Kindness beyond the deed
Today is Random Acts of Kindness Day. A day where we are encouraged to do something kind for someone else. Where we collectively take a pause to realize how small acts of kindness towards others can expand the world around us with love.
Like all of you, I think this day is incredibly important, as I believe kindness to be a moral value and core skill to teach our little ones.
But I want to also take a mindful moment on this day to ask you and your children to think about how kindness feels inside of YOU.
Acts of kindness go a long way for someone else, but how is the feeling of kindness living deeply within?
It's often said that we need the foundation of love within ourselves before we can offer it to someone else, and I believe the same goes for kindness.
If we aren't speaking to ourself with kindness, we can't offer words of kindness to someone else.
If we aren't giving ourselves acts of kindness, we can't offer meaningful acts to someone else.
But when we do speak to ourselves with kindness, when we learn how to act with kindness towards ourself, kindness will come naturally, authentically and easily.
Our internal world sets the stage.
When it comes to helping our kids learn this value, we need to teach them how to offer themselves loving kindness first. We need to find out what's going on within.
How can you do that? Start by asking your child curious questions...
When you are struggling through an experience (homework, assignments, sport skills, friend interactions, etc.) what does your inner voice say?
When you mess-up, make a mistake, or even fail, what words pop into your head?
When you are thinking about the future, do you feel encouraged or limited?
What acts of kindness do you do to offer to yourself?
How does it feel to be kind to yourself?
...And watch out for these things when your child is acting on a kind deed:
Are they acting without feeling the impact being made?
Are they rushing to cross kindness off the to-do list?
Are they reflecting on the experience after the act, leaning into how they felt about it and learning from it?
The foundation of kindness begins within.
Teach self-kindness, so that our kids develop an inner voice that's soft, loving, and compassionate.
So, that when the critic, the judgment and the doubt kick-in, they can fight back with kindness.
Because when we are in mindful awareness of the power kindness brings inside of us, we are going to want to spread it to all of humanity.
It all starts within.
Here is a loving kindness meditation I've shared to help get your kids learn how to speak to themselves with kindness. Try it today and let me know how it goes.
With love,
Lauren
P.S. Next Month's Topic is Self-Talk. Want details on the MINDFLOW Membership or 1:1 coaching programs, reach out!