The Kindness Matters Podcast
So. Much. Division. Let's talk about how to change that. Re-engage as neighbors, friends, co-workers and family. Let's set out to change the world. Strike that. Change A World. One person at a time, make someone's life a little better and then do it again tomorrow and the day after that, through kindness.
Kindness is a Super-Power that each of us has within us. It is so powerful it has the potential to change not only your life but those around you, too. Let's talk about kindness.
The Kindness Matters Podcast
Building a Compassionate Society Through Self-Love
Ever wondered how the simple act of kindness can transform your life? Our latest episode of the Kindness Matters Podcast features a conversation with the insightful Ellie Laliberte`, a renowned author and keynote speaker. Ellie shares her powerful journey of emotional healing, revealing how the practice of self-kindness and compassion can become the bedrock for extending kindness to others. She offers practical advice on starting a journaling practice, highlighting how small, consistent entries can unlock creativity and provide a sense of solace.
We also navigate the intricate world of generational trauma, discussing the importance of personal responsibility in breaking free from inherited emotional burdens. By becoming objective observers of our own experiences, we can detach from the ego's influence and foster resilience and inner peace. This episode illuminates how recognizing generational cycles can empower us to choose healing and growth, rather than being defined by past influences, ultimately promoting healing across generations.
Our discussion wraps up with a compelling call to action—prioritize self-awareness and cultivate self-love as foundational steps toward a more compassionate society. We explore how self-compassion can help us better understand others' pain, leading to more genuine kindness. Inspired by the essence of support and encouragement, we introduce Ellie's book "Letters from You to You" and invite you to connect with us on social media to keep spreading the message that kindness truly matters. Tune in to be inspired to nurture your inner world and spread kindness to yourself and those around you.
You can find all of Ellie's links here, including her book, Letters From You, To You.
This podcast is a proud member of the Mayday Media Network. If you have an idea for a podcast and need some production assistance or have a podcast and are looking for a supportive network to join, check out maydaymedianetwork.com.
Like what you hear on the podcast? Follow our social media for more uplifting, inspirational and feel-good content.
Did you find this episode uplifting, inspiring or motivating? Would you like to support more content like this? Check out our Support The Show Page here.
Well, hello there and welcome. You are listening to the Kindness Matters podcast and I am your host, mike Rathbun. What is this podcast all about? It's about kindness. It's a pushback against everything negative that we see in the news and on social media today, and it's a way to highlight people, organizations that are simply striving to make their little corner of the world a little better place. If you want to join in on the conversation, feel free, Go ahead and follow us on all of your social media feeds. We're on Facebook, instagram, tiktok. We're even on LinkedIn under Mike Rathbun. Check us out. We're even on LinkedIn under Mike Rathbun. Check us out. And in the meantime, so sit back, relax, enjoy and we'll get into the Kindness Matters podcast.
Speaker 1:Hey, welcome everybody to the show. Fantastic, we've got another fantastic show for you. I've got to say they're all fantastic, but on a scale of fantastic to fantastic. This is going to be fantastic, let me tell you. I have with me today a young woman. She is a published author, she's a keynote speaker, she's an entrepreneur, and you can find her book. We'll be talking a lot about that, I think. Letters by ellie everywhere. Um, please, welcome to the show, ellie la liberte yes, did I do it right?
Speaker 2:yes, you did yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you so much I'm sure you say it much better than I do, though.
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:I don't have that French accent and you know what.
Speaker 2:That's fine and, by the way, it's letters from you to you, because letters by Ellie is just my website.
Speaker 1:That's your website.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's okay, people are going to find me there anyways, because if they write that in Google, they're going to see the book.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, yep. Letters by Ellie.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And there you are.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Awesome sauce and this is such a fascinating topic. I really like this. Your whole thing is we can't be kinder until we're kinder to ourselves. Is that it in a nutshell?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty much it. When you can really just sit with yourself and have compassion for yourself, then it's much easier to have compassion for other people, and then you see where the kindness comes from or where where it lacks from.
Speaker 1:Or or where it what? I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I got to turn my mic when it lacks from.
Speaker 1:Where it lacks from yes, um. So now what? What got you started on this train of thought?
Speaker 2:if you will, Um well, yeah, sure, I've been through a lot of emotional trauma, I would say throughout my life, and I just needed to, you know, yeah, sit with myself a lot of time by myself alone, a lot of time by myself alone and just look at who I am and who I want to continue to be as well. And so it's been a really big journey of healing, emotional healing, and so throughout all of that, you know, I've always been writing. I've been writing since I've been, like, I think, 15 years old. I was writing songs before. That's how my writing started.
Speaker 2:And then I just delved into the spirituality and the self-development world when I was 21. And I started writing about my thoughts and doing journal therapy, basically, and that's how I developed to be able to write some books, and so this is my second book, but, yeah, it's been my biggest modality, I would say my writing, because I've been expressing myself. However, I want to express myself with just me and without being judged by anybody else, and it's a very, very powerful tool to really go deep inside of you.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, I was going through a time a while back and somebody said you know, have you tried a gratitude journal or just journaling in general? Right, and I'm like I I get like three days in and I'm like I'm writing the same thing over and over again and I found it really, really and really and I hate to say it, but I found it tedious.
Speaker 1:I was trying to force myself to come up with something or or or, and I talked to my sister-in-law and she had found the same trouble with journaling. I was going to do it, I didn't do it. And then she said, she got up one day and she said, okay, today's the day, I'm just going to write one thing. And she said it was really short, not even a whole, barely a sentence. And she said, okay, good. And then she sat down the next day and the next day and the next day and she said, before I knew it, I was writing pages and pages.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, she had kind of like unblocked something within her and just let herself, you know, let all of it flow on paper probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so is that common.
Speaker 2:Common. I'm not going to be able to answer that for everybody, but I would say that because I've always been an artist myself and I've written songs since an early age, it's been natural for me to just write on paper Sure.
Speaker 2:But I would say for people who really want to try it, I mean for sure, at the beginning you just don't know what to write, because you kind of have this I don't know what it is I'm feeling like it's. It's like you're blocked at like just being creative with your words. But really what it's all about, it's just you're having a conversation with yourself while you're writing. It's no different from having a monologue in your head, and everybody has that right when they're alone with themselves. This little monkey doesn't stop. So instead of keeping every thought in your head and every story in your head.
Speaker 2:Why don't you just write it on paper? At least you can see it, you can let it out and then, even if it doesn't make sense, it doesn't matter, because you're with yourself and you're expressing yourself somehow. You know and and so it's not. You're not expressing yourself with violence, you're not expressing yourself, you know it's. It's the same way of expressing yourself in your little bubble and you know that's very private to you as well. It's not something that you have to share with anybody ever in your life. Like I'm someone who has gone through so much that now I'm very comfortable writing. I mean sharing my writings. But again, it has to be organized. I'm not just going to share my journal writing that I do every day.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, because it is private.
Speaker 2:It is very private, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:These thoughts in our head are not necessarily meant for other people. No, they're not, and that's very private. Exactly yeah, these thoughts in our head are not necessarily meant for other people.
Speaker 2:No, they're not, and that's very true, I mean, and it's a way of just looking at yourself and being okay with these thoughts in your head as well, and and knowing that it's okay to not have to share everything that goes on with you. You know you're allowed to have that, that privacy with who you are without having to explain yourself to everybody in your life. You know you're allowed to have that, that privacy with who you are without having to explain yourself to everybody in your life.
Speaker 1:you know sure, but now these things that we write to ourselves, and I like that because the the title of your book is letters to you, from you. Is that From?
Speaker 2:You Did I just mess that up, it's okay. What's that? Did I really? It's letters from you to you, yeah.
Speaker 1:From you to. Oh, see what I did there. I might be mildly dyslexic. I'm a writer, no, so where did the idea for that book come about?
Speaker 2:Is that all part of the writing process for you?
Speaker 1:yeah, so um to be honest, you want to share it with others.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I didn't know, really it's not. These letters are not from my personal experience, so it was a really strange thing. But I, first of all, I didn't know I was going to write a second book, because I had written one when I was 27. And I really thought that it was my only one.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, last year just I decided to just sit in meditation, really, really intense meditation, and I was at a point in my life where I needed to surrender a lot because I was changing kind of careers. I was very much into transition, so letting go of a lot of things, so very much into surrender mode, and I just didn't know what to do really. And so at one point I just decided I'm just going to meditate so much that I can just be very, very present and let go of all of the past and the things that worked, didn't work, whatever it is, and just let my life guide me to you know what, let me take care of you. And I sat down and I heard clearly an insight that said you have a second book to write, this is the title and this is the way that you're going to write it. And I was like, wow, okay. So that was very, very clear.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very clear, and it was about letters. And I was like letters, like what do you mean? And so I just sat down and I said I'm going to give it a try. And it just came to me instead of being chapters, it would be the letters, and it would be written from the perspective of your higher self, so that you have this intimate and very direct connection with who you are and you're letting yourself hear your higher self, this time by being present, right. And so it was a therapy again for me.
Speaker 2:At the same time, that book, writing this book was therapeutic for myself. It was insane. And when I, when I finished the entire book, I was like rereading the letters and I was like, oh my God, like I can't believe that I wrote this because it didn't feel, not that it didn't feel like me, but yeah, kind of in a sense, where my ego was all out of the way and it was just really this pure connection that I had. So I felt like it was a very natural download and I knew that it was important. And so I said, you know what, again, I'm not going to get in the way, but I know that this book is supposed to be somewhere other than just for me personally, and I let it go and I found a publisher and there you go, there it is. There it is.
Speaker 1:Look at there, there, it is Awesome. So if somebody were to buy this book, is this an instruction for it's?
Speaker 2:kind of like a guide guide. That's how you can see it. So it has been read in different ways and, to be honest with you, when I wrote this book I didn't even know that people would read it that way too. So that's really cool for me because I had feedback. Um, some people they they read it completely, from the beginning till the end, and and other people they start at a random letter because all of the letters have titles. And so let's, say number two.
Speaker 1:You find a letter that speaks to you.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. Letter number two is about emotional triggers. So if you pick up that book, you're like, okay, I'm going to sit down with myself and see what this letter is all about. What is my higher being kind of trying to say to me about emotional triggers, and so, yeah, it's kind of a guide in that sense where you can really just pick it up every day if you want and contemplate on one letter at a time. You don't need to read the entire book one shot. You can if you want, because it does follow. You know it's following itself in a way that all of the letters are related to. There's a momentum, a little bit, but you can also just pick up a letter randomly in the book and do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was. You posted something to your Instagram recently that I really, really, really like, and I don't know where this quote came from. It might be from the book.
Speaker 2:It's from the book.
Speaker 1:Okay, the truth of this life is that things are the way that they are, and that is it. It is not your job and it is impossible to make them the way you want them to be, and that's so profound, I don't know. For whatever reason that quote stuck with me. What did that come from?
Speaker 2:So that one is from the letter number three, which is the unknown. So, being comfortable with the unknown in your life, which was something that I was going through, actually when I was writing the book as well, to really get that your reality, that you live in, and again, it's a perspective. It's not everybody that is open to this, but there's a lot of peace in this and there's a lot of freedom as well, because our personal selves tend to take everybody's personal, and so that's kind of what I was talking to you about the other day about kindness. You know, everybody tends to live in this perspective of, um, someone is saying something to me or doing something to me, it, it is happening to me, right to me yeah yeah, because we'd all have a unfortunately have an ego, and it's our ego that wants to take everything personally and wants to take it as you know, I'm a victim.
Speaker 2:Something, someone did something to me, and so I'm a victim of this or that story yeah that story is very subtle.
Speaker 2:You suffer a lot in that story, unfortunately, because these things create patterns and the patterns they come up and we get attached to them, we get addicted to those patterns. There's another side of us, which is the impersonal side of us, which says you know what? This is life and the way that it unfolds has nothing to do with you. It is just the way it is. And you have to let go and you have to detach, because if you continue to attach to everything that happens the way that you see it, as it happens to you, then you're always going to be suffering in life Because you're always going to think that you created all of this or this is created by you. Whatever, it is a story that you want to say that it will make you feel some pain.
Speaker 2:it has to do with the fact that you're making everything personal to you, but the reality of life is really that there's nothing. It has nothing to do with you, it's just, that's the way that you're seeing it and you have to find a way of just, yeah, detaching.
Speaker 2:It's not easy, it's very difficult, but you know at one point when that's what happens, when you sit in silence with yourself as much as you can, which is something as well. That is difficult. It just happens, naturally, that you get to observe things that happen in a moment and you're able to detach, become the witness and see that you know what. This isn't me, it's okay, this is happening. I'm going to try to find a way where this is not bringing pain to me again, or where is this coming from? Why am I reacting that way? Because I know it has nothing to do with me, so it must have something to do with something that happened in the past that I took personally back then, and now I'm just reacting in the same way, but it's a different thing, but it's making me react the same way as the last time. So, yeah, it's becoming this kind of objective observer of everything that happens in your life.
Speaker 1:That sounds a lot easier than it really is.
Speaker 2:It is. It is not easy. I will never say to anybody that it is an easy way of living, but it's a practical way of living because it makes you become more resilient to life and just yeah, natural as well, you know, and find that peace inside of you.
Speaker 1:Are we talking about kind of a c'est la vie kind of thing? Kind of kind of Such is life.
Speaker 2:It is, and but also, you know, it's not about also being nonchalant, if I would say, because some people they just feel like, oh okay, well, I just have to not care about anything in my life and my life's going to go well yeah that would be the overreaction right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's not about not caring. Some people could say well, yeah, I feel like if I care too much, then it's hurting me. Yes, but it's about maybe caring in a different way and just shifting things in the way that you care about the things that happen in your life and the seriousness of them with love and kindness.
Speaker 1:Yes, Now I have notes here from when we talked before. Talk to me about generations, people of all generations. Do you remember what we talked about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. So. I think you were um referring to, uh, different generations of how we see life and how we kind of like co-exist and yeah, so I think that it has to do a lot with um, well, first of all, you know like right now it's very trendy in the sense where people are realizing that they have a lot of healing to do in their generational kind of trauma, in the sense where, so, yeah, generational, emotional, it feels like everybody is being referred to as a generation, whether it's silent generation, boomer, gen X, millennial, gen, alpha, whoever we're not people, we're just generations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, but I think that that's the thing is we've come to a point where we're realizing that the generations have been affecting everybody, in the sense where things were not being lived the same way that maybe your generation you were living in and then my generation was living in it, but we all, we all affected each other, like at every generation kind of continued a cycle. That's what I'm gonna say.
Speaker 2:So um now it's kind of looking at when, wherever you are in your life, whether it's you know you're at your age, I'm at my age now it's looking at. So I know that in my generation this was a common thing in society and this affected me somehow. Now how can I take responsibility today to look at this and not make in mind, make it mine anymore?
Speaker 2:You know, and it's the same thing, for my generation, like, let's say, my parents okay, well, my parents raised me this way because they were raised this way and they just continued to, you know, have these kind of ways of going and teaching their kids that way, or maybe they wanted to do the opposite, but it always stems from an emotional trauma that they experience and they're just transferring to their child, unfortunately because they didn't know better. And it's still a little bit like that today.
Speaker 2:But it's not about blaming anybody, it's just about being aware that you know what we've been for a long time in this kind of construct from the ego, and it's okay. But now you know there are ways that we can seriously start to be taking responsibility and not continuing this emotional trauma in the next generations to come, so that what we can have more kindness, we can have a beautiful world where people are getting really well with who they are.
Speaker 1:I love that you just all wrap that up in the kindness. That was awesome. But no, yeah, I feel that I mean my dad was greatest generation and my mom was silent generation. And then you know, I came along and, yeah, I remember thinking, and I'm pretty sure almost everybody does this. Folks, if you want to jump in on the comments on this, on this episode, let me know. Every kid says I'm going to be a better parent than my parent was. I'm not going to do the thing, xyz, whatever it is that my parent did to me, yeah, I don't know if it always works out uh, I don't know, because I'm not a parent.
Speaker 1:The intention is there.
Speaker 2:The intention is there, but again, where does the intention come from? Because if you're doing that to prove your parent wrong, then it's your ego that wants to do that.
Speaker 2:If you're doing it because you experienced pain and you want to do the extreme of the opposite, then you're just reacting again from that pain and you're not really doing something that is going with you, like you didn't make this decision by who you are. You made the decision by who your parents were. You just want to be the complete opposite because you didn't like that. You just want to be the complete opposite because you didn't like that. But then again, that's the work you kind of need to do before you decide to really do it that way, to see where does that come from? Was that a blockage? Was that because you were? You know, it's still a wound that you haven't healed, because even if you do the complete opposite and that wound is still there, it won't make a difference, Because this is, you got to go to the root of what it is right.
Speaker 2:But it is a way of having an intention and we are people that you know. We are human beings and we react. So I think that it comes from a reaction of like, oh my God, like I remember, this is what I was experiencing, let's say, and it could be a really, really small thing, but this is what I was experiencing. Let's say, and it could be a really, really small thing, but this is what I was experiencing with my mom, and I really never want to do that to my child. But again, okay, but you still have to go and heal that, Because if you continue to raise a child and still have that inside of you, you're going to be reacting every time that your child triggers that inside of you.
Speaker 2:And then you think of your mom and you're like oh no, well, no, I don't want to do that, because my mom used to do that. Oh no, no, I can't do that, and so you know what I mean. It's kind of like people just have to start being who they are first and then, when they decided who they are from whatever their parents did or didn't do then they can act in accordance to something that is saner, right and comes from a more peaceful place.
Speaker 1:Perfect. I love that. One final note on intentions. My mom always used to say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm like thanks for that. Why did that stick with me for like another 40 years, right? Oh my God, it made an impression on you.
Speaker 2:That's why.
Speaker 1:It did.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Whatever. So you, something else we talked about and you said a lot because there's a lack of kindness. Our perception is that there's a lack of kindness in the world today.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's because of a lack of self-compassion.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 1:So you think we're not fully able to be kind to each other because we're not being kind to ourselves?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, I get a gold star. If someone has a difficult time with kindness towards someone else, it's because most probably, they have a very difficult time with kindness to themselves. So it's a reaction of not being able to look at themselves before they respond to something or they do an action or whatever, and it comes out the way that it comes out, and sometimes they're not even aware that they haven't been kind to that person. And this is where it comes with with the personal kind of thing that I said at the beginning. When you take everyone personally, we always think that it's you know, they're directing whatever they're directing at us. But but most of the time it has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with them that at some point somewhere inside of them they're not feeling good and they're just projecting something like a wound within them towards us, right?
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's, most of the time, the kindness of other people or the lack of kindness. That's what I'm going to say. I believe and this is just my perspective because I've been doing so much work on myself for me to be kind and for me not to be condescending and be through something. You're going to be bothered by a lot of people and a lot of things, very, very naturally. So it's very easy to not be kind in your words, in your actions, to be selfish in a way, because you're lost right and you don't love who you are.
Speaker 2:You don't know who you are. So how can you be kind to someone else when you have a hard time being kind to yourself? And I'm not saying that everybody is not kind to other people, even if they haven't done the work. I think that there's a percentage of us that is naturally kind. I would hope so. I think so.
Speaker 1:I want to believe so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think that the times where it does happen, where someone is not being kind to someone else you know, if we think of children that are bullying other children, we want to blame the child that is doing that to another child. But really, where does it come from? Why does it need to bully someone? Where does that come from? Because they're hurting somewhere and so they think that they're in their power. And the same thing. Sorry, but with the politics they think that they're being powerful because they're hurting someone else. That's either oh, that feels good, it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel good, that's just the way that you're, you know, so it's yeah.
Speaker 2:Kindness to me, or the lack of kindness, goes a long way in that sense where it's all of a. It all starts with you, and if you're good with who you are and you do the work and you really look at yourself, I mean you are doing the best that you know how to do and in that sense kindness should be there more naturally than someone who's just really not aware of much about themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Okay, wrapping it up here If you had a giant microphone and you could speak to the whole planet, what would you tell them?
Speaker 2:I would tell them please go and take care of your inner world as soon as you can, whatever age that you are, because if you do that, then whatever is outside of you will look a lot better, in the sense where you're not going to feel like everything is just chaotic because you've done the work to go and and deal with your own chaotic kind of nervous system inside of you. So yeah, inner world is what is kind of like. People need to start doing that Instead of just looking at the news, going outside and being frustrated about politics and frustrated about what's going on outside. Start with you, go inside.
Speaker 1:It all starts with us right, and nothing good can come until we work on ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure, and just find that self-compassion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect, ellie. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. It was a really enlightening conversation.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I really like your. I love your title. You know kindness is so important and I hope that there's a lot of people that can be watching your, your episode and just remember, remember that you know what they have kindness inside of themselves and other people also, and so it's just to try to expect the best out of other people as well. I think that sometimes we forget that we don't expect the best from people you know.
Speaker 1:Good point. Thanks so much and we will be in touch.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:Such a great conversation with Ellie Liberté. I hope she forgives me for that. I honestly do. She said she did, but I messed it up and I apologize.
Speaker 1:At any rate, there was something towards the end of this episode. She made a point about being unkind to others and power, and she threw politics in there, and I don't generally like to talk about politics. I try to stay away from it, but I really, now that I listened back to it, I would love to have drilled down on that with her, about the lack of kindness and power and bullying, and I may have to schedule another call with her for that, and I may have to schedule another call with her for that. But at any rate, I appreciate her time and her effort and her energy in this area and I absolutely love the work that she's doing.
Speaker 1:Letters from you to you is her book and there will be links in the show notes to check that out, and there will be links in the show notes to check that out. But that will do it for this episode of the Kindness Matters podcast. We'll be back, of course, next week with another episode, but in the meantime, be that person who roots for others, who tells a stranger, that they look amazing and encourages others to believe in themselves and their dreams. As always, follow us on all the social media channels Facebook, instagram, tiktok, linkedin, you name it. We're there. You have been listening to the Kindness Matters Podcast and I am your host, mike Rathbun. Have a fantastic week.
