Dearest Brave Heart,
Kindness, I’m always yapping on about it. Particularly the kind that we steadily, over time, learn to apply to ourselves. Not because we are perfect, or life goes to plan, but because even in the hardest of circumstances we still deserve to be held in loving kindness and care. And the most capable person on the planet of giving that particular flavour of care to us is the human who has been with us since our first breath, and will remain until our last.
It’s my “not so secret, secret”. And I’ve been offering this insight freely for decades.
It’s not shiny, expensive, or hard to find.
It lives in every breath, every beat of your heart, every touch of your hand, whether you remember to acknowledge it or not.
Kindness is what you are.
The word kindness takes its root from the word “Kin” or “Kindred”. Think “Human Kind”. It isn’t fancy or complicated. It simply acknowledges that we are kindred. We are all the same. We are kin. You are me. I am you. Together we are kindred. And treating each other and ourselves with loving care is as natural to us as breathing.
It takes consistent and sustained effort to deviate from knowing you are a kindred being on this earth. Every breath reminds and connects us to all other life. A kind drumbeat that continuously brings us home.
We need some pretty big interruptions in life to override our basic human nature. We must get very, very afraid. And in that huge fear, if we become extremely isolated, and we believe our very survival is threatened, we forget we are kin and start competing. Assuming life can be won or lost.
We compete because we incorrectly believe there are limited resources. But the truth is there are more resources than we could ever need. More food than can be eaten. More music than we could ever listen to in 10 lifetimes. More books than could be read in 300 years straight. And more money than is fathomable or could ever make sense. It’s the distribution of these resources that is the challenge.
But with power wrestled down to only a few, and many of those leaders terribly afraid, traumatised and lost children trapped in grownups’ bodies, westerners live in a hunger and poverty that can’t seem to be satiated.
We are desperately hungry for love, for kindness, for presence and for belonging, but as a collective we are so hooked in scarcity, so lacking in spaciousness to rest and remember the truth of things, that most of us are running in the opposite direction of everything we truly long for.
Loving kindness. It’s a salve for hearts, minds and bodies the world over.
Yet the majority of us incorrectly believe what we are seeking is in short supply.
We are all hunting most of our waking hours for this resource. Each of us making our assumptions of how and where it can be found, attempting to find substitutes for loving kindness and belonging in many different clothes, because we quite literally cannot survive life on earth without them.
We are blind to abundance, an ancestral burden that did not start with us, but is most definitely our task to heal.
We search with our eyes closed for lifetimes, hoping it will be found in careers, purpose, money, sex, love, insert anything really, all the while wondering why we can’t see.
We feel lost. Alone. Isolated.
But how do feel this in a world where every single atom is entangled together?
Just like the turtles who know how to find their way back to the shore they were born upon to lay their eggs, we have only temporarily forgotten that home is that safe, warm, present, kind and loving feeling that has been inside us all along.
We got busy looking for things and stuff we thought we needed to matter, and forgot all we had to do was open our eyes all along.
We all want safety and loving kindness, yet we accidentally and inadvertently harm ourselves and others.
The further we get from remembering we are kindred and connected, the further we roam from our true nature, and the more we harm. The more delusional we become. The more we forget we belong to each other and that we are naturally and innately KIND, generous and loving beings.
We all experienced interruptions in the love we were offered growing up. In their attempts to care for us, the grown ups we were surrounded by were also navigating their own trauma and blindness. These interruptions were not our fault, nor are they an excuse for treating ourselves or others poorly.
These interruptions were real, they were the spaces where loving kindness couldn’t land, and they are now our responsibility to tend and heal. These wounds are the beginning of us learning true compassion, for ourselves, for others and maybe, eventually, even those who have perpetrated against us?
In my garden sometimes I will plant a whole packet of seeds in a row. It’s curious to see that sometimes that line is interrupted. The seeds do not sprout. Maybe they were eaten by birds or animals? Maybe they rotted with too much water or too rich fertiliser? It’s possible some seeds simply were not viable, possibly missing some of the DNA required to spring to life.
I rarely know the reason why they could not grow, but I do have a choice of what to do with those interruptions. Most commonly, I plant flowers in the holes. Edible flowers, that are good companions for whatever food I am growing. Those flowers in time bring not only beauty, but pollinator friends and much abundance for many other beings too.
Tending interruptions isn’t light work. It’s not all easy. It is definitely easier with a loving safe community. And it is a task that is never done.
The kindest people I know had more interruptions than most. By interruptions I mean things like abuse, violence, tragedies, a lack of safety or resources like food, shelter, clothing, caring grownups or safe homes.
I am not here to explain the workings of why we suffer, I simply know on earth, at times, everyone does. Hard things happen to everyone, no one escapes them. Winter comes.
And rather than wrestle and argue with everything, I have an inner practice that asks me to keep learning to rest in the wrestle. To find new ways to hold and tend my own fragile heart. To keep developing and strengthening boundaries to create a healthy safe life, but even more importantly to notice in real time when I harden and become guarded. I have a vow to tend my own being, and others too, with vast and infinite tender grace.
I’ll never be done. I’m no longer looking for a finish line. I’m just thankful that I’m still here. I will choose over and over again, for as many breaths as I have, to keep devoting myself to meeting my moments with as much presence, love, kindness and care that I can muster. And when i’m tired, I will retreat and rest.
We are all in this together. We are human kind. We are kindred. We all make the same mistakes. We all have the same frailties. We may feel closer to some and repelled by others. Yet no matter what our flavour is, even if our hearts are chocolate, there will be humans on earth who will never come to like us in this life.
And that’s ok. Maybe next life chocolate is their thing?
Homework:
Just for this breath, what true loving kindness can you offer yourself right now? It might be a deeper inhale. A glass of water. A glance at the sunshine through the trees out your window. Or a vow to learn a new way to move with loving kindness for yourself.
For the next decade, please devote yourself to treating YOU like you do your dearest friends. And pretty please, in ten years, report back to me with your findings.
With love from one kindred heart to another,
kmf xo
P.S. Yesterday Rob and I offered our first of 2 full day Family Constellation Workshops for the year. There is only 1 remaining now. It is on the 25th July at Chenrezig Institute. If you are serious about true healing and change for this planet of ours, you are very welcome to join us.
You can save your spot here Last Workshop 2026
© Kate M Foster. All rights reserved. An Invitation To Trust™
An Invitation to Trust Self Love and Self Care Oracle
Thanks for reading An Invitation to Trust!
An Invitation to Trust is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
