I have reflected a lot on kindness this week and what makes people squishier rather than harder in the experiences of struggle.

I am learning that when we have decided to do a bunch of new things, we have limits. We get overwhelmed. Things are frustrating. We get tired. If we have developed a perfectionistic narrative and have historically been hard on ourselves, this fails somewhere in the process.

Impatient, rushed, and missing-the-point-thinking stops working at a point. We are too vulnerable, too in the deep end to be impatient and unkind to ourselves. I think this topic is really hard to learn.

This is particularly true in contexts where we have no control, like in Lima traffic, or how slowly people in Iquitos move.

Personally, I have learned that I need to move slower in moments of frustration. I need to do one thing. I need to stand in this line right now. It is my only activity. Or first, I will wash the dishes. Then I will get dressed. When I can do these things in an order that slows me, I get softer. Then you understand better when your friends tell us about their day standing in long lines and how frustrating it was. You understand better because you paused in that line earlier today yourself and you breathed kindly.

Reptilian heart in Santiago. Memories of last weekend.