Kindness Challenge Week 7 – Grateful for Kindness

 

This is the 7th and the penultimate week of the kindness challenge. The challenge is being run by Niki of the richness of a simple life This week the focus of the challenge is being grateful for kindness. This is something I don’t often think about and I’m sure others are the same on this so when I started thinking about this at the beginning of the week I was wondering where I would go with it.

 

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The previous Kindness challenges:

https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/kindness-challenge-week-1-self-love/

https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/kindness-challenge-week-2-self-compassion/

https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/05/30/kindness-challenge-week-3-self-acceptance

https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/kindness-challenge-week-4-kindness-role-model

https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/kindness-challenge-week-5-choosing-kindness/

https://sfarnell.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/kindness-challenge-week-6-kindness-without-expectation/

 

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Grateful for Kindness Exercise:

As you begin your challenge for the week, write down the number of kind things you normally notice. Each day keep a tally of the kindness you notice. Do you notice more kindness when you’re looking for it? Find a way to express your gratitude for the kindness you witness and experience. It might be by saying thank you or maybe by keeping the ripple of kindness going.

Another thing you could do this week is to think of all of the kindness you experienced right before you go to bed. Replay the kindness in your mind and let those be the thoughts on your mind as you go to sleep. You could even say a prayer or send good vibes to the people you witnessed being so kind.

 

My thoughts on being Grateful for Kindness:

When you think about it, it’s like anything else we take for granted, food, water, the air we breathe (reader of the Martian will appreciate this). Kindness is something we take for granted and it’s often easy to loose sight of how important it is to us.

Only the other day while sorting out the spam in my comments folder I came a across an unkind comment, it was total spam and rubbish but even so it annoyed me. But surely I can do better than that?

Sure.

Last week I used the analogy of kindness while driving, if I was to go back to that scenario I think of the time that people are unkind on the road, the time where you’ve been given those special hand signs, of had someone express their displeasure with their horn. Not nice is it? I know some don’t care but you know what – I do.

But let’s go even further to where we need kindness and support most, at work and at home? I’ve normally worked with bosses that are good, kind and honest and you can talk to them without fear. The occasional one has been awkward or something, but being tolerant in the spirit of getting along you let it slide. But what about the boss that for whatever reason (known only best to them) is nasty and seeks to put you down or is just plain abusive?

You soon miss kindness then. It’s in times that we don’t have something we take for granted that we miss it, just like in this case. You trust and rely on a level of kindness when you go about your work, when you don’t get it – man it screws you. So the way I thought about this to think about the last time someone was unkind to you, if that was a while ago then people have been kind.

This is where I’m at right now, sure there are daily bumps and grind in all kind of subtle ways but generally people are being kind to me and if the world is being kind to me, then the best thing I can do to thank it is be kind back to the world!

Simon 🙂

#kindnesschallenge2017 #kindness #planetsimon