Kindness is free - give it away often.
Maialisa / Pixabay – Kindness is free – give it away often.

When was the last time you counted your blessings? Have you recently thanked someone for what they’ve done for you? We typically don’t thank people, even parents, and siblings, for the things they have done to help us. If you can’t tell them face to face about what a difference they have made in your life, write it down in a journal – something only you will see. You are expressing gratitude and it will be interpreted by your subconscious mind as such.

When was the last time you practiced an act of kindness? Something as little has holding a door open for someone at a store, picking up some trash, returning a shopping basket, etc. I carry $5.00 gift cards for my favorite fast food eatery. I give them to those asking for assistance on the side of the road. Sometimes when there is a homeless person outside a facility that I am frequent, I’ll order something to-go and give it to them on my way out. I’m not looking for thanks or anything else. I just want to do a random act of kindness.

Most people carry grudges – we’ve been conditioned to do it by our families and by society. Have you forgiven those people you resent? Again, like counting your blessings, you don’t have to confront people and tell them that you forgive them. That would be nice, but you can write that forgiving statement in a journal and accomplish nearly the same thing in your psyche.

I attended a church service several years ago and the homily talked about forgiveness. The homilist asked each of us to think about the people in our lives who we really didn’t like – those people who irritated us every time we saw them or thought of them.

He had us take the index finger from one hand and write their names, one at a time, on the palm of our other hand. We then silently declared our forgiveness – and, then, we threw our hands upward and released the invisibly written name(s) from our palms. Just that little exercise released a lot of pent-up anger and resistance I had been carrying for a number of years. I still do this process occasionally, when I find myself being negatively influenced by friends and family.

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