It’s all too easy for life to feel stressful, lonely, and grim.
In the busyness of our modern lives, many of us move through our days feeling rushed and over-burdened. No matter what choices we make, at some point we all encounter hardship, pain, and loss. Add to that the negativity of the daily news, or angry encounters with other stressed-out humans, and the world can start to seem like a pretty harsh place.
But there’s a magic ingredient that can relieve so much suffering and stress, that can connect us in meaningful ways with ourselves and others, and overall just make life feel more beautiful.
That magic ingredient is our theme for this month — kindness.
We tend to think of kindness as something that helps other people. And it does. In fact, one kind act can create ripple effects that spread beautiful benefits far beyond the initial recipient.
But here’s the interesting thing about kindness…
When you do something kind, YOU usually benefit at least as much as the other person does. And often even more.
There’s so much research which shows that being kind to others can boost our own happiness, reduce stress and anxiety, improve physical health, strengthen social bonds, and so much more.
Not to mention how much nicer life is when we treat ourselves with kindness too!
So as we move through October together, we’ll be exploring the many gifts that can come to us when we choose kindness. We’ll also look at a variety of doable ways to practice kindness — and how to remove the barriers that can get in our way.
Kindness can play such a huge role in creating a more Beautiful Life — for ourselves and for others.
I invite you to join us this month as we wrap ourselves and one another in love and kindness — and as we lean into this topic that has such potent power for transformation.
Explore This Theme Inside Joybook
- Journaling Series — The Power of Poetry: Kindness Edition
- Workshop — Living Kindly
- Book — A Year of Living Kindly (by Donna Cameron)
- Poem — “God Says Yes to Me”
- Poems — “Mending”, “Small Kindnesses”, and “The Patience of Ordinary Things”
- Poems — “Kindness” and “The Thing Is”
- Poem — “St. Francis and the Sow”
- Prose Poem — Love Letter to My Body