“Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle”   (Plato)

It’s been an interesting start to 2012 so far.  Already so many things seems to have happened – some good, some bad, some indifferent, some tragic, and some wonderful.  Some of these things have been deliberately planned and some have seemed to occur completely randomly and spontaneously (and then actually turned out – as is the usual way of life - to have happened for a reason).  As a result of the sequence of these events, two things have been on my mind a lot over recent weeks: kindness and gratitude.  I’ve been wanting to write a blog about them for a while now but wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to write.  This particular blog wasn’t actually meant to be about this topic at all - I’d planned something completely different.  But, with synchronicity working its special magic and doing what it does best, the themes of kindness and gratitude seem to be everywhere I look at the moment.  So here it is.

The chain of events began with the death of a friend.  Well, I say friend – I never actually met her in person.  We connected virtually, and I know that if we had met face-to-face we would have got on brilliantly.  Everyone I’ve spoken to who did know her has described her in such a way that I feel like I knew her.  When Oz passed away, I wanted to mark her passing with something that felt significant.  So, quietly, I made a little pact with myself.  I decided to make the most of, and really live, as many days as I could (I had to be relatively realistic – I knew I wouldn’t be able to do something special every day – I have three young children and needed to factor in the necessities of doing the nursery/school run, the endless rounds of laundry and washing up and ironing, and the weekly supermarket shop!).  Oz’s passing has reminded me to be grateful for everything I have… because you never know when it might be gone.  

Last weekend I was down in London on a training course.  It also happened that a memorial service for Oz was being held on the Sunday evening, so I decided to go along.  It was a relatively small room, but it was packed with people from all walks of life and filled to the brim with love for Oz.  In one corner of the room was a small collection of Oz’s travel photos, which could have come directly from a Lonely Planet guidebook they were so spectacular.  As I stood, silently gazing at each one in turn, my connection with her deepened.  I’d been to a couple of the places her photographs depicted - actually stood in the exact same spot and taken the exact same photo (albeit without quite the same talent that she clearly had).  A silent auction of her pictures was held to raise money for her favourite charity, with great success.  In the opposite corner was a table holding a message book surrounded by candles and photos of Oz.  On one of the pages of the book a child had written “To Oz, the person who’s life was just like a dream but even better”.  There were also some small bags, each containing a candle and some seeds for people to take away with them.  I’m going to plant the seeds with my girls at the weekend and together we will watch them grow and see what emerges.  And when the flowers bloom, we will light a candle and let Oz’s smile shine on in the only way it can now.  These small gestures, in the midst of such heartache, have reminded me that acts of kindness and love have a ripple effect that reaches far further than we can ever imagine. 

Whilst in London I took the opportunity to meet up with some of my best friends.  We don’t get to see each other very often – once, maybe twice a year at most – and I miss them enormously.  With each of them we spent the first part of the evening catching up on each others news, picking up the conversation where we left it last time we saw each other many months ago, as only best friends can.  Seeing them, and spending quality time with them, has reminded me of how grateful I am to them for sticking by me and supporting me through thick and thin (literally), and for loving me for being me, as I love them for being exactly who they are.   

I spent quite a lot of time on the tube whilst I was in London, travelling from place to place.  I like the tube.  I like watching all the people and trying to imagine who they are, what their stories are, where they are going.  I like the rattle of the trains as they hustle along, sometimes soothing and rhythmic, sometimes chaotic and clattering.  And I like looking at all the posters. One in particular caught my eye as I was walking along a particularly long underground corridor.  ‘Acts of Kindness’ it said, in big red and black letters.  A man called Michael Landy has initiated a project encouraging us all to ’notice acts of kindness however simple and small’.  There is more information about the project here:   http://art.tfl.gov.uk/actsofkindness/about/#1  Take a look at it – it’s worth ten minutes of your time.  That poster reminded me to be kind to everyone, because you never know what they might be going through. 

Performing random acts of kindness is a task that I often ask my clients to do in between sessions.  When we get so caught up in our own tunnel vision of our problems, it can be so easy for us to shut out the rest of the world, to just put our heads down and plough on through to what we hope is the other side, without stopping to think about how other people might be on a similar journey, or what they might be thinking and feeling.  It’s something I know I’m guilty of from time to time.  Performing random acts of kindness – that is, doing something for someone else with the sole intention of being kind – can help us to become less focused on ourselves, and more open to the rest of the world that’s out there.  Noticing other people, and their needs, helps wake us up from the trance we have put ourselves into – something that can be particularly useful in helping us break the patterns of the problems we have created.  Give it a try, even just for a day.  You might just be the difference that makes the difference to someone who needed a difference to be made. 

Another thing that I ask every client to do is to keep a ‘gratitude diary’.  I encourage them to buy themselves a notebook – whichever one appeals to them the most, and to keep it by the side of their bed, so that every night before they go to sleep they can write down three things that they are grateful for, three things that have happened that day that make them feel good.  The more we notice things, the more we keep noticing them.  So by looking for the positive in life, that’s what we’ll see more of.  Simple but effective.  A friend of mine posts on Facebook every day a status update describing something that she really appreciates – everything from bright winter sunshine, to time spent with family and friends, to a feeling of anticipation before a fun weekend. 

So you see, kindness and gratitude is everywhere.  You just need to know where to look for it.  What I’d really love is for all of you to comment below with things that you are grateful for, or things that either you have done for someone else or someone else has done for you out of kindness.  Pass it on.

“Life is an echo – what you send out, comes back”    (Chinese proverb)

This entry was posted on Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 11:36 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.