Humans can be so mean and cruel

and we’ve seen enough of that truth in just the last few weeks.

With that said, humans can also be loving, kind, compassionate and empathetic.

Stories of kindness abound, they just don’t make it on the news like mean and cruel stories do. 

If you’ve been focused on all the latest newsworthy cruelty, take a break and spend some time reading wonderful stories of kindness. The official website for Random Acts of Kindness will fill your head with happy stories of kind people who acted in kind and unselfish ways and changed other people forever. Your creativity will kick in and you’ll reignite the angel in you that loves to be of service to others.

That feeling you get when you’ve been kind goes straight to your heart and lifts you up into a higher frequency which is all we ever really want.

Go to https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/  and click on STORIES and you’re on your way up. (I hope you’ll come back and finish the blog.)

There’s a pretty big difference between being kind and being nice. To be nice is to be agreeable and follow nice rules like saying thank you and I’m sorry and smiling when someone smiles at you. We’re all guilty of smiling a fake smile that covers
how we really feel sometimes.

Being kind comes from a deeper place, the heart, and it doesn’t come out of any selfish motive, but comes from love and consideration for another person. Our world needs more kindness but it has to start within each of us.

If we want a kind world, we have to first be kind to ourselves. We must love ourselves in order to love others and until we can feel the love that is within us, we can’t really feel the love from others, we can only go into nice mode.

Nice is better than rude and obnoxious, but it’s only a surface gesture. An idea for being nice to yourself after a bad day at work, might be to pour yourself a martini and watch four episodes of re-runs of House of Cards via Netflix. But being kind to yourself would look more like a walk in nature, a half-hour of prayer and meditation, singing, dancing or taking a nap.

Here’s a lovely be-kind-to-yourself meditation from Susan Piver.  She’ll take you gently into a lovingkindness meditation. If you’ve had a particularly rough go of it lately, this half-hour gift to yourself will help you approach the world with more empathy. In just 30 minutes you’ll learn a simple way to fill your heart with lovingkindness for yourself first and then others.

There is power in kindness and spending time to focus in a meditative way will remove all negativity.

It can even help with fear. According to legend, Buddha was taught lovingkindness as the direct antidote to fear.

There are many books explaining the benefits of lovingkindness meditation, but reading about it isn’t the same thing as doing it. Try it yourself. Here’s the link to Susan’s lovingkindness meditation. https://vimeo.com/52819182

I challenge you during the holidays to embrace kindness as your way of life. I challenge you to look for love. I challenge you to love yourself every day and for the next week give yourself fifteen minutes to do a meditation of your choice. It could be one like Susan’s or one your church, temple or masque has. Just commit to sit in the silence of your own breath and dwell on being happy, healthy, peaceful, and at ease in your life.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
― Rumi

If you enjoyed this blog, I think this one will resonate with you also: http://blog.cluborganized.com/flylady-marla-says-be-kind-to-yourself-0 

All is well,