Kindness Can Save a Life: What Parents and Allies of LGBTQ Kids Need to Know About the Power of Small Acts

What if kindness wasn't just nice, but life-saving? Welcome to More Human, More Kind, the podcast helping parents of LGBTQ+ kids move from fear to fierce allyship and feel less alone and more informed so you can protect what matters, raise brave kids, and spark collective change. I'm Heather Hester. Let's get started. In this episode, you'll learn how to recognize how seemingly small acts of kindness can be a turning point in someone's life. You'll discover the neuroscience of kindness and its impact on our brains and bodies, and you'll learn 3 ways to intentionally practice kindness this week. At the end, I'll tackle a myth that kindness is weakness when really it's one of the most radical powers we hold. So let's get into it. Here's a radical thought. Kindness isn't soft. It isn't weak. Kindness can literally save a life. I know that sounds dramatic, but just stick with me for a second because I have science and I have stories to prove it. Kindness isn't an, a fluffy extra. We have talked about it in episode after episode. It can literally be a lifeline for someone. Studies have shown that receiving kindness increases oxytocin, it lowers blood pressure, and it reduces stress hormones. I want you to think for a moment about a time when someone showed you kindness, not just niceness, but perhaps you were having a hard day or you were struggling with something and you were lost in your thoughts and Maybe you were walking down the street or you were walking into a store and maybe it was that you made eye contact with someone and they connected with a genuine smile, or you dropped something without realizing it. Someone picked it up and made the effort to chase you down to give it to you. Maybe You were driving through the Starbucks drive-through line and somebody paid for your drink. There are so, so many different examples. Those are really light and easy ones, but I want you to think about just something along those lines that has happened to you. And I want you to think about how that made you feel. Feel in your body, how it affected your mood, how it affected your heart rate, how it affected perhaps how tense or on edge or anxious you might have been in that moment. For someone on the edge of despair, really on the edge of despair. One gesture, one moment of kindness can be the thing that keeps them here, that keeps them tethered to their life. Kindness is most, most powerful when it shows up as connection or as empathy. Or as action. So some of the examples that I just shared before, think of that connection, making that eye contact with somebody, genuine eye contact. Think about the number of times that, you know, depending where you live in the country or in the world, that you pass someone you, when you're walking down the street. Perhaps even you pass somebody who it looks like they are going through a really tough time in their life. Do you make eye contact with them? Do you smile? Those may seem like really small, small gestures, but that act of human connection really can make a huge, huge difference. Think about a time— we are all busy, right? We are all running through our lives, doing a million things, committed to all of these, whether it's with our kids, our jobs, our families, our passions. We are going and doing. Think about a moment when a friend or a loved one really, really needed to talk? Were you able to stop and really connect with them? Were you able to show them empathy about whatever it might have been that they were going through or dealing with, talking about, sharing with you? These are the types of things that I want you to really think about as we talk today about kindness, having the ability to save a life and what the true power of kindness is. So I'm telling you this because most of the time we really do underestimate how much power we hold, how much power the simplest of actions can have. Many people walk through this life, walk through the world feeling invisible, feeling unseen, unloved, unknown. We as human beings are wired for or belonging. And so kindness, true kindness shown to another, can literally calm the nervous system. It can break the cycles of despair and it can bring us into community, into belonging. Now there's one statistic that I struggled with whether or not I was going to share it today because I believe this is worth an entire episode of conversation on its own. But I believe that it is worth mentioning because I do believe there is a connection between kindness and between loneliness. And something that kept popping up for me as I was researching this episode was was that research shows that Gen Z shows high loneliness, even though they are the most digitally connected generation. And I imagine you are thinking some of the same things I am, but I believe there are a lot of pieces to pull apart there. But I thought it was important to drop this in this episode because it does relate to loneliness, loneliness does relate to kindness and vice versa because small acts of kindness remind people that they matter, that they are seen, that they are cared for. So we're gonna put a pin in it and bookmark it for another episode that I will swing back to in a few weeks. So what are the ripple effects of kindness? Well, one of them can be that one act often multiplies itself far beyond what you can actually see, what you can actually know, or what you will actually ever know. This is an example that I shared earlier, and it's kind of a light, easy example, but One of them is paying for someone's coffee. I mean, think about— I think that's probably happened for most people that enjoy going through a drive-through for coffee or a treat of some kind. When you pay for someone's coffee, think about how you have felt when somebody has paid for something for you. Perhaps you feel lighter, perhaps it for a moment, put a smile on your face. Perhaps that then rippled into treating a coworker with more patience or paying that forward yourself, shifting something in the way that you approached your day. And the effect goes on, it continues, right? There's a ripple effect that goes out and further out from that. Small acts of kindness can interrupt despair. There is a story that I came across a couple of times, again, as I was researching this, about this man named Kevin Hines who actually survived jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is absolutely nuts. But he says that if just one person had asked him if he was okay, he wouldn't have jumped. That's so powerful. Think about the number of people that we just walk by every single day. And this is no shame. This is no judgment because we all do it. Think about the difference that we could make if each of us just snapped out of that for a moment and saw one human being and acknowledged them and said hello or asked them how they were doing or asked them that they needed something, you know, are you lost? Do you need directions? Can I help you in some way? Whatever it might be, kindness interrupts hopelessness. A single kind interaction can keep someone from self-harm or hopelessness. I've done several episodes discussing being kind versus being nice, and I think it is worth repeating the reasons for choosing kindness over niceness. As a reminder, niceness avoids conflict while kindness shows up authentically. And what that translates to is really about meeting humanity with compassion, with vulnerability, with truth, instead of that surface level Everything's okay. I'm just gonna be nice, or I'm just gonna say what this other person needs to hear, or I'm just going to be polite. Kindness kind of digs down a few layers and gets into the messiness, right? An example of this might be telling a friend, I see you struggling. Here's what I see, and detailing what you see, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And to say to them, I care about you too much to stay silent. This may not feel like it's nice, but it is profoundly kind. It probably comes as no surprise that as I was doing a little research for this episode, I came across the Random Act of Kindness Foundation more than once. And I really just wanna encourage you to visit it. I'm not gonna go into much detail right now, but there are some really, really extraordinary stories on there and some really, really good ideas how We all can show up with kindness on a daily basis. So I will put that in the show notes. Talking about kindness is definitely a favorite topic of mine, and it is something that the more that I have really kind of dug into it and made a conscious effort to learn more about and to show up more in, in my own life. Obviously it is important to me since I did rename this podcast to have kind in the title of it. But I've thought so much recently about times that kindness has been shown to me, and I just wanted to share a couple of different stories and hopefully guide you into a place where you are either remembering stories that have happened things that have happened for you in your life or ways that you can show up moving forward. I will tell you that last year during the time— it's almost been 2 years ago now, my goodness— right after my dog Tegan passed away, and then again last year after my sister passed, It was really meaningful to me when people, especially people who knew that I was so grief-stricken, that I was, whether I was actively showing it or whether I was in a, you know, a place where I was just trying to get through, right? I was just living, living my life, doing the things that I needed to do, being a parent. Doing all of the things that I do for this work, wherever I was, but people who would show up with either just a hug or who would send me an email or a quick text or drop a card by my house or pick flowers out of their yard and leave them on my front step. So many different things that were just little, little moments that let me know that somebody saw my grief in those, those two very specific times that have been in the last two years. And that was profoundly meaningful to me and really did make a huge difference and my ability to process the grief that I was in and my ability to really fully feel it so I could feel through it so I could begin to heal. Um, so I love again, that kindness, the act of kindness, being kind is not just a pattern interrupt. It can be life-saving. It can be friend-saving. It can be relationship saving. It can, it can be a saving action in so, so many different ways. When we choose kindness, we aren't just making someone's day. We truly might be saving their life. And most of the time we'll never even know. The impact that we've made. If you've been with me for a while, you know I've loved our listener query segment because it's been such a great way to answer your questions and bust myths. And when I was on vacation a few weeks ago, I was thinking, what if we could take that same curiosity and make it even more action-focused? Make it, you know, just kind of a level deeper. So today we are evolving this listener query into what we're calling The Unlearn, where each episode I will tackle a common myth or bias or assumption, something that we've all been taught to believe, and together we'll break it down. We will reimagine what's possible and we'll end with one tangible action that you can take with you that week that you can do. So it's still gonna be grounded in your questions and in your stories, but now it will be a part of your weekly practice, your weekly allyship practice. So let's get ready to unlearn Reimagine and Act. Today's myth is kindness is weak or soft. Well, I think many of us were perhaps taught that. I think hearing that come out of our current administration, but what do we know? But the truth is Kindness is courageous. It requires the ability to see outside of oneself and to be vulnerable. It's what interrupts hate and isolation and even death. This week, I want you to choose one intentional act of kindness toward a stranger. Check out the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation for an idea. It could be something as simple as holding the door or making eye contact, or it can be a little more complex, like asking someone how they are, how they truly, truly are. When we reimagine kindness as something powerful, we remember that it's a force that can and does save lives. Kindness is not random. It's deliberate. It's radical. And again, it's life-saving. Small acts of kindness can actually be a turning point in someone's life. I encourage you to discover the neuroscience of kindness and its impact on our brains and bodies. And I also really encourage you again to either take some of the practices we've already discussed or create some of your own and practice them intentionally this week. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. I am so grateful for you. And I just want to remind you that new episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday. In fact, I want to let you know that future interviews will actually drop as special episodes. So make sure you subscribe so you never, never miss an episode. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd love to give you an excerpt of my book, Parenting with Pride, along with a guided reflection. Go to tinyurl.com/pwpreflect. The link is in the show notes as well. Until next time, be kind on purpose.