Kindness: Intention, Action, Reflection

The practice,

To make kindness a daily practice,

Was to,

Every day,

Have an intention,

An action,

And a reflection.

That in the morning,

The first thing you do when you wake up,

Is you place your hands over your heart,

And you have the intention to practice kindness during the day.

And so,

You're thinking about your day,

And what you've got scheduled,

And where are your opportunities going to be to practice kindness?

Opening the door for someone at the grocery store,

At the bank,

Letting someone go in front of you in line.

You're driving somewhere,

Thinking,

Oh,

I'm going to look for an opportunity to let someone in,

To send them loving kindness,

Or to practice tonglen at a traffic light.

Thinking about someone who is going through something difficult,

Like,

Oh,

I'm going to text them,

Let them know I'm thinking of them.

And so,

Having that intention really sets the tone,

It really brings us into our heart center,

And we feel really good,

Because we're starting the day with that intention of kindness.

And then,

During the day,

Of course,

We're doing the actions of kindness,

Because we've set the intention of kindness.

We've started the day on a really good note,

And then we tend to follow through with some acts of kindness.

And then,

At the end of the day,

The last thing we do,

Once we get into bed and close our eyes,

Put our hands on our heart,

And to reflect on the ways in which we were kind during the day.

Not thinking about ourselves,

Like,

Oh,

I'm such a kind person,

We have to be really careful about the ego wanting to come in and take credit for it,

Because there's no connection otherwise.

But really thinking about the people that we affected that day,

Just little things,

Little things,

Acknowledging people,

And being kind.

It's how we take a couple of kind acts,

And we keep savoring it in our hearts.

And then,

Because we go to bed,

And we go to sleep in a good way,

Not thinking about the next day,

And what are the problems and things that I have to do,

Like,

We're thinking about kindness,

We're feeling connected,

We're feeling good.

And then we wake up,

And we just do it the same way over again,

Intention,

Action,

Reflection,

Intention,

Action,

Reflection.

So,

Being kindness,

An integral part of our lives,

Because it's where we find connection,

Right?

And it's such a beautiful,

Simple,

Accessible practice,

And yet so easily overlooked because it's so obvious.

So,

I just offer that up for you.