Simple Kindnesses

Sometimes the simplest of things can make the most profound of differences.

I am, at my core, happy and loving 99.9% of the time. There was a time, however, when I was at a place where I was exquisitely and painfully detached from that happiness. I had been sucked into a vortex of working endless hours to salvage a friend's business--and a number of my holdings which she had been managing-- while she herself was choosing to let go of everything and shut down. Thus, I found myself thrust unintentionally into a crisis mode. There was virtually no validation, no recognition, and most importantly no personal satisfaction, yet I was doing my level best to fix the broken things. I dreaded going into my office each day, a place that was once the creative hub of my world. I stopped answering the phone, simply because I was heartsick from all of the concomitant upset. And, more importantly, I became desensitized and lost touch with those around me.

Alas, while we may at times be able to choose to walk away from that-which-ain't-no-fun, there are other times we must hunker down and ride out the storm. That particular time, The Project, as my husband and I now refer to it, was definitely a storm of tremendous growth-inducing significance.

Change always comes bearing gifts. ~Price Pritchett

As we face unprecedented challenges in life, it is often difficult to envision the creation that will follow and to embrace that we must accept responsibility for becoming part of the solution. We can bemoan the fact that we're in a state of crisis, focus on the negativity and thus create and attract more of what we don't want, or we can flip our perspective and realize that it's the Creator upending our world to send us a message.

We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them. ~Charles C. West

When I was certain things could not get much worse (and at a point wherein I found I had an intimate understanding of depression), a mentor said to me,

Find one person or one small, albeit infinitesimal, thing you can be grateful for and start each day on that note.

I finally realized that my involvement in The Project was a lesson of hugely painful and yet magnificent proportions. Thus, instead of getting angry, I took what he suggested literally and it was life changing. Now, I choose to begin each day with written gratitude.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love helping, sharing, and educating and fully embrace the win-win environment of having a heart-centered and loving team of people working together to effectuate positive change. I lost that part of who I am when I was working through the lessons brought about by my involvement in The Project, however, because I failed to acknowledge how important that part of who I am really is. My friend stopped caring about others, and in fact stated that she came to a place of hating people. Indeed, she was choosing to bring others around her down in the most hurtful of ways. My environment had been poisoned.

Maybe you've been in that place, too, or perhaps you may be now. Sometimes we simply must get to that place in life where we are stripped of everything that supposedly matters to understand what is of core importance to us personally, as individuals. If you are enduring a time when the world is moving too fast and away from what you need to keep you centered and healthy, I invite you to pause for just a moment and consider this: What you care about at your core is vitally important to who you are. I nearly died because I lost sight of that understanding.

Now, every morning I give thanks and reconnect with what is fundamentally right with the world in the form of sending cards to people. I call it 'sending my morning hugs around the planet.' A simple act of kindness, truly, because there was a time when all I really wanted was to surround myself with the kindness that was sorely missing. Sometimes what I write to someone is a simple blessing; other times it becomes a mini-novel of congratulatory validation of someone's accomplishments.

How often do we really stop and authentically recognize other person or that person's accomplishments, especially if our own life is seemingly careening out of control?

I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. ~Agatha Christie

And what I have sent out has come back tenfold. I've walked into offices to see a card I've sent to someone lovingly displayed. I've been hugged by virtual strangers for sending them a card at exactly the right time, and I have had people tell me that knowing the story behind certain pictures (included on the cards I've sent them) has changed their entire outlook on their own situations. I have been amazingly blessed and yes, sometimes literally astounded at how a simple act of kindness can so profoundly touch so many lives.

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness. ~Seneca