So….. today is day 67 of my #KindCult inspired 67 days of kindness challenge.
My original commitment was to make my first act of the day an act of kindness, meaning before I did anything else I needed to at least have my plan in place for my act of kindness for that day.
I had no idea what would be unfolding during this time period that I committed to and in all honesty I was not successful in putting this act of kindness first every one of these days.
That said, a good chunk of the days during this 67 day time period I was hospitalized or in a home care regimen where the dividing line between day and night sometimes became very blurred. I also had the hurdle of figuring out how to navigate the next steps for a challenging new unexpected health twist which has required some time for integration of that info as well as dedicated research hours. Anyway, I digress, my point is there were definite unplanned hurdles to stretch over in order to hold the conscious kindness commitment as a priority.
All of that said, I AM happy to report that I do feel that EVERY DAY, even if it wasn’t first thing, I DID find my act of kindness, even from the hospital bed.
One piece of awareness that came from this experiment was that I actually already, just as part of my days, practice acts of kindness regularly. So that was a sweet realization, but I also saw areas where there were opportunities for kindness that I might not have noticed otherwise.
Sometimes that was just consciously listening and being pleasant to someone, the woman who came in to clean the hospital room, a tech, an RT, or a nurse. Sometimes it was choosing not to respond where I might otherwise automatically with a family member or friend. Sometimes it was sending a message or a card or even writing to the hospital COO about staff that practiced their own kindness. Sometimes it was looking for and executing spontaneous acts of kindness with strangers. Sometimes it was pausing long enough to really meet someone instead of hurrying on with life. Some days the acts of kindness were bigger, sometimes they were simple and easy. Sometimes they were really joyful and just doing them gave me such a heart smile that it was harder to tell who the act of kindness was for (and I think the secret there is that there’s no such thing as an other). Sometimes the kindness offerings were more challenging and really required an attitude of unconditionality. Sometimes I was surprised by people’s responses.
Every time these acts of kindness towards others added goodness to my days.
So thanks for the inspiration Kara Tolbert (my “little” sis) and Kind Cult.
I learned about me, I learned about others, and I will keep going.
Challenge gratefully met ;)!