Kindness

Kindness Challenge – The Final Week

/ Luanne Shernisky / 6 Comments

kindness 2 June 26

This week’s focus is to be kind and be silent about it.

 Being kind always makes me feel good about myself. Knowing that you’re bringing joy to someone’s day or a smile to their face is a reward, in and of itself. No acknowledgement needed.

Giving

This desire to please begins early in life. Think how happy children are when they do something special for their parents. Whether it’s a handmade card or a wildflower from the yard, they’re always delighted to present their gifts. I remember how excited my own children were when they would bring me breakfast in bed as a special birthday or Mother’s Day treat. Their toothless smiles and shining eyes spoke volumes as they struggled to balance the tray. While the breakfast was truly appreciated, the real gift was their happiness.

 But, what happens if we give only for the sake of getting something back? When we attach conditions to our acts of kindness, we are fooling ourselves as well as the other person. We are giving strictly for the sake of getting something in return and that’s downright dishonest. 

The Kindness Challenge illustrated how important mindfulness is in everything we do. Our busy, hectic lives leave us distracted and unable to focus for very long on anything! By setting aside time each day and establishing clear-cut goals, I was able to develop a more consistent awareness of my thoughts and actions, as they occurred.

Kindness_June26

I saw myself as a kind person before the challenge, but I’m more conscious of how I react to people and situations around me. I’m responding better to people who act and speak with sarcasm, impatience, and anger. I’ve discovered the best response is to quietly acknowledge their feelings and ask them what I can do to help them feel better. People don’t expect that, are very surprised by it, and their negative emotions are quickly diffused.


It’s been a valuable learning experience and I’m grateful to Niki for sponsoring this challenge. I hope to continue growing in my abilities to live a kinder lifestyle. We lead best by example. Hopefully, our example will inspire those around us to strive for the same! 

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. ~  Lao Tzu

/ Luanne Shernisky / 3 Comments

This week’s focus is to think of someone who inspires you to be more kind.

When I saw this instruction for week #6 of the Kindness Challenge, I didn’t have to think any further than Thich Nhat Hanh (for pronunciation click here.)

Thich Nat HahnThis Zen Master was introduced to me by a friend and I was immediately drawn to his gentle, quiet wisdom. While I have no great knowledge of Buddhism, he certainly inspires me to learn more. 

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese monk, a renowned Zen master, a poet, and a peace activist. He was born in 1926 in central Vietnam and became a monk at the age of 16. He has devoted his life to spreading the message of mindful living. Nominated for the Nobel Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1967, he is the author of many books, including the best-selling The Miracle of Mindfulness. 

Thich’s approach has been to combine a variety of traditional Zen teachings with insights from other Mahayana Buddhist traditions, methods from Theravada Buddhism, and ideas from Western psychology to offer a modern light on meditation practice. 

He has also been a leader in the Engaged Buddhism movement (he coined the term), promoting the individual’s active role in creating change. 

On November 11, 2014, a month after his 89th birthday, and following several months of rapidly declining health, Thich suffered a severe stroke. Although he is unable to speak and is paralyzed on the right side, he continues to offer his peaceful, serene presence to his community. As much as his health allows, he participates in meditations, celebrations, and ceremonies.

For further biographical information click here.

 

While some of Thich’s pronunciations can be a bit hard to understand, just listening to him has a calming effect. He uses simple stories from his own life to illustrate the concepts of mindfulness and kindness. I found him to be a wonderful example of what it means to be compassionate to yourself and others. As I’ve said in recent posts, in order to show kindness to others you must be able to show it to yourself.

He explains how easily we get caught up in our busy lives and how this leads us to lives of distraction. He talks about living in the past and hanging on to regret, as well as worrying about the future. Both of these practices cause us to miss out on the present and the beauty of living. 

His teachings on mindful living illustrate how important the mind-body connection is to better living and better health.

The Art of Mindful Living is a great example of Thich’s skill as a story teller and a reassuring friend. If you need to escape the business of life and quiet your mind for a bit, give him a listen!

Kindness Challenge – Week #6

2016 Kindness Challenge – Week 5

/ Luanne Shernisky / 3 Comments

Heart in Sand_Final

I was in the midst of putting my post together yesterday morning for Week #5 of the Kindness Challenge, when I heard about the Orlando tragedy. Obviously, I switched gears and spent much of the day on various news sites,  as well as Twitter and Facebook.

This nightmare followed on the Friday night shooting death of Christina Grimmie, a rising star who gained fame on the “Voice.” Needless to say, I’m having a tough time writing this in the aftermath of such hatred and destruction of innocent life.

The nightclub, where the horrific events unfolded in the early hours of Sunday morning, is only 13 miles from my daughter’s apartment, where I’m visiting this week. Not that location makes it any more or any less awful, but the closer it hits to home, the more you realize it can happen anywhere, at any time.

The focus of Week #5 has been to end our days with gratitude for the kindness we’ve experienced on that particular day.

Nikki put together a list of suggestions to help with this assignment. I chose the following three:

  • Make a list of all of the kind things that happened to you today
  • Keep a journal handy to write details of something kind you’d like to remember
  • Say a few words of thanks for the kindness you noticed in your day

Each night, after I shut off the light, I’ve reflected on that day’s events. This is easy, because it’s something I usually do anyway. I took extra notice of any kindnesses from that day and silently expressed appreciation for them.

My goal is to start an actual Gratitude Journal where I’ll record these thoughts on paper. However, my fear is that I won’t keep up with it consistently, like diet and exercise. So, I decided to take the pressure off and not implement any strict rules. I’ll pay attention to the blessings of the day and record them in whatever way works the best on that given night. Some nights I may go into greater detail with several paragraphs and other nights might be a quick “one-liner.” 

I believe these positive reflections right before bed have helped me sleep a bit better this week. I still wake up periodically through the night, thanks to menopause. Prior to that I slept like a log. But, it makes sense if you consider the endorphins released by the brain whenever we have happy thoughts. These “feel good” hormones do just that: help us feel better and more relaxed, so sleep should come more easily.

Last night was an exception. However, one of the things I felt grateful for was not being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I believe that fate is a random thing and we’ve witnessed these events in a variety of venues: schools, churches, movie theaters, nightclubs, and others. Obviously, the gay community was targeted on Saturday night and some have been religious and politically based. Unfortunately, many of the other shootings had no motivation other than madness. There’s no way to predict where the next incident could occur.

To Thine Own Self

 

I also feel grateful that no one is targeting me for my beliefs and choices on how to live my life. My heart weeps for people who live under the threat of violence simply for the color of their skin, their choice of a significant other, their religion, and so on.

 

Kindness doesn’t stay with us as long as grief and anger do. People who suffer tragedies are likely to experience those negative effects for a long time and, in some cases, forever. We also tend to hang onto the mean things that people say and do to us. While we often forgive, we don’t usually forget. The positive effects of kindness pass more quickly from our memories. Consider the different ways that people show us kindness:

  • Generosity of time – Helping us with the cleaning, packing & moving to a new home, babysitting, petsitting, housesitting and other things that require the gift of their time.
  • Generosity of money and/or things – Giving us monetary help or gifts when we are in need or have an emergency.
  • Being courageous – Helping us face fear and the unknown, while feeling afraid themselves.
  • Patience/Turning the other cheek – Not holding a grudge when we treat them poorly.
  • Making sacrifices – When they give up things, so that we can have something extra.

 If I had recorded every kindness shown to me throughout my life, I would’ve filled many, many gratitude journals! 

The problem with being human is that we tend to take the good stuff for granted. That’s one of the goals of mindfulness: to focuse on the positive aspects of our lives and create a consistent awareness of those things as we go about our days.

Gratitude 2Being consistently aware of the kindness of others and the gratitude we feel because of that will create a more positive frame of mind as we face the ups and downs of life.

As hard as it is to do, we must learn to let go of the bad and forgive. Instead, we must embrace the good and commit it to memory (and our hearts.) 

In this way it can become a reserve of positivity to draw from when the darkness falls.

Kindness Challenge – Week #5