World Kindness Day

Happy world kindness day! I awoke this morning after experiencing one act of unkindness and then hundreds of acts of loveliness in response last night. I’m sat in my new bed, which my brother kindly helped me put together, in my newly decorated bedroom, which my friend Sam kindly helped me paint, propped up by silk pillows, which my friend Abi donated to my DIY cause. If I were to move around my house I would see the kindness of others everywhere. It is ingrained in these four walls. It is on my phone  via messages and on social media and in voicemails from my mum! It is outside my door in my neighbours who have supported me to move back home after a difficult experience.  Sometimes it is hard to see or feel this beautiful effect. We become obsessed by the obvious things like hurt, anger, stress or despondency and forget to look just one layer deeper to the ever-present kindness that envelops us. 

Yes, there are unworthy, unkind people in the world. I cannot lie. There are some who are motivated purely by their own gain but this world kindness day try and do a few things:

- thank those who are consistently kind
- be kind even in the face of unkindness
- look for the hidden layers of kindness everywhere and pay that stuff forward!!! 

Keep smiling my friends https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1KXIvCpALunhZedbH4dOm1duIsLkPZ3Vm

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kind to be kind

Being cruel to be kind. An oxymoron? An excuse for venting? Bullying? A genuine misapprehension? Whatever the motivation behind the act of cruelty the impact resonates for longer than many of us understand. What is simply an aside or casual decision on the part of the perpetrator can be the final knock to a fragile self esteem or the trauma point that reasserts again and again in someone’s life.  I wish I could, with all conscience, say that I have chosen my words and actions so carefully that I have never been cruel, but it is simply not true. I have allowed petty gripes to manifest as damaging comments and my own perceptions to draw poison from my responses.  I have been swept up by the momentum of the great, all enslaving staff room “moan”.  So, it is whilst wearing the cap of a hypocrite that I ask this......  Why is it so hard to be kind in order to be kind?  Why do we need the cruelty? Where does this desire to hurt, impact, belittle come from?  Is
Read more

Teaching Kindness

Image
  Can kindness be taught? Or is it inherent behaviour? Are people born to be kind and others born lacking. Studies in child development show that nurture plays as big as, if not greater, role than nature in this debate. Studies into primates suggest that humans are unique in their receipt of reward chemicals upon showing kindness. This may be an evolutionary gain. Perhaps, when we lived in groups, the need to protect & work together led to an instinctive reward when we demonstrated these behaviours. We developed “Human Kindness”. The question is...... is kindness devolving now we are a more fragmented society? The need to protect, share and collaborate has, to an extent, been replaced by a competitive, individualistic society where each person’s needs are prioritised above the greater good. Do we, therefore, need to start teaching kindness? Can we? Most of our learned behaviours come through mimicry and imitation. Babies watch their mothers mouths form sounds, they l
Read more

My last ever blog

My voice Less than a week: That’s how long my crime reference number was in my possession and valid. 11 months: that’s how long I carried a secret that poisoned me. The rest of my life: that’s how long this will stay with me.  Less than two days: that’s how much time it took for people to insinuate I might not be being truthful.  Less than a week: that’s how long it took for this country and it’s legal system to let down yet another vulnerable, scared person who thought that coming forward was the “Right” thing to do.  Let me explain a little of my experience. Actually, first, let me explain a little about me.  I am, fundamentally, a good person. I strive for kindness in all I do. I try to help, to care, to nurture. My core beliefs and driving forces are empathy and fairness.  I always believed that empathy was the strongest influencer. I was wrong.  My sense of fairness gave me the strength to speak about something that turns my stomach, something which makes me w
Read more