Welcome to this glorious Friday, November 13, 2020! Today is a rare and precious day that will never come again.
I find it interesting that I’m writing about Kindness. It’s as if we need a reminder to be kind to ourselves and to one another. I suppose this holds true with all these Weekly Mindfulness Support letters. I’m confident that we have this wisdom within us: be compassionate, be thoughtful with your words, be present, be kind, etc. And yet, here we are.
Being kind is one of those truisms that we were supposedly taught in kindergarten. Yet from time to time, we find ourselves doing or saying things that are unkind, hurtful, and even cruel. While there was a time in my life when I felt justified in calling someone an idiot, for example, the negativity of those thoughts slowly ate away at my well-being; it didn’t matter that I had no awareness of this moral decay. When I do slip nowadays, when I say or do something unkind, it never feels good. I recognize meow how destructive unkindness is to our being. And because each of us are interrelated and inseparable, this individual negativity is destructive to our society. It behooves us all to be more kind.
I’m starting to see how, similar to pretty much everything else, learning to be more kind is a skill to be cultivated. Whatever we practice, we improve. This holds true with our unhealthy and unkind habits. The more we practice those, regardless if done unintentionally, we find ourselves becoming quite good at doing things that are unkind. If we gossip a lot, we get better at gossiping. If we practice being judgmental, we become more critical. It’s like the Native American story that tells of the two wolves that reside within each of us; one wolf is kind and the other is unkind. The wolf that wins in the end is the wolf that we feed.
Let’s feed Kindness 😊
This is like all these other Mindfulness topics: just because we want to be more present, compassionate, and kind, doesn’t mean we can snap our fingers and make it so. Regardless, each moment is a new moment, and each new moment is an opportunity to be the person that we want to be. Right now, in this moment, you can be kind (and in this way, immediately make the world a kinder place). It doesn’t matter if five minutes ago you did something unkind, in this moment you can embody kindness. This is why we meditate daily, set intentions and check in throughout the day. These practices help us to cultivate more present moment awareness.
There are other things we can do to help develop this skill of kindness. Each day make it a habit to do at least one random act of kindness. One day each week, step it up and be overly kind. Reach out to people you haven’t talked to in a while. You can also get inspiration from a tearjerker movie. Some of my favorites are: Charlotte’s Web, Babe, How to Train Your Dragon, A Christmas Carol, Mr. Rogers, and anything that involves Winnie the Pooh. What we pay attention to grows and expands.
Let’s expand Kindness 😊
Most important, because we are human and we will invariably do things that are unkind, let’s be sure to clean up our mess. Let’s take responsibility for our actions, reflect, make amends, learn from our actions, and set a new and kinder course. We don’t need that negativity eating away at us. We get to live with ourselves for the rest of our life; it seems that one of the most beneficial gifts that we can bestow upon ourselves, is kindness.
You are loved by me, Unconditionally.
Kindly,
Dan
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