Kindness--Don’t Take it Personal

Months back, something happened that rocked my world. I was hurt, angry and actually shocked by the events. I took it all inside and thought I was no good. Then I thought, I was so angry, I could never focus on life the correct way again. Then something happened, just a little something and a life change happened with it. Suddenly my anger turned to peace, and love and light, and mainly into kindness. My heart grew so big, I thought my chest would burst out.

 I remember when Gabby Giffords was shot and I could not deal with the grief and the pain of what happened. I told myself the only way through was to do a good deed every day until the one year anniversary came up. When the one year anniversary came up, I realized kindness cures so much and so I kept doing a kind acts.

Sometimes, I would want to use kindness sarcastically, I discovered when I did that, it ended up with sarcasm turning into sincerity. I believed it enough to make it so. Sometimes, when people are mean, I say kind things to them. Sometimes when people are really mean I try to do kind things for them.

I realize sitting here today writing, some people do not want your kindness. Sometimes, I have learned, there are people, where kindness does not beget kindness and the kindest thing we can do, is not be kind to them. This is not to say be mean, this is just to say, let them be, and when they are ready to accept kindness they will take it.

Why are people afraid of kindness and why would they rather push you away than take kindness? Many reasons really. Sometimes, they do not feel it is sincere, most of the time, they just cannot look at it because many fear kindness has a catch. Sometimes people cannot embrace your kindness because it aroused sadness, pain, anxiety. Mainly I think people take issue with kindness because we live in a society that does not trust.

I think we should practice random acts of kindness, but more important, we must wise to know that some people would rather citizen and attack you. Don’t take it personal. Surround them with love, light and kindness in your heart and in your mind and just move forward.  Let’s face it, being a kind person is about you and you can only hope others would want it. So pass kindness on, and don’t take it personal.

Faith Trusting the Process

For those who know me, you all know I am always saying trust the process. With so much to deal with this year, I believed with all my might that I trusted the process. What I have come to realize is that I was simply doing the footwork and was faking it till I thought I could make it. Then there came a point where faking it was no longer working and I was left very distrusting of the universe. Truth is I lost faith, or did I?

I never thought I would be put in a position of losing faith because I worked so hard throughout my life to gain my faith. I was raised that faith was believing in my families God and religion, which was very intolerable, and judgmental. It took me years to disown the God that was shoved down my throat and reinvent what I personally thought G-O-D was.

Then I realized that faith was not about God as much as faith was simply a complete and utter trust in someone or something. Faith is really hope, and trust. While faith is not blind, we can be blindsided and our faith can slip and fall. However, the question is do we ever really completely lose faith?

When my personal landscape becomes dark and the light is dim, I must remember that the dim light is still faith. Faith is difficult in dark trying moments, but keep in mind, even in your darkest moments, you make plans. You plan to eat, you plan to go to bed, you plan to go to work, you plan to cry, you make plans to sit and stare off at the wall, whatever it is, you make a plan whether you know it or not. It is important to know that when we make plans it means we have faith–we have faith that we will be alive to put those plans into action.

For instance, this morning when I woke up, I told my spouse at 5:30am that I had a 10:00am massage. I had faith that I would be alive and well to receive the massage. I know that doesn’t sound like faith, but it is faith. I trusted aka, had faith, that I would dress and show up for that appointment, and I did.

Looking at faith from a “religionless” point of view can be interesting. My faith is not in God as much as my faith is in the universe and trusting it’s process. My faith comes within myself that I am able to allow my plans to follow through. Life happens one moment at a time and when I begin to understand that, I am able to breathe deeper and more fully and trust, aka have faith, that the next moment will provide me with the things I may need, even if it is just the stillness and calmness that allows me to take a deep breath.

Losing faith isn’t about religion as much as just being able to trust the process in the very moment. Sometimes, all we can do is just be in that moment and have faith that the next breath will come and to me that is not losing faith as much as recognizing that I still have it. Can it get stronger? Of course, that is another blog!

Love and Fear and Hormones

I love to talk about fear. Come we all have it, but so many people won’t admit it. Sometimes fear all comes down to love and fear. Some would even say that is hormonal. Love is an expression of some sort of truth and fear is based on an irrational belief.

Fear and love can have a profound effect on our health. Oxytocin (also known as the hug hormone) helps induce emotional bonding, labor, and lactation. It can also counter the effects of cortisol. Negative effects of continued stress on the body and mind are related to elevated levels of cortisol. These include: chronic anxiety and depression, emotional over-reaction, negativity, weight gain, heart disease, high-blood pressure, and weakened immunity. Basically, when we come from a place of love rather than fear, our overall health improves and research and science can now prove it!

Fear—Cortisol

Aggression, arousal, anxiety, feeling stressed-out, activates addictions, depression, breaks down muscles, bones, and joints, depresses immune system, increases pain

clogs arteries, promotes heart disease, and high-blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, decreases work production and motivation.

Love—Oxytocin

Anti-stress hormone, feeling calm and connected, increased curiosity

Lessens cravings and addictions, oxytocin appears to be a major reason as to why SSRIs ease depression, positive feelings, facilitates learning, promotes healthy social behavior, repairs, heals, and restores, faster wound healing, diminishes sense of pain,

lowers blood pressure, protects against heart disease, increases work productivity and motivation.

How we create Fear

We weave these stories we tell ourselves. Let’s say we have a story about how we will never move ahead in the world. So how do we get the story to jell?

a) We make a up storyline.

b) We gather a cast of characters.

c) We assign the cast their roles.

d) We create situations that hold us back.

e) We put our cast to work.

f) We put the voices of fear and doubt into action.

g) We turn our story into reality.

h) We tell the story.

Most stories we tell, have strong negative emotions with threads of fear woven into them. This presence stunts our growth, and helps us to remain in fear and the associated emotions and feelings.

So do yourself a favor today, keep your hormones in check, stop creating stories, and fear will walk right past you.

Kill Them With Kindness

Many years ago I recall me and my partner driving down the street. There was road construction and they had all traffic merging into one lane. As we merged, a woman drove her car almost into the side of our car on purpose. I unrolled my window, looked at her car touching our car and asked if there was a problem. I told her we were taking our turns merging like everyone else. I could tell how angry she was. I recall looking at her and said are you having a good day? She growled at me and said, “I was until you pulled in front of me.” I smiled at her and said, “Well if traffic is going to ruin your day, this is not about me.” I looked at her and suggested once we got through the light to go have a cup of chamomile tea at the coffee shop past the light and even offered to pay for it. She did not know what to do with my sincere kindness so she flipped me off and rolled up her window. I just smiled and rolled up mine.

I am no different than other people. I have moments of anger and act out like I shouldn’t. However, when push comes to shove, I always try to revert back to being kind. I can’t help but think it is the adult thing to do. Yet another story on kindness is currently there are a few people who have been trying to be hurtful to me and even bullying me. One of them made a long list of false allegations against me, and when I decided to use kindness instead of hate and anger, they went out to recruit other people to try to bully me even more. I responded the same way with this person as well as their recruits, with love and kindness.

The more kindness I gave these people, the harder they fought. Kindness, love, and compassion to them was like someone spilling water on the wicked witch of Oz. They reacted with more anger, more allegations and more hatred. All I could do was continue to offer them kindness, compassion, love, support, prayers and send them joy. To angry people, that does not go far. I began thinking, was it wrong to use kindness? Was it possible you really can kill someone with kindness?

The first thing I did was ask myself, what do I get in return from being kind instead of hateful like them? After meditation on this question I thought it certainly helps keep me calm and focused. It allows me to act like the adult I really am. It made me realize that negatives thoughts had less traction in my mind if I used kindness rather than being awful and mean. I had an understanding that kindness was calming.

What I began to really understand was that by being kind, it took away their power over me. I was the one who felt in charge and did not have to use hate, rudeness, threats, shame, or blame. I felt good offering these bullies of sorts the ability to learn kindness or the ability to move forward with love. It is important to note that kindness will not change their behavior, it will change YOUR behavior.

I think too often, we underestimate the power of love and kindness. If a person makes a mistake or unintentionally hurts someone, kindness will move mountains and it allows people to begin open dialog and heal. Kindness broadens our perspective. It makes us pay attention to things around us. It also offers us the ability to learn more compassion for ourselves as well as others.

Kindness can be contagious. 

Of course, that is not always the case such as the people who are teaming up to try to bully me. However, if people are healthy and understand kindness, then when they see kindness, they react with kindness. Buddha believes that it is through the great kindness of all living beings that we have the opportunity to live better and more peacefully. If family and friends so choose, they too can follow kindness and attempt to make world a more peaceful place.

When people who suffer have to react with hatred and meanness, all you can do is offer them kindness and hope they learn eventually that acts of kindness are better than acts of suffering. I like to have mantra about kindness such as “I am kindness, I cherish kindness.” This helps me maintain an open heart and try to react with kindness to the best of my ability.

So can you kill people with kindness? Of course not, but you can use kindness as an act of love to yourself and others and tamper people who make choices to be mean. As some people I know are trying to create an army of hate towards me, I am working on creating a landscape of love for them. When push comes to shove, all we have is kindness.

Letting People be Heard

Letting people be heard is the act of love and peace. It is giving ourselves to another person. It is saying we are honoring your ability to speak out what you need to speak out. Understanding what people have to say is more important to them than we will ever realize. Allowing people to vent is vital for their growth. If they are harboring feelings of self-guilt and shame, pity or resentment, they need to be heard. It is an instrument of healing. Being able to participate in it is an act of love.

Not too long ago I was the most fortunate recipient of someone whom I love dearly become very angry and decided to make horrible accusations against me. I say fortunate, because I was able to use this as one of the greatest learning tools that I have encountered in quite a while. As I read their anger, I became angry at first because their accusations were so far-fetched, it was obvious this person was dealing with their own internal suffering. As I read it a second time, and third time, I understood fully this was something they needed to get out. This would help them perhaps heal the inner demons and the illusion of the things that haunt them or bother them.

At first I reacted. Then after a day or two, I fully understood their attachment to their anger and that is caused them great suffering. When we suffer, we will attack people because it is easier to do that, then deal with your illusions. Most of what they said was based on their emotions, and no truth. Their emotions made them a prisoner of ill illusions and ill feelings towards people who love them.

Still, I read their letter, and loved them. They rejected the love, held onto their illusions, and chose suffering over compassion or understanding. That is their path to walk, and the important factor here to remember is that we allow people to be heard. Truth or illusion, they need to be heard.

With that in mind, it is important to remember that when people come from suffering due to illusions, it does not mean they are a bad person. It means they suffer. So when someone is going ballistic on you because of their own suffering, it is vital to listen, and not to take it to heart. Listen as the person is expressing themselves, even if it is insanity aka, continuing to choose the illusion over non suffering.

So be that person who is willing to listen (and or read) they chose you to hear them. What is crucial, is to make sure you protect yourself and your energy. Stand the higher ground so their suffering does not cause you suffering. You can send them compassion and love. To them, your love may be an illusion because they are so unable to accept love from you. They may want to remain attached and hold onto the illusions that make them remain in a state of anger.

Since one of the Buddhist meditations on compassion emphasizes how we are completely dependent on the kindness of all beings, it is important to send people like this daily compassion and love, and move forward. You do not have to participate in their anger or illusions or emotions. Just allow them to be heard, get it off their chest, and then wish them peace and continued success in hoping they find their own happiness.

Gratitude Equals Positive Attitude

The field of positive psychology has established a link between gratitude and good physical and mental health. Grateful people sleep better than extremely driven people. People with gratitude often take time to eat with their family rather than working late.

They put their family and self-first before a job. They tend to prepare their food more often than eating out. They value recreation and fitness. Yes, these are the traits that coincide with gratitude contribute to physical and mental health, a stronger immune system, and fewer diseases and by far on less medication.

People with a healthy sense of well-being have more self-confidence and friends. Studies show that social ties make people physically and mentally healthy and happier. Basically, it pays to be thankful for one’s life and accomplishments. When someone is always striving for something bigger, better, or always complaining and feeling victimized by something, people end up being less productive than pausing to give thanks for what is here now.

When you look at it as a whole, gratitude is like a cleansing agent for the soul. If we are grateful, then we move to what we want to do not what we have to do. Gratitude helps that glass from being half empty and makes it half full. More importantly, gratitude can help us to take focus away from self and personal needs and help us look at what we have been given and what we can offer others. It makes us realize that rather than living a life filled with stress, anxiety, and being unhappy, and teaches us that life is good and we are good.

So the best tip for holistic mental health is to use positive psychology and have an attitude of gratitude. It doesn’t come in a bottle, but I guarantee you, it works much faster than medication!

Black Sheep Free Spirited People

I sit with people daily and many say they are the black sheep and that is their problem. I say really and tell them that I am the black sheep of the family and that it just means I am the free spirited one of the family and that I did not follow the pack. Being the black sheep in my family means I get to help others come to terms that most black sheep’s of the family are true free spirited creative people.

I realize that the role we played as children and young adults in our families can contribute to our present feelings of self of self-worth, feelings of social approval, as well as our psychological and emotional well-being. I also realize throughout my studies of people and families that in most families, there is at least one creative, sensitive, spiritual person who does not share the same values and life style as well as decisions and beliefs of the other family members.

Do not get discouraged, have anxiety or become depressed if you are that person. Take pride in it.  Most times, the family black sheep tends to be the most honest about who they are and what they stand for. We are people who are not afraid to stand up and speak out how we feel even at the risk of the judgment of others from the family. We black sheep’s should proudly stand and cope with the family ridicule before we compromise our beliefs or how we feel. We are living our personal truth openly and willfully.

Though sometimes, it can be difficult to be the black sheep and the family outcast, it is important to not change who you are to please the family. Speak your truth. They may try to shut you down, however, never let that stop you. You see, you need to come to terms that the things you were taught to say and do to create your life canvas was colored by your families feelings and beliefs and the black sheep is creative enough to add more variety of shades and colors. So speak out and speak up and walk the path of being who you are!

Do not allow being the black sheep of your family rob you of your self-esteem and the ability to believe in who you really are. Take pride in being noticeably different. Know you have the courage to speak your own truth even when family feels they can shut you off. Remember, your voice, your heart and your spirit belong to you. The black sheep creates their own sense of freedom and are true free spirited people.