Top points from the podcast

What is CONSCIOUS kindness?  This is about deliberately looking for opportunities to be kind.  It’s about planning for it.  It’s about stepping outside your immediate world of people that you love and that matter to you and going beyond in the greater community of need.  And, it’s about doing it with absolutely no need for anything in return.

What is the benefit?

• Contrast – when you are being kind to someone, in that moment you are aware that you have something that they don’t. Whether it be money, time, energy or some other resource, in that moment you have something to give that they need to receive.  This contrast in situations helps us see, understand and accept our privilege.
• Gratitude – in seeing the contrast and accepting our privilege it gives us the tools for gratitude. It is easier to be appreciative and grateful for what we have when we interact with someone that has less than us in that moment.
• It fosters an Economy of Abundance – we live in a world where scarcity is highlighted all the time. It is a false scarcity promoted by a consumerist agenda to have us feel inadequate, unsafe and fearful in order to drive a material-based economy.  When we start trading in kindness we see that life can be lived differently and that there is much abundance when we live closer to our nature.
• It’s in our nature to be kind – we are all born with an abundant capacity to be kind. As we grow and develop we are wounded and become fearful to varying degrees.  As a result, we all gain the capacity to be selfish, which is an act done out of fear and defensiveness.  When we act selfishly we go against our nature which is why we often experience guilt (sometimes not consciously) but, when we are kind it sits well with us energetically because we are behaving in accordance with our nature.

How to be kind:

• Start small – you don’t need to do anything big. I can be as simple as giving an apple to a homeless person.
• Your time is worth more than money – for many of us we may not have the financial means to give materially to other, but we all have 24 hours in a day and can give of that time to someone else. If we consider that, unlike money, we can never get time back it is a far more valuable resource than money and therefore more meaningful to give.
• Attention is more valuable than time – so many people are attention starved. So many people don’t get meaningful engagement with others.  We live in a time where connection is through social media and people are lonely.  Taking the time to meaningfully engage and interact with another person can be the greatest gift that person gets that day.
• Reflect – every evening take the time to reflect on your kindness of the day. By doing this you keep it in the forefront of your mind as something you are consciously doing.  Ask yourself the following questions:
  • What was my conscious act of kindness today?
  • What was the result of the act for the recipient?
  • How did it make me feel to do this?

If you didn’t manage to do an act of kindness on the day then ask yourself:

• What opportunities did I miss where I could have been kind?
• What stopped me from taking up those opportunities?
• Grow the acts – over time little acts of kindness become habit and therefore are no longer a conscious act but a habitual act. This forces us to then up our game into other conscious acts.  So, consist application means that the value we add through our acts will grow and grow and grow.