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The Kindness Box

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
This is a story about kindness, love, in action. It's behind a paywall but I think non-subscribers get a few free every month.

The Gift of Eihab Falah

In late 2018, Pittsburgh’s Jewish community was mourning the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. Then a stranger and his family landed in their midst.
...
No one could control what happened at Tree of Life, any more than they could Eihab’s fate. The one thing they could control was to surround the Falah family with love.
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
Article about developing good habits -

Speak Kindly

We’ve all had those dreadful moments where we’re frustrated or mad and we say something that we live to regret. So many of the world’s problems are caused by communication errors. While we’re all imperfect, for the most part, most people are good. But sometimes our emotions get the best of us and we say things we shouldn’t.

One of the good habits you should consider developing is speaking kindly – even during tough conversations. Aim to be empathic with people who may be disgruntled, mad, or frustrated. Sometimes people take out their frustrations on you. But it’s important to remember that you have full control over your reaction of every event that happens to you.

And with that power knowing how much control you have, it’s a must to do your part in the world of spreading kindness. You can’t take back hurtful words and it’s extremely difficult to undo the damage toxic words can have on someone.

https://declutterthemind.com/blog/good-habits/

Enjoy your browsing!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
Simple actions to celebrate World Kindness Week

I question whether or not we can be truly, lastingly happy—whether we can really lead meaningful, joyful lives—if we are not also kind, generous, compassionate.

I tend to believe His Holiness the Dalai Lama: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

For those of you who don’t buy the Buddhist reasoning, there is also a lot of scientific evidence that happiness and kindness are deeply intertwined (see this post, “What You Get When You Give.”)

This week is World Kindness Week, and for my Walking the Talk challenge this week I am going to focus on fostering kindness in my kids (and myself).

Read the full article at the Greater Good website -

Want Happiness? Practice Kindness

Enjoy your browsing!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
Pivot the question to this: What can inspire us to grow, change, and better ourselves?

I’ll fill in some of my answers: Beauty, Love, Compassion, Respect, Gratitude, Generosity.

When we see these attributes modeled in another, they inspire us to do the same. It can be as simple as hearing an artist play a beautiful piece of music, and invokes the desire to play it that well our selves. Or we witness an act of kindness and see the impact on others. We witness the power it has to change a person and we decide to do the same. In these ways of Beauty, Love, Compassion Respect, etc we are inspired and grow far more than we ever could only by judgment.

Comes from this excellent site with loads of free content

Self Acceptance vs Personal Growth - Pathway to Happiness

Cheers!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
Foolish, selfish people are always thinking of themselves and the result is always negative. Wise persons think of others, helping them as much as they can, and the result is happiness. Love and compassion are beneficial both for you and others. Through your kindness to others, your mind and heart will open to peace.

Dalai Lama
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
Like learning to play the ukulele, boosting our overall happiness level is not something we can do in one sitting. Throughout the Science of Happiness course, we emphasize the recurring finding that, all things considered, the most promising way to ratchet up happiness is to invest in social relationships—strengthen our connections, hone habits of kindness, and do work that contributes to something greater than ourselves

To read more -

3 Things I Learned from Teaching Happiness

It's quite a comprehensive site!

Enjoy!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
How Nature Can Make You Kinder, Happier, and More Creative

In a series of experiments published in 2014, Juyoung Lee, GGSC director Dacher Keltner, and other researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, studied the potential impact of nature on the willingness to be generous, trusting, and helpful toward others, while considering what factors might influence that relationship.

As part of their study, the researchers exposed participants to more or less subjectively beautiful nature scenes (whose beauty levels were rated independently) and then observed how participants behaved playing two economics games—the Dictator Game and the Trust Game—that measure generosity and trust, respectively. After being exposed to the more beautiful nature scenes, participants acted more generously and more trusting in the games than those who saw less beautiful scenes, and the effects appeared to be due to corresponding increases in positive emotion.

How Nature Can Make You Kinder, Happier, and More…

All the best!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
The practice of generosity

There are two ways of understanding generosity. One is as a spontaneous and natural expression of an open mind and open heart. When we are connected wholeheartedly with others and the world, it is not a matter of deciding to give; giving simply flows out of us. This type of generosity is, for example, the generosity of a mother with her children. The second way of understanding generosity is as a practice itself, which we can undertake even though it may not automatically be flowing out of us.

As a practice, generosity is not done simply because we think it is a virtuous thing to do. The practice has two important functions. First, it helps connect us with others and with ourselves. Giving creates a relationship between the giver and receiver, so acts of generosity help us to learn more about the nature of our relationships. It also develops those relationships. Practicing generosity together with a meditation practice helps ensure that our spiritual practice doesn’t occur aloof from others.

Comes from this site -

The Practice of Generosity – Insight Meditation Center

:)
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest men, announced in June 2006 that he is giving 85% of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help the foundation pursue its longstanding goal of curing the globe's most fatal diseases and improving American education. This is a $31 billion gift, certainly one of the largest acts of generosity in world history.

For a few quotes etc scroll down this page -

The Spiritual Practice of Generosity | Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life | Spirituality & Practice

All the best!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
In Simple Truths, Kent Nerburn states: "Giving is a miracle that can transform the heaviest of hearts. Two people, who moments before lived in separate worlds of private concerns, suddenly meet each other over a simple act of sharing. The world expands, a moment of goodness is created, and something new comes into being where before there was nothing. But true giving is not an economic exchange; it is a generative act. It does not subtract from what we have; it multiples the effect we can have in the world."

Cheers!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
quote-kind-hearts-are-the-gardens-kind-thoughts-are-the-roots-kind-words-are-the-flowers-kind-henry-wadsworth-longfellow-50-96-39.jpg


For several dozen more quotes on kindness -

TOP 25 KINDNESS QUOTES (of 1000) | A-Z Quotes

:)
 
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Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
The Kindness Offensive was born earlier this year on Hampstead Heath (London, UK), when James Hunter, David Goodfellow and David Crane, set up a desk on Parliament Hill and asked passing members of the public to describe what act of kindness they would like done for them.

As a result, a granny with arthritis got a new fridge, one that she wouldn’t have to bend down to open, a father and his kids got to train with the Moscow State Circus, and one young boy got a red electric guitar. Now the trio is distributing supplies amongst some of London’s most marginalised, hungry and homeless.

“We are phone whisperers in essence,” laughs Goodfellow, “we ring up companies, explain what we’re doing, and give them the opportunity to do something nice.”

Comes from this Zen site -

The Kindness Offensive

Cheers!
 

Geoff-Allen

Resident megalomaniac
A guest post by writer and psychotherapist Jennifer Hotchner on kindness as a nurturing force for our basic goodness.

Often, we believe that kindness is a trait that we learn, a behavior that we add to our personality. In fact, if we look at what makes the world go round—the kindness instinct is always there. Our growth provided by someone else’s milk. Our knowing of ourselves reflected in someone else’s eyes. Even our heartbeat is kind, and as the modern Buddhist teacher Sakyong Mipham says, everyone has one.

He also says that society starts with two people, usually one parent and one child. He says that our very survival as human beings depends on what happens between these two people. I think there’s something to that.

Much more at Lion's Roar -

The Kindness Instinct

:)
 
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