Stop using words like “kindness” to mask your avoidance. It’s not kindness; it’s simply another defense.
When you dress up your passivity as kindness, it’s a form of gaslighting to those of us for whom kindness is a genuine act of service, not a tool to hide behind. Your kindness is empty when it’s used to people-please and insincere when it’s employed to avoid conflict. In your commitment to remain neutral, you’re not helping those in need; you’re protecting yourself at the expense of others.
Kristen Neff has devoted her career to exploring the depth of compassion, and her work has illuminated how easily we misunderstand its true essence. In her book Fierce Self-Compassion, she distinguishes between tender and fierce compassion. Tender self-compassion is the warmth we offer ourselves in moments of vulnerability, like a gentle embrace. Fierce self-compassion, however, is the power we summon to stand up and protect ourselves and others. Neff likens this fierce compassion to a mother bear defending her cubs — it’s bold, courageous, and unafraid of conflict when protection is needed.
When you say you’re “being kind” to stay passive, to avoid conflict, or to feel safe, you diminish the very meaning of kindness. This is not compassion — it’s complicity. True kindness involves standing up for those who are harmed, not shielding those who cause harm. When “kindness” is used as an excuse to avoid addressing abuse or injustice, it serves only the interests of the abuser. In truth, it is the oppressor who benefits from your so-called kindness, not those who suffer.
It’s a dangerous fantasy to believe that kindness alone will change a bully while they are actively harming others. Bullies need accountability and boundaries — not appeasement. By choosing to “be kind” in the face of harm, you relieve the bully of responsibility and tacitly accept their behavior. Desmond Tutu said it best: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
You can continue to avoid conflict, stay silent in the face of injustice, and placate those who cause harm to protect your own comfort. But let’s call it what it is: self-preservation, not kindness.
Because kindness, compassion, and courage are not what you’re practicing.
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