Tag: kindness

A Full-Circle Story

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“Be kind to yourself and share it with the world.” – unknown

The other day I opened my door to an older gentleman who was going door-to-door on behalf of Greenpeace. Let’s call him John. He was warm and friendly and told me he’d grown up in this neighborhood and named the elementary school he attended.

As we were talking about plastic in the ocean, he mentioned that he’d just been talking to a neighbor. She wanted to subscribe for an annual payment. She knew she’d remember to do it because the day he came by was her birthday.

Clearly this neighbor had made an impact on his day. He went on to explain that she and her husband invited him in to sit down as they did the paperwork. It gave him some rest for his aching knees.

I hazarded a guess based on the story he’d told me, “Was it Donna and Bruce?”

“Yes,” he laughingly confirmed even though they are two streets away. There are about 25 houses per block in this neighborhood so he must have knocked on about 50 doors between my house and theirs.

So, I told him the story about how I met Donna and Bruce one evening about four years ago. It was early on in the pandemic and my daughter was doing on-line Kindergarten. I was trying to optimize her desk situation. Someone up the street had put a great kids desk out on the curb to give away. I was trying to carry it home with my 5-year-old daughter, my 6-year-old neighbor, and my 1-year-old son in tow.

And then Donna, who I’d never met before, offered to step in and help. Her delightful spirit is just one of the reasons she’s one of my favorite people to run into in the neighborhood.

[The next time I saw Donna after my conversation with John, the Greenpeace guy, I told her that how John told me the story of how her warmth and kindness had made such a difference to him. It was so fun to see her reaction to one of the many touchpoints of positive impact she must deliver in a day.]

After John, the Greenpeace guy left, my kids and I went out for a walk. We came across him sitting on a garden wall on the next street over resting his aching knees. Because of the stories we’d shared, it felt like he was an old friend. We sat down for a moment and chatted with him before we all moved on, still connected by the thread of narrative.

For a story about an a-ha moment Vicki had as a child about the roots of her dad’s big heart, please listen to our Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast: Episode 67: Love the Ones That are Different with Vicki and Wynne

Vicki Atkinson and I are big believers in the power of story – to connect us, to create intergenerational healing, and to make meaning out of the events of our lives. Each episode of our podcast will start with someone telling a story in each episode.

To listen to the podcast, Search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocket Casts. Or subscribe to our YouTube channel to see a video clip of each story: @SharingtheHeartoftheMatter.

Upward Spirals

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“The morning whispers hope, the afternoon sings of possibilities, and the evening reminds us to cherish the moments. Embrace each part of the day with gratitude.” – unknown

This was originally published on 8/17/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

As I was writing my post last week, Good Mood of the Soul, I came across the research that joy and gratitude often result in an upward spiral. The more we focus on gratitude, the easier it is to perceive joy. And when in the midst of joy, we are more open to gratitude.

So here’s the list of things I’m grateful for this week:

For everyone that is willing to read what I am grateful for

That I can still hear the Click and Clack, the Car Talk brothers in the Cars movies.

The quiet way my three-year-old son says, “you are my best mom friend” to me so that I have to lean down to hear. In that position it goes directly from my ear to my heart.

That we have the ability to take pictures with our hearts.

The way it sounds when my seven-year-old daughter says, “I’m thankful for the tooth fairy.” while missing her two front teeth.

For out-of-the blue notes from individuals I admire telling me something I’ve done right.

That I’ve been able to learn, to some degree, how to fix the things that I’ve done wrong.

That broken eggs make food, literal and metaphorical.

For whoever invented yoga pants and made messy hair look sexy, at least on the West Coast. And if that was only in the 90’s and is no longer a thing, for anyone that continues to let me think that.

Speaking of inventions, whoever invented self-sealing water balloons that fill 20 at a time.

That life keeps giving me opportunities to learn that suffering just softens me up for the next great thing.

For every grown-up that showed me what vulnerability looked like when I was a kid.

For every grown-up that shows me what vulnerability is when I’m a grown-up.

For this necklace I bought on a whim and have worn for 20 years that says, “Strength is having a grateful life” and that I have grown into knowing what that means.

Cool sheets on a hot night.

That I have a bed to sleep in.

Green tea on dark mornings.

That connect-the-dots works in art and in life.

For the human traits of kindness, courage and generosity.

For the Divine traits of grace, faith, hope and love.

For the times I’ve been on my knees needing loyalty, courage, generosity, grace, faith, hope and love – and that what I’ve received in those moments has opened me up to knowing what those traits are in my bones.

I am grateful for upward spirals.

What are you grateful for this week? What have you learned about upward spirals?

Complicated Compliments

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“Life doesn’t come with a manual. It comes with a mother.” – unknown

The other day, four-year-old Mr. D said to me, “Mama, you are the bestest in the whole entire moon.”

Sweet. And I don’t want to minimize that, but he said it to me after I gave him a cookie. I’m sure I can’t be the only person who has a complicated relationship with compliments, especially in families. Do they love us for who we are, the role we play, or what we do for them?

Do you feel that nugget of self-doubt in that last sentence? Me too. It reminds me of the few things I’ve been able to glean in the last fifty years about confidence and compliments.

They have to be right sized for the effort.

My kids keep teaching me this lesson. If I over-praise an effort, it feels insincere.

I have to be able to believe it

There isn’t a compliment in the world that can overcome my inner resistance. This one is fraught for me as a parent. My kids frequently compliment me for being the “bestest” or a “good mom.” But, of course, I’m just a mom and I can’t get everything right. My biggest growth area is mindful eating – not eating in front of devices. For a number of reasons this is complicated and I’m getting it wrong more than right.

So I find myself circling back to my driving principles. My priorities are to help them be kind (including to themselves), safe, and healthy (body, mind, and spirit). And to be present and to love them. If I can aim for most of that, then I try to give myself some grace about the rest.

Compliments are best when I would have done the same thing with or without it.

I would have given Mr. D the cookie whether or not he gave me the compliment. It wasn’t conditional on him saying anything.

So, yes, it feels safe to say that this time I can believe I’m the bestest on the whole moon. After all, it’s only me and a probe that’s tipped sideways in the running. Not that I’m on the moon…. but you know what I mean.

(Mary from Awakening Wonders reminded me of the quote for this post)

(featured photo is from Pexels)

Don’t Call Me Nice…Please

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“Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” – Mark Twain

This was previously published on 10/2/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

The other day I made a comment off-handedly and the recipient said, “Oh, that’s so nice.” I didn’t like that compliment. Yes, I realize it’s not nice of me to judge a comment about being nice. Upon reflection, it’s because I don’t like the sound of me when I’m doing nice. And believe me, as a former sorority girl, I can do nice!

Here’s how I see the difference:

Nice: Off-handed bromides about someone’s appearance

Kind: Genuinely complimenting something you like about someone else

Nice: Sunniness

Kind: Warmth from within

Nice: Saying what someone else wants to hear

Kind: Listening to what needs to be said

Nice: Wishing someone a nice day

Kind: Mustering an internal energy to blow love, safety and warmth in the path of another

Nice: Holding the door open

Kind: Walking with others across thresholds that are challenging for them

Nice: Wearing a mask

Kind: Dropping your pretend mask so that you can been seen

Nice: Offering platitudes so that get you something

Kind: Exhibiting an expansiveness that allows you to give something

Nice: Walking away from a conversation in order to avoid conflict

Kind: Authentically showing up to a relationship so that it can grow

Nice: Something that brings a smile to your face

Kind: An experience that gives you goosebumps all over

Look, I’d take nice over a punch in the face – but what I really am blown away with is kindness. For me kind starts on the inside and bubbles forth in an unstoppable force of love.

As a reformed nice person, I have to work at switching to kindness but when I get it right, it’s the sort of effort that boomerangs right back at me. When I get it wrong and someone calls me nice, I’m learning to hear it as a reminder that I’m probably swimming in the shallow end of my sincerity and expansiveness and need to go deeper.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Preserving Kindness

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“Decency doesn’t require one to be a human sacrifice.” – Dr. Gerald Stein

This post was originally published on 1/18/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this.

When I was a sorority girl in college, we all took turns on phone duty – answering the house phone lines, paging girls, or taking messages when calls came in. But in the January of 1989, it wasn’t just guys calling for dates, we had a lot of calls coming in from journalists who wanted pictures of a girl who had been in our sorority in the 1970’s.

Florida was about to executive Ted Bundy and one of his claimed victims was Georgannn Hawkins, a young woman who had been a Theta at the University of Washington. The way I heard the story was that she was studying for spring term finals with her boyfriend who was a Beta. She’d left the Beta fraternity house, which was on the same block as our sorority about 5 or 6 houses down, about midnight one early June night and walked down the well-lit alley that ran behind our houses. She’d gotten her keys into the back door of the Theta house when Ted Bundy had approached her with a ruse to help him put his books in his car.

We never gave out the photo to the journalists that called but I was curious enough to go downstairs in the sorority to find the picture of Georgann Hawkins. A really pretty girl with lustrous brown hair parted in the middle. A young woman who died after she was willing to help someone else.

I remember this being hard to take in at 19-years-old. That kindness, something that was so highly prioritized in my home growing up, could be preyed upon in such an awful way.

Now more than 30 years later, I have all sorts of examples of kindness gone wrong. Listening to the news gives plenty, as does personal experience for me, my friends and family, although thankfully none so dramatic. After all, statistically speaking it is unlikely that we or our loved ones will die at the hands of a serial killer. But pretty likely we all will cross paths with sociopaths, narcissists, scammers, or hustlers.

But even so, kindness is still reported to be pervasive. When the University of Sussex conducted the largest in-depth study on kindness in 2021 that one of the findings was “Three-quarters of people told us they received kindness from close friends or family quite often or nearly all the time. And when we asked about the most recent time someone was kind to them, 16% of people said it was within the last hour and a further 43% said it was within the last day. Whatever people’s age or wherever they lived, kindness was very common.”

Studies have shown that being kind increases our well-being. People who volunteer live 20-40% longer. Kindness, whether on the giving or receiving end, helps us to report higher levels of well-being.

So how do we stay kind? Turns out there’s a strong link between setting boundaries and being able to be compassionate and empathetic. When we know what we can and cannot do, and communicate what is and is not okay for us, it seems we can refill our tanks more easily because we’re not wasting energy doing things that we know are not okay for us.

“I was recently struggling with a boundary issue (yes, still) and I told my therapist that I refuse to go back to saccharine – that I like solid better. Before I really understood how impossible it is to be compassionate to myself or others when people are taking advantage of me and when I’m prioritizing being liked over being free. I was much sweeter but less authentic. Now I’m kinder and less judgmental. But also firmer and more solid. Occasionally salty.”

Brené Brown in Atlas of the Heart

That testament from Brené Brown as well as the story of Georgann Hawkins makes sense to me. I’m much freer to go out of my way to be kind when I’m doing it for the right reasons and in a way that doesn’t go against my intuition.

From personal experience I can say this – my desire to be kind has survived some difficult situations because it’s part of the open way that I want to meet the world. I’ve learned that kindness is its own reward in its ability to frame hopeful and inspiring outcomes. But if we meet in an alley, I probably won’t offer to carry your books.

I’ve published a related post on the Wise & Shine blog: Six Reasons Giving is Good for You.

(featured photo from Pexels)

The Superhero In Us All

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“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop

This was originally published on 6/1/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

My kids have been watching a lot of Superman at my house. I’m talking about the 1978 movie with Christopher Reeve, Magot Kidder and Gene Hackman. I love it because it brings me back to when I was nine-years-old and saw it the first time. Back when they did all the credits at the beginning – remember that?

Gene Hackman plays the bad guy Lex Luthor. And as insensitive as he is to the loss of human life and calculating in his plans to get what he wants, he seems perfectly rational in his selfish pursuit of wealth and notoriety as the greatest criminal mind of the time. He even seems quite erudite as he reads newspapers, has a library full of books and even responds using the German “Jawohl” to respond with an enthusiastic yes to a statement.

This is the model of a bad guy that I grew up with. Someone with nefarious intentions but logical methods. Life has taught me that there is another type of bad guy – one who seems to reacts out of pain and hatred in a way that seems so pointless. And when I use the term “bad guy,” I intend it in a universal way that is not gender specific. Faye Dunaway plays a good female “bad guy” in the Supergirl movie from 1984.

Given my career and lifestyle, I will probably never meet a Lex Luthor. But the other type of bad guy is someone who lives in and among our communities. Someone who has interactions with others that influences whether or not they feel seen, heard or loved. Someone who, maybe from a very young age, can benefit from others taking a step to make them feel included or respected.

The poet Mark Nepo has a beautiful description of our world as a great wheel. We share a common center, our lives create all the different spokes and the integrity of the wheel overall depends on the health of those spokes. When we open ourselves up to whatever inspires each of us to beauty, transcendence and inclusion, we have the opportunity to shine the light for others because we are all connected.

Thinking back to how to ground myself in this work, I think of this quote from Elie Wiesel:

But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I know best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town too, is large. I had best start with my street. No: my home. No: my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.

Elie Wiesel

The little things we do – a pause to let someone cut in traffic, or a smile passing someone on the street or a silent prayer of blessing for someone who is struggling, these are kindnesses that start in our hearts and touch all those around. The smallest nod to acknowledge that the person in front of us exists has impact.

Be nice to the 38 year old in your Freshman lecture and be nice to people at the gym. Those people are putting themselves in extreme anxiety-inducing situations in attempt to try to better themselves. Just a smile or a quick conversation can mean so much.

unknown

We might need Superman to fight the Lex Luthors of the world. But we all have a chance to touch others who may or may not become bad guys based on the path they walk among us. And we all have a chance to touch others who may or may not become great guys based on the peace and support passed to them. It starts small: be kind to yourself and be kind to others.

What are the small acts that have inspired or passed peace to you?

I’ve published a related piece on Wise & Shine: What Is It You Plan To Do With Your One Wild and Precious Post?

(featured photo from Pexels)

Life Is An Echo

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“Life is an echo. What you send out — comes back.” – unknown

A couple of weeks ago, my son, four-year-old Mr D, got a new boxing toy, a small punching bag anchored on a vertical stick. We were home alone together when we assembled it and then went a couple of rounds with it.

We took a break in the yard to cool off and play with our dog, Cooper. As we were throwing the ball, I was coaching Mr. D on what he’d say when his eight-year-old sister came home and asked to play with his toy.

“What are you going to say when Miss O asks to box with your toy?” I started.

“Well, ummm, uhhh.” Mr. D stalled

“Say, ‘yes.’” I whispered.

And we went a couple of rounds practicing that which was every bit as hard as actually boxing.

Then Mr. D asked where his shovel was. As I looked in one hidey-hole and then another, he asked, “Want to go find some worms with me?”

“Uhhh,” I stalled.

“Say, ‘yes.’” he whispered.

And I did.

If we ever need a reminder that what we put out in the world comes back to us, just spend time with children.

(featured photo is Mr. D with his boxing toy)

Pick Three Affirmations

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With all the stress and change at the beginning of the school year, I’ve been writing notes for Miss O in her lunch every day. Mr. D can’t yet read but his teachers asked for notes to read to kids when they miss their families.

The notes I find myself writing aren’t exquisite masterpieces that have any poetic resonance. They are simply affirmations in the stye of The Help by Kathryn Stockett

To the degree that I’ve figured out what works best, it is things that are specific, not too aspirational, and that resonate with what they might already believe about themselves. Writing them for my children is not very hard.

But if I was to turn the lens around the other way and have to pick three things to say to myself? Well, it’s a hard practice. So I’ve written some down for you all. Pick three things that you could really believe about yourself. Just so you know, I’ve written these with you all in mind:

You are clever.

You are kind.

You bring out the best in others.

You have come so far and are so generous to share your lessons with others.

You are a bright light.

You make others laugh.

You make others cry, in the best way ever.

You are such a good encourager.

You make the world a better place.

You are resourceful.

You are resilient.

You are creative.

You are so faithful.

You are a good listener.

You are wise.

You are patient.

You are a great storyteller.

You can figure anything out.

You have integrity.

You are empathetic.

You carry your load well.

You are strong.

You are brave.

You make me laugh.

You are a person I am delighted to know.

Really — pick three. Write them down and look at them when you eat lunch. I have it on good authority that they make the day better.

The podcast I did with Dr. Vicki Atkinson about how to Savor September goes nicely with lunch as well: Episode 35: September … Savor with Vicki and Wynne

Does Loving-Kindness Actually Matter?

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“All joy in this world comes from wanting others to be happy, and all suffering in this world comes from wanting only yourself to be happy.” – Shanti Deva

Two mornings after a puzzling encounter with a Hispanic man on the bus, his face came to mind during my morning sacred time as I was doing the loving-kindness meditation. Actually I couldn’t picture his face with much detail but the feeling of his leathery hands was still palpable. They were as wide as they were long, giving me the impression, along with the texture, of catchers’ mitts.

May I be happy, may you be happy

May I be at peace, may you be at peace

May I be loved, may you be loved

I wondered as I did it – does doing this meditation do anything for him? Here’s a man who randomly gave us $100 for no reason I could discern, the language barrier prevented any meaningful dialogue. But in so doing, changed the course of our day plus the day of the five people who received parts of his gift. (See my post on Heart of the Matter for the story of what we did with the money).

Then two days later I’m doing the loving-kindness meditation and sending him good vibes. Does it matter to him?

Here’s the image that came to me. If we all are a great big audience, some of us will be facing the stage, others are facing away, and the rest are looking at their phones. For anyone that comes on the stage, they can feel the love of those looking toward them, the antipathy of those facing away, and the indifference of those who are distracted. How the person on the stage reads the crowd is probably mostly based on their experience and viewpoint, but is also influenced by the energy of the audience.

If you asked me whether I wanted to be a part of this man’s audience the other day, my head would have voted for remaining indifferent. But my heart has been softened by enough loving-kindness meditation specifically, and by life in general, so that it opts for leaning in.

So perhaps the time spent in prayer and meditation does matter to the man on the bus. Maybe not directly, but it opens me for receiving others known and unknown.

See my post on the Heart of the Matter for the story of what we did with the $100: One Thing Led To Another

What to Do With Our Inner Meanness

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“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” – Mark Twain

This is something I published on 9/7/22. Heads up – you may have already read this.

The other night my seven-year-old was being short-tempered with her younger brother and snippy with me. I asked her not to take out her mood on others and she replied “I don’t know what to do with the meanness!”

Huh. Isn’t that a great question? I was raised in a household that believed “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Which I think has it about half right – not saying mean things is an admirable goal. But since just stuffing it down is likely not to work long-term, what do you do with the meanness?

Tend the Body

On the night in question, my daughter was both tired and stressed. In fact, I think I can pretty accurately say that if one of my kids is grumpy, there’s about a 90% chance it’s because they are tired, hungry, cold or sick.

And that goes for me too. If I’ve depleted my energy reserves with a hard work out or am tired because I haven’t slept well, I’m much more likely to think, if not say, unkind things.

As my colleague on this blog, Jack Canfora said in his brilliant post on Things I Think I’ve Learned So Far, “There will be things you do and say in an offhand way that will stay with others their entire lives, for better or worse.” So how do we tip the scales so that those things are more often for the better?

Mind the Mind

Dr. Dan Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author, talks about the structure of our brains. In his terms, fear and anger reside in our downstairs brain, the brain stem and limbic region, whereas thinking, planning and imagining reside in the upstairs brain, the cerebral cortex and its various parts. The more we exercise integration of these two parts by making sound choices, delving into self-understanding, practicing empathy, posing hypothetical moral questions, the better we can apply higher-level control over our instinctive reactions. From The Whole-Brained Child, those are the recommendations of what we can do to help kids integrate the upstairs and downstairs brains but they work equally as well to mold adult brains too.

As Daniel Kahneman notes in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, “People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations.” Cognitively busy being shorthand for when we tax our brains with concentration, complex computations and choices.  So we need to find a way to give our busy minds a break.

Feed the Soul

For me, giving my mind a break comes from meditation. I call sitting down on my meditation cushion “Irrigating the Irritation” because it so often helps soften where I’m stuck. It delivers me from the petty complaints by introducing a bigger sense of perspective.

This matches the experience reported by brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor when she had a stroke that quieted the mental chatter of her mind and opened her up to a sense of deep inner peace and loving compassion. Studies of Tibetan meditators and Franciscan nuns have shown a similar shift of neurological activity for those engaged in prayer and meditation.

From a recent study published by the Oregon State University, they found that meditation can help replenish mental energy in a way similar to sleep. In fact, according to the lead author of the study, Charles Murniek, “As little as 70 minutes a week, or 10 minutes a day, of mindfulness practice may have the same benefits as an extra 44 minutes of sleep a night.”

Of course meditation is hard practice for kids. There are techniques like box breathing and just counting to ten that help in the throes of big emotions but I haven’t gotten my kids to sit for more than five minutes at a time on a meditation cushion. However, I’ve also noticed that just sitting and coloring also brings about some mental rest, both for kids and for me when I do it alongside them.

What to Do with the Meanness

I tell my kids that my job is to keep them healthy, safe and kind. I know the kind part is a stretch because kindness is a choice they’ll have to make. Also because I have my hands full just trying to practice kindness myself. But at the very least, I can help find ways they can manage their meanness and in doing so, help myself to do the same.

I’ve also posted today on the Wise & Shine blog about first sentences that draw us in: Great First Lines. Check it out!

(featured photo from Pexels)