would say, several weeks ago, my husband and I had an interaction. So one of the stressors was, when we purchased the house that we're in, it has a downstairs one-bedroom unit that wasn't really rentable as a standalone. So we invested to make it a standalone rental, which required a financial investment. We did a lot of projects ourselves, and it was extremely stressful. From the mental load of all the things that needed to get done and strategizing it, and we're trying to do it in a pretty quick timeline, and our approaches were different. I won't go into too much detail here. But all this to say that we were experiencing some conflict along the way, but we didn't really have the time to process it. So fast-forward, it's rented, we've had time. Anyway, he was sharing with me that he had feelings. He had, in his opinion, attempted to share them with me prior, and had felt that I wasn't really hearing him.

So this particular occasion, I don't know if I understood in that moment that he was hurting or had some feelings he was trying to describe. Somehow I got the memo, and it was like after dinner hanging out on the couch and he was sharing, and I could tell it meant a lot that I would just listen. I will say, I didn't love how he described a lot of it. However, I stayed with him, and I was really trying to listen and contemplate and empathize and put myself in his shoes, and really not get caught up on his description and really try to stay with what he was wanting to communicate. I feel that I was able to do that, and I was like, that sucks. Just really empathizing. He was like, I think this is the first time you've really heard me about this.

I was like: Ugh, I feel so bad. Again, there was a lot of moving parts. But it was such an important experience for him to feel that I was hearing him and could understand. 

That can really, I want to say, move mountains. But it's this sense of bringing connection in a real disconnected place. It's offering repair, it's offering an opportunity to feel more together in something that's been difficult. It didn't change the facts, but it also created a bridge for us to start to find each other in these places that we had fallen out of connection.

The last six that I'm offering you here, I actually was using AI, and I was just curious what AI would say about kindness. There was a couple that I was like, I haven't even done episodes on this, and I totally didn't add it in the first series. So I wanted to bring that to you here. Again, I look forward, if you're going to join me in this practice, I would love to hear what your experience is, and maybe I'll think of a fun way that we can all stay to connected. But if you're on my email list, I'll definitely start there.

So number 26: speak kindly and affirm their worth. So this is using encouraging and kind words often, and reminding them of their strengths and affirming how much they mean to you. When we think about love languages, this is words of affirmation.

Now, I'm certain that I included this in the original 25. I just don't think I gave it its own specific, it was in a broader topic. But I did think it was worth naming. Number 27: practice patience and understanding. So perhaps when your partner is doing something that's different or conflicts with your style, offering a little more grace, a little more patience. Or perhaps when misunderstandings arise, being patient to take time to understand what they're experiencing can really bring this kindness and care and peace to the interaction.

Number 28: give space when needed. Now, actually speaking of love languages, this is an episode, I think I had called it the Sixth Love Language, and did a podcast episode on giving space and offering that to your significant other. Or maybe it was even silence, I'll make sure to put that link on today as a show notes as well. Now this is something that my husband very much values, and it's not something that I do naturally, but have learned to offer him because it's something that he really benefits from. He's more of an introvert, so he appreciates that time to be with himself, reflect, and have his internal time and space not engaging with others. So that can be just giving space. It means stepping back, not engaging, maybe not pursuing, just honoring someone's personal space, and perhaps not even taking it personally when they want alone time or personal space. That can be a real gift to offer.

Number 29: encourage their passions and goals. Supporting a partner's endeavors, dreams, goals can be a way to show support, to show kindness. Honoring their individuality, honoring their individual pursuits, and giving them encouraging words, and helping them feel that their interests are valued. It's a way to support their livelihood, and that can be a very kind gesture.

Number 30: validate their feelings. Now, again, this is something that I know was included. Again, I wasn't super specific about it, so I did think it was worth having it be its own focus. Again, even when you don't fully understand or agree, just acknowledging the validity of like: Oh, I can see how you'd feel that way, or that makes sense. Whereas I mentioned, oh, that sounds really hard, just to even say that, taking that pause.

I was on someone else's podcast yesterday, and I was remarking, we were talking about some gender differences, and I do think I can speak in more of the masculine energy or the feminine energy. But we were talking about communication and I said, there's so often times where if I'm working with a heteronormative couple, the guy is wanting to go to fix-it mode. I do think there are a lot of women that go to fix-it mode, myself included. So when a partner is expressing discontent or feelings, that it's easy to want to help solution or solve that concern. Yet, what often is more powerful is just feeling this validation.

I remember there's so many times in sessions where I ask the partner that might be going into solution mode, I'm like, can you slow down a little bit with me? Can you tell me what happened right before you went to offering that solution? I have yet to experience something different than: Oh, I see that they're hurting, I feel their pain, I care, and I want to help. I'm like, would you be willing to say that? But it's like, I have to state the obvious, or that's what's helpful? Yes, it is. So I want to encourage all of us to slow down. 

I mean, it's crazy. Nothing is necessarily different. But just feeling that connection and feeling seen, that safe place to land, is so connecting.

31: listen with full attention. Again, this is an episode that I've done on listening. I think there's one or maybe even two that I did on the art of listening or the power or the gift of listening. And then, I know in one of the other kindness topics, I had addressed this. But again, I wanted to give it full focus to just the power of listening with that full attentiveness. So active listening. There's times where I'm listening to someone and I'm really with them, and then other times where I'm listening but I'm also thinking about something else or I'm multitasking. Sometimes I'll say: Oh, I was doing my best to listen, I just didn't catch all of it. I really try to give that active listening that demonstrates that undivided attention and that care and that respect, I think it's such an important thing. Especially in today's society, when we have so many things vying for attention: our phones, our to-do lists, or various things that we may need to be focusing on. But to give a person, our loved one, this undivided quality time, focused attention, and this real deep listening, their thoughts, their feelings, and maintaining that eye contact and showing that genuine interest. It can be such a gift, such, such a gift. I think we can all reflect on it. Those are the real connecting times.

I so appreciate you listening and staying with me as we go over various ways to engage in the practice of kindness. 

If you're interested in joining me in the 31-Day Kindness Challenge, I want to encourage you to, again, download the PDF and start practicing with me. We'll be starting December 1st. Again, if you want to be on my email list, I will be sharing and engaging more there. You could be on my email list by simply downloading the 31-Day Kindness Challenge PDF that can be found on today's show notes, again, at DrJessicaHiggins.com.

Thank you so much for spending your valuable time with us here on The Empowered Relationship Podcast. I am deeply privileged to be supporting these conversations and to be sharing this time with you. Until next time, I hope you take great care.

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