Kindness

By Madisyn Taylor

Kindness expands the light within us and reaches out to touch the light in others as well.

Kindness is an ideal that is easily accessible to all of us. We all know that a small kindness can make our journeys lighter and more enjoyable. Even bringing an instance of kindness to mind can put a smile on your face days or weeks later or perhaps even inspire you to share kindness with another. Though it may seem simple to the point of insignificance, many cultures throughout the world and history have recognized kindness as a powerful virtue. It may be the simplest way to experience and share all the grandest ideals of humanity. We can make the choice to act from the best place within ourselves at any time, while simultaneously recognizing the highest potential in another with the smallest of acts, nourishing the seed of hope in each soul we encounter. 

In a way, kindness acts as the oil that makes the engine of our world move more smoothly and with less friction. We can still get where we are going but the ride is more pleasant, and those around us can share in the ideal world that we help to create. We are all fortunate that kindness is limitless in its supply and available to everyone. When we act in ways that confirm our ideals, we make the ideal our reality. Then, instead of affirming the experience of struggle and competition, we can shift our experience to the reality of ease and pleasurable camaraderie with the fellow citizens of the world. 

Whether giving way to someone in traffic or letting someone go ahead of us in line, donating money or sharing our homes in a crisis, we actively create a universe of kindness and giving with every choice we make. The smallest gesture can bring a smile to light the shadow of an unpleasant situation or remove tension from a difficult task, but it's effects can echo and extend far beyond the moment. We can be sure that we will receive a kindness in return, but giving is its own reward. Kindness expands the light within us and reaches out to touch the light in others as well, giving us all a glimpse of the glow that has the power to enlighten our world. 

How to Always Speak With a Kind Heart

"By thinking about what you say, and how you deliver the message, you have the power to contribute something meaningful, and you also have the power to be hurtful.

Always use your power for good and speak with a kind heart."


People may not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
You may have heard that before, but when you really think about it, you will realise that you actually have great power and responsibility in each of your day to day interactions.
Whether it is a business or social conversation, by thinking about what you say, and how you deliver the message, you have the power to make a great connection.
You have the power to contribute something meaningful, and you also have the power to be hurtful.
Always use your power for good and speak with a kind heart.
Here are my 8 key tips to do just that:-

1. Speak Thoughtfully

While your words may not be remembered years later, choose them carefully.
If the saying “you are only as good as your word” is true, than it only makes sense to speak good words, or words that reflect who you really are.

“Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.” – Buddha

2. Speak Kindly

Being kind doesn’t mean that you can’t make your point. Being kind doesn’t mean that you can’t be direct. Being kind will show that you care, regardless of the message.
By sharing your compassion, you might change how someone feels about themselves or a situation.

3. Listen

If you are only thinking about what you are going to say next, you are missing half of the conversation!
If you ask a question, wait patiently for the answer. Even 10 seconds of no talking can seem like an eternity.

“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” – Mark Twain

We often like to fill up empty space, especially quiet, empty space, but don’t be afraid of silence.
Sometimes, it is in that quietness that the really good stuff starts to happen.

4. Reserve Judgement

Before you enter a conversation, especially with someone you don’t know very well, it is easy to make a snap judgement.
Before words even come out of their mouth, you have likely formed an opinion.
This may be because of the way they are dressed, a look you thought they gave you, or a story you heard about them.
Make a point to let that go, so you can really hear what they are saying. Do what you need to do to think of them in a loving way.
It might help to think about their family. Are they a father? A daughter? Who loves them?
Giving 30 seconds to think this through will really humanise the conversation.
If you consciously think about the fact that they are in this world, trying to make a great life, just like you, then you will be more invested in the interaction.

5. Be Honest

Speak with integrity and tell the truth. If the truth hurts, be compassionate, but be honest.
This goes especially for business conversations. It’s natural to want to be nice instead of honest, especially if someone is trying to sell you something you don’t need or want. Your honesty will save everyone time.
This is especially important in more serious conversations, for instance, breaking up business or personal relationships, when you say (in so many words), “You are not for me”.
Remember you aren’t saying, “You are not for anyone.”
It is important to get that message across. Just because a person, business, or product is not right for you, doesn’t mean that they are not perfect for someone else.
Don’t say everything – some things really are better left unsaid.

6. Consider Another Opinion

Make sure your argument isn’t about being right. Perhaps there is an option or opinion that really is better than yours.
This doesn’t make your opinion less valid, and your openness to a new idea will likely turn into a new opportunity.

7. Don’t Yell

Once you raise your voice, your words become irrelevant.
Once you yell, you are talking at someone, not with them. When you yell, the only thing someone else is thinking is, “I can’t believe they are yelling.” or “What a jerk.” or some variation of that.
When you yell, you lose control and make the conversation about something completely different.
Instead, when you feel like yelling, lower your voice. Speak softly. You will likely get the point across in a more profound way.
If speaking softly doesn’t work for you, be quiet. Collect your thoughts, take a deep breath, walk away or do something that will distract you from yelling.

8. Say Thank You

There is always time before, during and after a conversation to say thank you.
Thank you for meeting me here. Thank you for bringing that up. Thank you for taking the time to talk. Thanks for the inspiration.
If nothing else, a simple, thanks for your time applies every time.
The way forward – always walk and talk with a kind heart
Conversations happen all the time, but they don’t always happen with a kind heart.

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.” – Gandhi

If you approach every conversation as an opportunity to learn something new and to treat someone with respect, instead of as a time to speak your mind, your message will be heard, loud and clear.
You will be trusted and more importantly, you really will be as good as your word.
This is a very special guest post from Courtney Carver
Courtney is a writer and fine art photographer. She writes about simplifying and living life on purpose at Be More with Less. You can also follow her on Twitter.

Image courtesy of Moriza

Source: http://www.arvinddevalia.com/blog/2010/10/29/how-to-always-speak-with-a-kind-heart/

How to Live Your Life as if Everything is a Miracle

Do you believe that life is miraculous?

Are you waiting for a miracle to happen in your life?

Just imagine what it would be like to live your life as if everything is a miracle.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.” ~ Albert Einstein

Sometimes people look for some kind of miracle when their life is in a fix. Other times, people may pray for a miracle when a loved one is seriously ill or when they face a life threatening challenge.
I remember praying for a miracle when I felt I hadn’t done well in a school exam. Somehow I did pass and that was my first personal experience of my own miracle, albeit a tiny one.

In the recent Haiti earthquake, there were many “miracles” of afflicted people surviving for many days under the rubble without food or water.

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What’s a miracle and how does one recognise one?

Wikipedia gives us a number of interpretations of what we mean by a miracle:-

• An unexpected event attributed to divine intervention.
• A fortuitous event.
• Any statistically unlikely but beneficial event, such as the survival of a natural disaster.
• An event which is regarded as “wonderful” regardless of its likelihood, such as birth.
• Survival of a terminal illness.
• Escaping a life threatening situation.
• Beating the odds.
• Some “coincidences”.

In all of the above, the common thing is some unlikely or unexpected occurrence, or something that just seems so incredible such as the birth of a child.

I have never witnessed the miracle of a child being born but a few years ago, I was lucky enough to be just outside the hospital maternity where a friend was giving birth.

I heard some faint crying and then 20 minutes later, the beaming father invited me in to see their newly arrived baby son. And there he lay cradled next to his mother, with his eyes wide open and looking as if he had always been there.

It was one of the most beautiful and miraculous moments of my life – I can’t even imagine what it would have been like for the proud father.


Just how did that little baby boy happen?

“I am realistic – I expect miracles” – Wayne Dyer

In reality, everything around us is a miracle if only we can learn to see and recognise these miracles.

By living your life as if everything is a miracle, every moment becomes something to savour and live in awe of. You naturally get to feel great appreciation and gratitude for your life, knowing that you are blessed with such miracles all around.

To help you become more present to all the miracles in your life – I have split them up into 5 specific categories.

As you read the remainder of this post, I invite you to treat this as your own personal journey into the world of miracles.

After every section, please pause for a few seconds, breathe deeply a couple of times and simply become present to that miracle.

Let’s begin our journey:-

1. The Miracle of Life.

The greatest miracle is that you are alive and able to engage in this conversation with me. Just think about it – how is it that a mass of flesh and blood is able to partake and experience what we call life? What allows us to experience the world through our senses?

If you have never thought about your very life as a miracle, please take a pause right now.
What is it that makes your blood go through your body – and what’s that universal intelligence that makes you tick?

Isn’t it a miracle that somehow life evolved on this planet we call earth, which just happens to be the right distance from our star and where during the course of billions of years, just the right conditions came about for some hydrogen and carbon molecules to gel together and finally evolve into you and me?

I am giving myself permission to repeat what I just said here, since I am so in awe – just how is it that a soup of organic materials somehow evolved into the wonder of you and me?

It all seems to happen like magic – and yet we hardly ever pause to reflect on the biggest miracle of all.

Life – our greatest miracle and gift – and even more reason for you to appreciate it every day.

“Each of my days are miracles. I won’t waste my day; I won’t throw away a miracle” – Kelley Vicstrom

2. The Miracle of Love

After the miracle of life, the greatest miracle is that of love.
But what is love?

Love is much greater than what we feel romantically. It is what makes us sing, dance and makes us human.

“Love doesn’t make the world go around, it just makes the ride worthwhile.” – Franklin P. Jones

Love is the most amazing thing in our lives. It is what makes us human, what makes life worth living – in the grander scheme of things, nothing else truly matters. The size of our homes, bank balances, the beauty of our partner, the speed of our car – all those things pale into insignificance when we face the miracle of love.

“Where there is great love there are always miracles” – Willa Cather

Love leads to other miracles such as kindness. 

Have you noticed how great you feel afterwards when you have done someone a kind deed?
Through the miracle of our love, we can indeed transform the world – even a hug, a loving touch or just a smile can cause the miracle of healing others.

There are so many simple things we can all do on a daily basis to bring more love into our lives. Together we can all make this an even more beautiful and miraculous world than it already is.
So from today onwards, appreciate and acknowledge all the love around you and in you. Look for ways of spreading your love through compassion and making a practical difference to those around you.

3. The Miracle of your Body

To experience this thing we call life, we need our bodies to function as well as possible. Our bodies somehow sustain themselves, grow, repair and fight to stay alive till the very end.

There are trillions of chemical reactions and exchanges going on within us every second and everything seems to run like clockwork. Even when disease or decay sets in, our bodies continue to strive and sustain themselves almost like magic.

The durability of our body is a miracle in itself – I remember when my first nephew was born a few weeks prematurely and he spent the first month of his life in an incubator.

It was heart-breaking to see this little guy, a tiny bag of skin and bones fighting for dear life and getting stronger day by day, ounce by ounce. Experiencing something like that sure opens you up to the miracle of life – and also makes you realise that perhaps there really is something much bigger than us out there and indeed within us.

From today onwards, why not commit to take great care of your body?
You only have to take some simple and practical self-care steps and your body will begin to miraculously heal itself and sustain you for the rest of your life.

4. The Miracle of Nature

Where does one even begin to extol the sheer beauty of our natural world?

Let’s start with one of the main symbols of beauty in our society – the majestic flower. Have you ever looked at a beautiful flower closely and failed to be moved by its magnificence and symmetry?

“The miracles of nature do not seem miracles because they are so common. If no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion would be the most startling event in the world” – Author Unknown

A flower is but just one example of all the wonderful nature that makes up our earth and indeed beyond the earth. Look at the sky this evening and marvel at all the twinkling stars all around us.
Just how do those points of light just stay there? And who put them up there?

Everything in nature is so beautifully symmetrical and perfect – it is almost like a universal master craftsman or craftswoman was at work.

From today onwards, please spend some time in nature daily and simply appreciate the miracle of what’s around you – from the humble ant to the majestic oak. And then for the rest of your life, be in continuous awe of the nature around you.

5. The Miracle of your Creativity

Only a few years ago, before the advent of the internet, it would have been impossible to even envisage you and I having this conversation via the medium of the blogosphere.

And yet today, we can send out a single message to thousands of people around the world in seconds.

As a species, we are incredibly creative and intelligent, and sometimes there seems no end to what we are capable of.

You are capable of so much – and probably a lot more than what you are currently doing. You can literally create your own miracles – if you choose to do so.

From my perspective, the challenge really is to channel this creativity into something that benefits the greater good.

So from today onwards, put your own creative gifts to work – and create your own miracles to make the world a better place.

“I have found in life that if you want a miracle you first need to do whatever it is you can do – if that’s to plant, then plant; if it is to read, then read; if it is to change, then change; if it is to study, then study; if it is to work, then work; whatever you have to do. And then you will be well on your way of doing the labour that works miracles.” - Jim Rohn

It’s in your hands to see life as a miraculous experience.

Make the Rest of your Life a Miracle

Your journey of seeing the world as a miracle has only just begun. From today onwards, your eyes and the other senses have been opened up.

See everything around you as the miracle that it really is – and your life will never be the same again.

So if everything is a miracle, how will you live from now onwards?

Source: http://www.arvinddevalia.com/blog/2010/03/24/how-to-live-your-life-as-if-everything-is-a-miracle/

 

Kindly being honest

"Say what you mean, and mean what you say… And always choose kind words with a warm melody as you lovingly speak your truth." ~ Doreen

The sacred art of listening – nourishing loving relationships

To listen is to lean in softly
With a willingness to be changed
By what we hear
-Mark Nepo

What happens when there’s a listening presence? When we’re fully in that listening presence, when there’s that pure quality of receptivity, we become presence itself. And whether you call that God or pure awareness or our true nature, the boundary of inner and outer dissolves and we become a luminous field of awakeness. When we’re in that open presence we can really respond to the life that’s here. We fall in love.

This state of listening is the precursor or the prerequisite to loving relatedness. The more you understand the state of listening– of being able to have the sounds of rain wash through you, of receiving the sound and tone of another’s voice– the more you know about nurturing a loving relationship.

In a way it’s an extremely vulnerable position. As soon as you stop planning what you’re going to say or managing what the other person’s saying, all of a sudden, there’s no control. You’re open to your own sadness, your own anger and discomfort. Listening means putting down control. It’s not a small thing to do.

We spend most of our moments when someone is speaking, planning what we’re going to say, evaluating it, trying to come up with our presentation of our self, or controlling the situation.
Pure listening is a letting go of control. It’s not easy and takes training. And yet it’s only when we can let go of that controlling that we open up to the real purity of loving. We can’t see or understand someone in the moments that we are trying to control what they are saying or trying to impress them with what we are saying. There’s no space for that person to just unfold and be who they are. Listening and unconditionally receiving what another expresses, is an expression of love.

The bottom line is when we are listened to, we feel connected. When we’re not listened to, we feel separate. So whether it’s the communicating between different tribes or religions, ethnicities, racial groups or different generations, we need to listen. The more we understand, the less we fear; the less we fear, the more we trust and the more we trust, the more love can flow.

Isn’t it true to that to get to know the beauty and majesty of a tree
You have to be quiet and rest in the shade of the tree?
Don’t you have to stand under the tree?
To understand anyone, you need to stand under them for a little while
What does that mean?
Its mean you have to listen to them and be quiet and take in who they are
As if from under, as if from inside out.

 
 by  Tara Brach
Adapted from her book Radical Acceptance (2003)