I think we can all agree that we need more kindness in the world. We live in an age when a small, noisy minority dominate both mainstream and social media, as well as our political systems. We see this with the ‘othering’ of refugees and asylum-seekers, portraying them as somehow less important and even less human than us. Instead of welcoming these poor, traumatised people with kindness and compassion, many news outlets and governments around the world treat them with suspicion and outright hostility.

But these actions are those of a tiny minority, who unfortunately are skilled at gaining positions of power and influence. It may surprise you, but study after study finds that most people don’t actually think like this. Most of us are socially liberal, kind, tolerant, altruistic and generous. One survey, published this week, found that Europeans have actually become more welcoming to people fleeing humanitarian crises, such as the heartbreaking one unfolding in Ukraine, in recent years. Happily, negative media stories don’t change the way that most people think, feel or act as much as you might expect.

Time and again research shows that most of us treat our fellow humans with love and respect. Please remember that, if the news is getting you down, humans can be selfish and cruel, but they can also be kind, warm, loving and open-hearted. It’s just that everyday stories of people being nice to each other don’t make the news, especially in today’s clickbait-driven media environment.

We are all inherently good

If you would like to know more about the goodness inherent in all of us, I strongly recommend reading Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman. He makes a strong case that, despite all the tales of our ancestors’ warring and bad behaviour, throughout human history we have lived in ways that are far more prosocial, cooperative and altruistic than historians and anthropologists often depict.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that we are so much better, as a species, than the media makes out, it’s clear we are still facing some major challenges right now. As my last post argued, by far the biggest of these is climate change, which does require urgent and decisive action by every member of the human family, but especially those of us with the most power, both spending and political. We also face linked challenges of income inequality, with far too many people still living in poverty, lacking basic facilities like clean water and sanitation, the degradation of Nature and much more.

We also see increasingly polarised political and social debates in countries like the US, into us and them, right and wrong, liberals versus conservatives. And all these problems could be solved, or at least drastically improved, with a little more kindness. Drawing on newer, more highly evolved parts of the brain like the cortical layer – the uniquely human region of the brain involved in rational thought, science, mindfulness, compassion and other high-level cognitive abilities – we can learn to treat each other with kindness, civility and respect, even if we disagree.

Less us and them and more just us, because we are all human, many of us have trauma histories or other difficult experiences in our childhoods. We all want to be happy, for our loved ones to be safe, healthy and lead meaningful, flourishing lives.

Start a ripple of kindness

So, what can we all do to make the world a kinder place? I like to think about starting ripples of kindness as I move through the world. Of course, I try to do this in every therapy session I offer, every blog post I write, every webinar I teach or guided meditation I record. My guiding principles as a psychotherapist are to treat every person I meet or teach with love, kindness and compassion.

But I also try to do this in my daily life. Every time I hold the door open for someone, buy a homeless person a sandwich, or let another car out at a junction, I hope that this little moment of connection, of humanity, will make the other person feel as good as I do. And my hope is that they will pay this forward, holding doors or smiling at the next person they meet, and so on. And this creates ripples of kindness, of warmth, of mutually experienced pleasure at our shared humanity.

It may sound a bit far-fetched, but at worst it can’t do any harm, right? And the more we treat each other with kindness, the less division, antagonism and conflict we will have in our world. Plus research shows that being kind is good for your mental health, so it’s a win-win!

Here’s your homework for the week: think about how could you start a ripple of kindness today. Trust me, this is one piece of homework you will enjoy.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan