Feeling Kindness

Picture from unknown source

Over the last several months, I have been going through some health challenges.  I have been so grateful to the doctors and clinic staff for the kindness that they show me.  Nothing we do is a rush and the feeling in each specialized clinic is quite warm and friendly.  When I commented on the atmosphere, the nurse said that friendliness and kindness were easy to do and that she wished all people were kind.  

For some reason, her words stuck with me and I started looking at different articles online about kindness, and goodness, and compassion, and balancing one’s problems while being kind to others.  I love the article below, and hope that it helps you.

The following information came from an article on LIFEHACK at http://www.lifehack.org/387767/15-quotes-about-kindness.  It seems that we are lacking kindness and compassion in the world so I thought it was worth sharing. 

15 quote about kindness

1. “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop 
2. “Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.” – Nelson Mandela 
3. “There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” – Vincent Van Gogh 
4. “Those who make compassion an essential part of their lives find the joy of life. Kindness deepens the spirit and produces rewards that cannot be completely explained in words. It is an experience more powerful than words. To become acquainted with kindness one must be prepared to learn new things and feel new feelings. Kindness is more than a philosophy of the mind. It is a philosophy of the spirit.” – Robert J. Furey 
5. “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.” – Kahlil Gibran 
6. “How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make a contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!” – Anne Frank 
7. “Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” — Princess Diana 
8. “A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. “ – Charles H Spurgeon 
9. “Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you — not because they are nice, but because you are.” — Author Unknown 
10. “During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. “Absolutely,” the professor said. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.” I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.” — JoAnn C. Jones, Guideposts, January 1996 
11. “By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.” — Winston Churchill 
12. “Sure the world breeds monsters, but kindness grows just as wild… ” — Mary Karr, The Liars’ Club: A Memoir, 1995 
13. “The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within; Strength, Courage, Dignity.” – Ruby Dee 
14. “I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.” – Maya Angelou 
15. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” — Plato D

Many blessings,

Judy

Healing Grief - A Process That is Different For Each Of Us

 

                                               - Picture by Judy Hirst along Highway 40 

 Generally, we associate grief with the death of a loved person or pet.  For some reason, and it is different for each of us, we feel angry that the person/pet had to die at this time.  At some point, many of us are angry at God for allowing the disease or illness or even age to take the object of our grief.  And with our grief, we internalize it, until, one day, it simply needs to come out.  The release happens by way of tears.

I was at a funeral recently where this poem was in the program, and I found that these words helped me heal some grief that I felt.  For some reason, thinking that the person would become an active part of nature gave me solace. Our Ancestors have known this for centuries.

NATIVE AMERICAN PRAYER

I give you this one thought to keep --I am with you still – I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not think of me as gone – I am with you still – in each new dawn.
——Author Unknown

Sometimes, we just need to sit in a quiet place and let the grief come out of us.  What if, however, the grief is for a different reason than loss of life?  What if it is a personal grief over the loss of a job, or lover or whatever?  Grief is a mental or mind activity.  In the book, “The Buddha and The Way To Happiness” by Tien Cong Tran, Ph.D., one finds the Buddhist definition for grief on Page 44.  It reads, “GRIEF: “And what, bhikkhus, is grief? Whatever mental painful feeling, mental unpleasant feeling, painful or unpleasant sensation results from mental contact, – that is called grief.””

The meaning of this passage, seems to me to say that grief is what we make it.  The opposite than is that we can unmake grief. While that may be true, it is very much an individual action.  Just as each of us will heal a cut on our body in different ways and times, each of us will heal our grief differently.

I know that I am still grieving – it just does not hurt quite so much. 

Blessings,

Judy

Feeling Grief

 

"Puff ball in a field" picture by Judith Hirst-Joyeux June 2008

When practicing any healing, the emotion "grief" seems to show up with regular frequency. I think this definition from Wikipedia says it all - "Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss". The loss may be for any thing or person or animal. It may even be a perceived loss, and not a loss that we would normally associate with grief. Since grief is a personal or unique response, it is hard to gage how deeply it does affect the individual. Grief carried too long without release takes the form of physical dis-eases or illnesses. Grief will manifest in lung problems. Louise Hay in her book You Can Heal Your Life talks about grief/lung problems as "fear of taking in life". 

Since grief is an emotion, and in Shamanism, emotion is associated with water, the body filling up with water - lungs filling up, water around the heart - indicate that grief may be at the root of these illnesses. It seems too that grief may be inherited. When an event happens and the grief is not dealt with at the time, the grief seems to be captured and passed on at a cellular level.

Grief is very prevalent in the world and a large topic of conversation. I say "large" because the number of web sites containing the word "grief" total 28,600,000 web sites, when I did a search. It is the topic of books, prayers, poems, stories, songs, and has become a whole counselling discipline. One solution to heal grief is when the individual recognizes that it is grief they are feeling and they decide to deal with it and ease it. 

The Buddhists call this part of the practice of "Mindfulness". When one is aware of the feeling/energy and stays with it, and judges it not and lets it be, it has a chance to take shape, and then the energy can be released. The saying "time heals all things" really means that we, by our choices and actions heal ourselves.

I have been mindful of the sadness that I carry over the loss of my nephew very recently.  I throw the emotion to fire, in a traditional Incan Fire Ceremony, and I cry when I feel the urge to do so.  I do not stop the crying until it stops itself.  I feel it to completion.

I wish for you to have the time to feel your emotions to completion.

Blessings,

Judy