Hello my friend. Thank you for being here with me.
As we move toward the end of the year— a time particularly complex with holiday expectations and this year’s election soap opera— I invite you to enjoy a new course with me… to be kind. Let’s elevate our kindness together.
This is a first for me— to share a series of practices you can enjoy on your own, as you wish, when you wish, wherever you wish! My hope is you’ll give yourself the time and energy to explore, learn, and come back to explore and learn again when it feels right.
So… to be kind.
We all want kindness; sometimes, we forget how to do it. We forget how it strengthens our heart, whether we give or receive it.
Regardless of who we are or how we’re feeling, kindness is always in reach. We might be persuaded by difficulties, pain, or even the behavior of our families or the family of humanity that kindness has abandoned us. When we feel this way, we can know: we’re the ones neglecting kindness. We can plot a course to raise it.
A beautiful way to cultivate kindness is to practice saying thank you. We might remember to smile. We might share our abundance and appreciate the abundance shared with us. We might offer peace to conflict or support to instability. We might, simply, decide to seek and celebrate the kindness growing in and around us.
We’ll practice all of this in our to be kind series.
In practicing kindness, we form a new foundation— for ourselves, and our world. It’s a strong place to stand, certainly, and somewhat radical. Choosing kindness can mean we decline to fight. Choosing kindness might exclude the ready joke. Choosing kindness in distress might leave us vulnerable.
The more we practice, the more clearly we’ll see the tenor of events that inspire our unkind reactions. For example, when I was young, I discovered that raising my voice garnered attention. No surprise: I became a lawyer to fight for those needing attention. I used to wonder why people couldn’t be kind but there I was, using threat, blame, and manipulation to force better behavior. Whoops.
Eventually, I realized injustice prompted me to relinquish a kind nature for a sharp tongue. I learned to soften my tongue and find gentle words to open difficult conditions to my understanding and compassion.
In this series, we’ll call on our kindness and let it wrap us up. From the envelope of our kindness, we’ll envision how we offer it near and far. We won’t always get it right; still, we’ll be kind in our missteps. We’ll discover those places in our lives where kindness reigns and where we forget to share its power.
As we progress, we’ll consider how we weave kindness into the dimensions of ourselves… in body, word, thought, and deed. We’ll contemplate those times when cruelty feels easier, generosity hurts, and our identity becomes suspicious. Again and again, as with every practice, we’ll return to our intention: to be kind.
This practice series is designed to let you move at your pace. Each session will include a ten to 20-minute guided meditation along with some prompts to carry into your day. Start now! The video above is a shorter practice to launch our endeavor. Over the next four weeks, on Wednesdays, I’ll share a new practice. I hope you’ll be inspired to share your experiences with the practice in the comments so we can all learn together.
The series will remain free for all until the end of the year, and I hope you’ll recruit friends and family to do it with you. At the end of the year, I’ll paywall the series but paid subscribers will always have access. Perhaps you might be inspired to join the little blessings sangha with a discounted annual subscription…?
Thank you for being kind. Thank you for being love. Thank you for being you.
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