Strangers – Little Acts for BIG Results

Kindness in baby steps cause us to feel increased connectedness with the world and the encountered people that we share it with.

There is an addictive nature to kindness. The more kindness you show, the more positive feelings you experience. This naturally provides a cycle of positive reinforcement. This encourages us to do more good, leading to those baby steps to become big confident strides.

Two Minute Acts of Kindness

• Pick up litter instead of just walking past (extra points if you can pick up dog poop).

• Clear your own table at a café or coffee shop.

• Give some change (or dollars) to a street performer and stop and listen to them for a couple of minutes.

• Ask someone who looks lost if they need directions.

• Wipe down gym equipment after you’ve used it.

• Leave public toilets as you’d wish to find them.

Can you think of any two minute acts of kindness? Please leave them in a comment.

I’m back

Greetings!! I started this kindness blog with some really good intentions. I’m not really sure what kept me away from posting on it. Maybe my busy life and other stressors distracted me from it. However, I have always remained committed to engaging in, and encouraging, acts of kindness. Anyway, I am back and more determined that ever to provide viable suggestions for ways to bring kindness into our lives. Please comment and offer topics and suggestions that you would like me to include in future blog-posts.

There has never been a generation that needs kindness more than this generation. This world can sometimes feel ingrained with fear and hate. It can feel like our society is breaking down. The immediate nature of messaging, tweeting, and “sharing” could, potential, cause social media to replace our sense of human connection. Kindness is something that is urgently needed in this world.

One-in-four people experience a serious mental health issue. This tells me that many many more people feel lonely and displaced. There needs to be a change. We can each be the agents and ambassadors of that change. How do we accomplish this? It’s really the little acts of kindness that can make a difference.

The knowledge that we have touched someone’s life, even in a small way, provides an enormous feeling of purpose and fulfillment. Extensive research has consistently proven that acts-of-kindness don’t just enhance the lives of others, but actually boost our health, happiness, and even life expectancy.

Acts-of-kindness do effectively increase our feelings around confidence, self-worth, and compassion. As a direct result, this makes us more likable, more trustworthy, and consequently more likely to receive acts of kindness ourselves (The Law of Attraction). What’s more doing something kind for other others causes the brain to release extra dopamine. This neurotransmitter gives us a natural high. In short: acts of kindness don’t just make the world better for others, it’s good for you too.

It is my goal to pack this blog with suggestions about acts of kindness to be carried out by anyone. These suggestions will range from very small to undeniably huge, but we can all have the power to make a difference. I recommend that you begin to journal, in order to document the outcomes (both internal and external) of your own kindness efforts. This will help you to become the person you have always wanted to be, the kind of person that this world needs.

Kindness Tip: smile and say hello to start a title wave

Here is something to try: take a moment to set an intention to smile and say hello to people as you walk around today.  Don’t worry if they don’t respond, and some people might not even look up.  Your positive attitude, expressed through your smile and pleasant greeting, will have a ripple effect that the world will thank you for.  Truly the world would be a better place if just one person reads this and adds to the world’s positive energy.

Everyday Buddhism Podcast w/ Wendy Shinyo Haylett

 

What is a podcast?

A definition could read as follows:

A digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically.

This simple idea can (potentially) lead to something that can have a significant impact on others.  In the past, I had found podcasts to be a great source of information about NFL football.  Still, I felt that this source of entertainment might offer something deeper that could help one on our quest for enlightenment.  I recently stumbled upon a new series of podcasts that have a truly beautiful message, which has been of great benefit to me.

Everyday Buddhism is a wonderful podcast series that takes on the daunting goal of applying Buddhist contemplative teachings (which should not be relegated to religious leaps of faith) in a way that is applicable and viable to every person.  The host, Wendy Shinyo Haylett, provides an interesting and engaging narrative to her self-proclaimed “tips and tricks,” which are intended to make everyday better.

Wendy seems to be a very down-to-earth person who has some great things to say about subjects that would be of interest and benefit to every sentient being on the planet.  Her first 15 episodes are available for download, and I have enjoyed listening to every one.  Her humble endevor to create a positive show in very fluid and evolving manner, is very entertaining, interesting, and informative.  Her candid proclamations of discovery about her efforts to mold a effective podcast presentation comes across as very real, honest, and refreshing.

The shows have contained presentations on such deep subjects as everyday applications for the factors of the Nobel Eight Fold Path, with a special episode devoted to each one of the eight, and concepts around how to view the self.  My favorite episodes are a two-part examination of Zen Koans and their ability to expand the mind with an intentional cul-de-sac of words/thoughts.  I did come away with a greater understanding of these stories and sayings that are intended to be something that is not to be understood.  I found it’s actually beneficial to come away from a question with an answer of “I just don’t know.”

Check this podcast.  I believe it is available on most podcast platforms.  I have included a link to the show’s website.  Let me know what you think.  Do you find it as enjoyable, informative, and actually enlightening as I have??

Everyday Buddhism Podcast

Live Meditation from The Center for Mindful Living

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1573611822766471&id=641136582680671

Positive Affirmations

The Cherokee Legend of Two Wolves 🐺 🐺

Waves on a Beach

This exercise is designed to help you when you find it difficult to deal with negative thought patterns.

1. Imagine you are sitting on a peaceful beach. It is warm, and you are wearing a bathing suit. The tide brings warm waves lapping all around you.

2. Bobbing in the waves are clear glass bottles. Each of the bottles contains a written ‘message’ which is one of your own thoughts. Some of these thoughts are positive, and some of them are negative. They are all mixed up together. Just let them all come in on the tide, and go back out on the tide. ‘Read’ each thought as it passes by you, just recognizing that it belongs to you: you wrote the messages in the bottle. Try not to react to the message itself, just observe each one.

3. As the tide turns and begins to go out, focus your attention on one positive message that you wrote with your mind. Pluck the bottle from the sea, and hold on to it. Allow the tide to take all the other bottles back out to sea. Observe them all, getting over smaller, as the tide retreats.

4. Now perform a real-world action which relates to the message in the bottle that you have chose to keep hold of. It might be as simple as running a hot bath, taking the dog for a walk, or phoning a friend. The important thing to recognize is that you can choose which thoughts to act upon, and which to allowed to receive beyond the horizon.

🦀🌊😑👍

All Good Things

Kindergarteners Talk About Mindfulness in “Just Breathe” Short Film – Mindful

https://www.mindful.org/kindergarteners-talk-about-mindfulness-in-just-breathe-short-film/