Be Kind
In today’s bully infested world, kindness is seen as weakness.
You and I both know that simply isn't true.
AND
Who wants to live in a world where we pull each other down and make each other wrong?
Instead, let's support one another, help us reach up and become our higher selves.
Which is why I'm making a stand for kindness.
Think about it.
How do you feel when you’re mean or cruel to someone?
Now think about how you feel when you’re kind.
Like fear, kindness is contagious.
In today’s bully infested world, kindness is seen as weakness.
You and I both know that simply isn't true.
AND
Who wants to live in a world where we pull each other down and make each other wrong?
Instead, let's support one another, help us reach up and become our higher selves.
Which is why I'm making a stand for kindness.
Think about it.
How do you feel when you’re mean or cruel to someone?
Now think about how you feel when you’re kind.
Like fear, kindness is contagious.
It can shower the world like water quenching a wild fire.
And, it really is easy.
It starts with a smile.
A caring word to a stranger.
A “thank you.”
That feeling of gratitude in your heart.
Doing something because.
Handing a stranger a tissue.
Holding the door open.
Waving at a car.
Kindness is like a secret weapon. Not only does it impact the receiver, it impacts the giver too.
So today, I have 2 special kindness offerings.
The first is access to a meditation guiding you through the Metta Bhavana, a Buddhist phrase and practice that means loving kindness.
This is a specific Buddhist prayer to help you foster loving kindness. The idea is to cultivate this feeling within your self and then express it to all sentient beings.
The guided meditation follows the steps as I learned them:
1. Focus on yourself. Feel love, compassion and caring for YOU.
2. Now imagine a loved one standing in front of you. Shower this person with that same love, light and healing.
3. Thirdly, envision in front of you a person with whom you have no relationship – think about your postal worker, a shopkeeper or bus driver. Send this same love and healing light to this person.
4. The next person to come before you is someone with whom you have a conflict or issue. Imagine that person standing directly in front of you. See him or her surrounded by love, healing, kindness and light.
5. Lastly, send this beautiful energy out to blanket the entire world.
You can download the meditation here OR listen to it on Insight Timer.
Practicing the Metta Bhavana will help you create and stay in a place of kindness throughout your day. It's a powerful prayer and practice. Every time I do it, it profoundly alters my day.
And as a special bonus, I’ve added a poem for you called Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye. I heard it over the weekend and learned that it has provided much solace to people over the years. Here is a beautiful link to it, enjoy.
Join me is fostering living kindness within your own being. Both yourself and the world will be grateful.
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3 Must Haves For A Happy & Rich Spiritual Life
What does it mean to be “spiritual”?
That word gets thrown around a lot.
Sometimes spirituality can sound serious. Like the word mindfulness. Maybe you imagine a room full of conscientious people, sitting and breathing in silence.
Other times it can sound airy-fairy, when people talk to angels, or leave food out for the little people.
For me, leading a “spiritual” life means committing to God but also to humanity.
What does it mean to be “spiritual”?
That word gets thrown around a lot.
Sometimes spirituality can sound serious. Like when people talk about "mind training." That phrase can feel daunting and complicated.
Other times spirituality can sound airy-fairy, when people talk to angels, or leave food out for the little people.
For me, leading a “spiritual” life means committing to God but also to humanity.
In other words it’s about being in the world, aware and conscious, with a wide-open heart, while also deeply connecting to the one-ness, to God, to source.
In the decades that I've been studying and living this truth, I've discovered that there are 3 things you need to have a grounded, rich, soul filled life.
1. A Healthy Body
Have you ever tried to meditate when you’re sick?
If you have, then you know exactly why this is here.
It’s so hard to focus the mind and sit still when the body is aching, or out of alignment.
Care for your body.
Treat it like the temple that it is for it houses your soul on earth. AND it’s here with you on this journey the entire time.
Your body is your constant companion.
Eat healthy foods.
Move.
Treat your body with the love and respect it deserves.
2. Heal Your Mind
I don’t know one adult who hasn’t experienced suffering.
As Buddhism reminds us, this is one of the Four Noble Truths; life is suffering.
For some, this can be physical – starvation, deprivation, illness.
For all of us, it is emotional.
And here’s the dirty little secret: what you don’t deal with, your unconscious material, rules your life.
Be willing to examine that anger, lack of trust, anxiety or depression.
Often these symptoms hark back to unresolved issue from childhood. Common ones are: feeling unloved, abandoned or unsupported.
How can you release that old pattern or limiting belief?
Does it involve forgiveness, a frank discussion with someone, creating healthy boundaries?
What you don’t see has all the power. So make the invisible visible and walk through the pain.
Whenever I get scared of doing this, I’m reminded of a passage in A Road Less Traveled, by M Scott Peck in which he says:
“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”
Pain can be the great transformer because it can push us to change, learn, grow and evolve.
It also helps us remember that we are not our neurosis.
We are in fact already whole and healed, perfect in every way. We just have to remember and re-align to that.
So be willing to ground yourself both in your physical body and your mind.
3. Maintain a Practice
Whatever it is that you are inclined to do: prayer, breath work, meditation, yoga, free dance, chanting, ritual, mantra…
Make it a habit. Commit to it every day.
It is the only way to truly shift and release.
Whatever you experience during meditation, eventually you will come back to this present, the here and now and to this body and mind.
That’s why it’s critical that your mind and body are strong and healthy. As you build your spiritual muscles and gain more power, you have to be able to hold it. This is why you need a strong physical and mental constitution.
What’s your favorite way to nurture your mind, body or spirit?