Mindfulness and Random Kindness 💜

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Small kindnesses offered to people in random situations, when the opportunities present themselves. Not only is it good for your spirit to offer kind actions to people, but it helps to give you a different perspective in observing your reality.

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Some people walk through their day with narrow vision, simply focusing on their immediate agenda for themselves. Allowing your perception to take in more about what is happening in your environment creates a higher level of consciousness.

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It can also reduce stress to be able to observe your situation and to see the entire room you are in, as if you were watching it as a spectator. It takes your attachment to the particular situation you are in, and reduces the emotional energies being wasted on anxiety or other draining emotions.

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If you are waiting in a line at the store, and you are thinking hard about your schedule for the day, you will miss a lot of what is happening in the entire room. You will miss the body language and facial expressions  of the people around you.

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It is easy to end up feeling like everyone in the room is part of “your” story. They may even be contributing to making you late. Your brain can become irrational , even though you logically know that no one has any idea what you have to do next, or what time you have to do it.

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The limited perspective from inside of your own immediate story, is likely to induce more anxiety in your body and mind. Being able to step out of that perspective at your own will, is a practice that will help to calm you.

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You can learn to change the “chatter” in your brain. Allow it to include being observant in a way that lacks judgement and biases. It can be tricky to break away from your core conditioning, and it is a skill that needs to be developed.

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As you practice this skill, you will begin to notice and observe many mpre details of what is happening in any room you are standing in, or other environment you are in.

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See the space and the people in it, as if you are floating above the room looking down. Practice noticing what people are doing, what they are holding, how they are holding themselves, and what state of emotion they seem to be in.

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Do this without attaching it in any emotional way to yourself….completely separate from your personal story. This practice will sharpen your brain and give you a broader clarity.

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When opportunities arise where you notice a small kindness you can offer to someone and your intuition tells you it feels safe to do so, then offer freely of yourself even if it is a kind word to them to touch their humanity.

You will benefit from the connection with your own humanity. You will also be in the practice of regulating your own nervous system and clarity of your brain.

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There is a time and place for random acts of kindness. If you are feeling manipulated into something, or are acting out of a feeling of shame or low self esteem, then it is not good.

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What you want is to observe in a way that lacks judgement, and to act in a way that connects you to your higher self….increasing your level of consciousness and powers to be calm and detached.

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But this is a compassionate detachment from the situation, that will allow you to step out of your pre-programmed responses. Rather than reacting out of your conditioning, you can choose your behavior from your conscious mind.

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These practices will expand your clarity and deepen your compassion for yourself and others.

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My Top Favorite Self Care Behaviors

Self care is part of self parenting. If you have C-PTSD from childhood abuse, emotional trauma, or neglect, then you were probably not taught to care for yourself.

If your emotional needs were regularly discounted then you were trained to ignore your feelings about being uncomfortable, and taught to hide those feelings. You were not able to get what you needed to make your environment feel safe and comfortable.

If your parents did not make an effort to care for your need to feel safe and comfortable, then you were programmed into discounting your own comfort needs.

Everone has the need to feel comfort, safety and pleasure. It is not selfish to have these needs. It is normal and it is part of the survival instinct.

As an adult who came from a narcissistic pareny or otherwise dysfunctional family, you have to learn how to parent yourself now. …Not in the same way you were parented as a child. But in a nurturing, compassionate way.

Learning thow to care for yourself will allow you to have more energy and patience ti share your love with other people.

Love the loving. Maintain behaviors of self love and then show compassion to people who have the capacity for love and empathy. Do not waste energy trying to change unloving people.

So here is a list of my top 10 favorite self care ideas. Please share your own favorite ideas in the comments below.

1. Wrap up in hot towels from the dryer. You don’t have to be doing wash at the time. Just toss 2 or 3 nice towels in the dryer and dry them on high, for 10 or 15 minutes. Then wrap up in them.

2. Cover yourself in soft blankets. Buy one special blanket that has your favorite texture. Running your hands over pleasing textures can calm the nervous system, similar to petting a soft furred animal.

3. Take a warm shower or bath. You don’t have to wait until you need to bathe. Hot steamy showers have a healing effect and calm the nervous system. Submersing yourself in a bath of warm water will help you be mindful of the present moment.

4. Listen to music that makes you feel empowered. Your favorite music has a direct effect on your nervous system and will generate dopamine and feel-good chemical responses.

5. Petting and playing with your favorite kind of animals. Animals are living spiritual beings. Different people are drawn to different animals for different emotional and spiritual energies that these animals have.

6. Water has healing properties. Drinking clean water…swimming in water… and being near the ocean, stream… or a beautiful sparkling lake…all have spiritually uplifting possibilities.

7. Creating your perfect sleep space. Your sleeping area needs to be a calm haven of nurturing and soothing quality. Alter your lighting with red or other colored light bulbs in a table lamp. Add soothing sounds and textureus. The colors should be ones that are important to you and have an affect on your nervous system.

8. Uplifting words. Read or watch videos by people who inspre you. Your self esteem should feel boosted after spending time with a message that energizes and validates you.

9. Learn to say NO, without feeling obligated to make them agree that your reasons are valid. Being afraid to say NO to people will cause you to be forced into situations that deplete your energy and your self esteem.

10. Create things that are inventive, artistic, authentic or unique. Draw, color, craft, write a poem, sing in your unique voice, write, create a new yoga routine, rearrange items in a unique way, decorate a box, add fringe to your lampshade with a hot glue gun, change the laces in your sneakers to colored ones, make a beaded bracelet, plant some flowers, choose your favorite material at JoAnne fabrics and lay it on your table for a table cloth, buy a bag of buttons at the craft store and sew them onto your tops and jackets, add some coloful garnishes to your dinner plate….explore….create…don’t worry about comparing your creativity to others….be yourself!

 

 

Empathic, Compassionate Energy Fields

Every act of compassion matters. Each time you offer a kindness to another living being it matters.

Whether or not you feel that they appreciated your intention afterwords or not, does not change what your intention was.

Sometimes we are not aware of the motives of others, or what is going on in their heads. You may have had a relationship with someone for a long time, and then realized that they never felt the way you thought they did.

They may not have accepted your loving intentions in the way you wanted them to. Some people feel entitled to your service, and therefore cannot truly appreciate the caring intention behind things you did for them. This does not change what your intention was.

Just because the reality of someone is different than your own does not change the power of your personal meaning for acts of compassion and kindness towards them.

Kindness can be shown to random strangers or even people who you never see. You may have held the door for a mom who was struggling with babies and bags at the store. Your small kindness may have affected her mood in a way that it was passed into her…and then she passed the kindness energy along to someone in her home.

You do not always see the domino effect of your good heart.

It is true that sometimes people will turn on you when you least expect it. You may feel that this negates every kindness you ever showed them. But this is not true.

Kindness and compassion are poweful energies. They exist in spite of people who cannot accept or appreciate their pure essence.

This is not to say that you should allow people to walk over you. It is not to encourage you to go out of your way for manipulative people. Not at all.

It is just let you know that your intentions always matter. They have a far more reaching effect than the particular person or situation.

Generating loving intentions towards others sends these intentions out into the energy fields all around you. You can send positive energies to someone sitting near you on the bus, and never speak a word to them.

The energy of intention takes on a life of its own. If you are empathic at all, then you can feel when someone near you is projecting bad energy like anger or evil intention. It is felt in your gut or other places in the body.

The people around you feel and receive the intentions you create. You can self generate compassion and kindness. It can be sent tosomeone else with a gentle touch on the shoulder, or just by making eye contact.

Studies have been able to prove that there are magnetic fields of energy that are projected out from each individual person.

In fact this is true for all living things. That is why you can feel certain kinds of grounding energies when you are in nature.

Trees and plants give off magnetic energy fields. Human magnetic energy fields extend at least 3 to 6 feet in all directions, based on scientific research and studies.

Paying attention to your gut feelings can protect you from people sending malicious energies. It can also guide you toward people that create positive intention and project that compassion outward for others to feel and access.

Some people are energy vampires. You feel drained of energy after spending time with them.

Others are generous with their beautiful strengthening energies. Humans can transmit feelings of  empathy, excitement, acceptance and many other loving energy fields.

Any act of kindness or positive intention you have done or will do, matters. Anytime you project compassion, it has an effect on the collective consciousness of living things.

Even if it turns out that you could not connect with someone in the way you wanted to or expected to, your positive intentions were still sent out to other living beings around you.

Try to surround yourself with loving, supportive people that accept your beautiful pure energies.

Even if someone has let you down in the past, you can still connect with caring people.

Your intentions matter, although you cannot change people who do not want to change. Everyone will not see you for who you are.

Everyone will not be receptive to healing energies, empathy or kindness. Some people just want to see how much they can manipulate you. Try to learn how to identify these kinds of people, so you can minimize contact with them.

The higher your consciousness level, the more truth you will see about the energy fields being projected by others.

Low consciousness levels will attract other people in similar consciousness levels.

Abuse and trauma can sometimes bring your consciousness level down, and affect what kinds of energy you are projecting.

Be careful to assess your psychological and spiritual state, before interacting with others.

Strengthen your ability to self generate states you want to be in.

Awareness of your intuition, gut feelings and energy sensations in your body will help you to self generate specific states.

All of your compassionate intentions have mattered and will continue to matter.

Even intentions that you sent out to people undeserving of those intentions, are not lost. The effect on the energetic dimension was still there, even if the person you were trying to care for had ulterior  motives.

People may try to drain your energies because they can control a drained person easier than someone filled with excitement and purpose.

You can build energy projection skills. You can practice self generating moods and states of being. The better you become at these skills, the more powerful you will be.

Namaste,

Annie 

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Feeling Safe and Deflecting Shame from Others

The people that try to make you feel guilt or shame over not doing what they want you to do, are just serving their own agenda.

If they continue to try to emotionally manipulate you, they have no concern for your reality. They do not respect your right to see things from your own point of view.

People will claim to know what you should start doing…or stop doing..that will make you a better person. But take a closer look and see that they are trying to get you to fit into their own agenda.

You do not have to change your core beliefs to make someone else’s reality more comfortable. They are clearly not changing their beliefs to suit you.

If you are not trying to guilt and shame them, then what right do they have to do it to you. What gives one person, or one group of people, exclusive rights to know everything that everyone “should” and “should not” be doing?

Shaming people is not loving. Any group or individual that is making you feel bad about yourself, or trying to make you question your own truth to support theirs, is more concerned with serving their own agenda than wanting you to be your authentic self.

People that claim to care about your best interest, but try to shame and guilt you into changing for them, do not have your best interest at heart….but they have their own best interest at heart.

So let them continue to follow their own path and do what they feel best supports them…..while you follow your own path and do what best supports you.

Why is it okay for them to want an environment they feel safe and supported in….but you are selfish because you also want to feel safe and supported?

What to Live For

Live for yourself. Create your reality. Listen to your inner voice. Nurture your inner child and your emotional wounds.

Live for the connection of all living things and for the value of life and existence.

Live for loving others. Do random acts of kindness. Search out special people to share intimate relationships with.  Passion and sensuality are part of being human and part of spirituality.

Live to love animals and nature. Be kind and mindful. Treat living things with respect and care.

Live for your visions, hopes and dreams. Be creative, inventive and original.

Live to fight against evil and injustice. Be the advocate for those who have no voice.

Teach others to be sometimes still, and other times to roar like a lion.

 

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Mental Illness, Depression, Hating Waking Up in the Morning

If you wake up every morning feeling anxiety, depression and completely overwhelmed at the thought of scraping through another day, you are not alone.

Once the day gets going after a few hours, you can get into autopilot mode, or somehow tolerate the things you have to do in order to survive. But upon waking up, you feel like one more day of painful suffering existance might be too much.

You feel alone and like there is something horribly wrong with your life. It is so severe upon opening your eyes in the morning that you cannot imagine anyone else would understand.

You are not alone. This is an important situation that gets worse being left in the darkness. Feel free to express your feelings in the comments here….if you are experiencing…or have ever experienced this.

Silence Speaks

Everyone just keeps talking
So sure they know “the right” thing to say
Meaningless words, just to say them
Repetitive and cliche

They think they can understand
What is exactly felt by another
But just because we are human
Is not full insight into each other

Sometimes someone is broken or bruised
And grieving things from inside of their world
That others did not experience or feel
As that person’s reality painfully unfurled

Sitting next to someone in silence
Is sometimes better than feeling the need
To say the right thing when there is none
Sometimes it is best to read…
the room

Feel your way softly, with a gentle heart
Not always with your critical thinking
Accepting someone for where they are
Even when they feel like they’re sinking

You can’t force someone out
Of the emotional state they are in
There are times when it is necessary
To sit with the darkness and sin

The darkness can be denied
But it doesn’t change very much
Pain will grow more inside of you
When it lacks your accepting touch

The darkness exists with the light
Don’t force someone into the sun
Silence and just sitting next to them
Is sometimes the closest to being one

We are each alone within our minds
The confines of our perception
What someone feels and what they see
Does not always need correction

Teaching Children to Have Self Esteem

While it is true that life can dish out some unfair circumstances, we do not need to “prepare” our children for this by treating them unjustly.

Children and teenagers are very aware and sensitive about fairness. It is emotionally and psychologically painful to them to be treated in ways that are unjust.

They need to be heard and validated. If we are to teach them to have integrity and to treat other people fairly, we need to do the same with them.

Children and teenagers do not learn by what we say, as much as they learn from what we do. Our actions are far more powerful that our words.

Children learn what they see and what they experience.

They should have a chance to tell their side of things and to talk about their feelings. We cannot teach them that our legal system offers a fair trial and then turn around and punish them without hearing them out.

Let us treat our children that they matter. Their integrity and self esteem matters.

This is the way they can learn to set boundaries with other people.

They can learn how to explain how they feel about things and why they feel that way.

If a situation arrises that the child will experience consequences then they should understand what is happening and why.  Those consequences should be equal to their behavior and not overblowing what actually happened.

Teachers that punish an entire class of students, for the bad behavior of 1 or 2 students, are not teaching the children that they are individuals with individual rights.

Sometimes there are unavoidable consequences for a child due to something their sibling or their classmate did, but consequences should not be inflicted upon innocent bystanders just to exercise control or to make a point.

Children need to grow up in a safe emotional and psychological environment.

Imagine if you were at work and forced to do overtime without pay, all because of a disruptive co-worker who slowed down the progress of the workday.

You would feel angry and mistreated. How would this affect your feelings about the supervisor that made you work extra hours with no pay?

How would this affect your overall morale?

There is an old saying that you may have seen on an office poster….

“Until morale improves…the beatings will continue..”

You cannot punish people into wanting to behave better. Children and teenagers are people and they need to be able to trust their environment.

This will allow them to blossom and learn. A benevolent and just environment will allow children.  To feel valued as individuals.

The ability to express one’s emotions and thoughts is a learned skill. To be able to present your side of a situation in a logical and understandable manner is a critical life skill.

Let us hear our children and teenagers out. Teach them respect of others and respect for themselves.

Let us celebrate the young minds and remember that those minds can tell when they are treated unjustly.

There is a psychological consequence for every negative experience and there are associations wired into the brain im regards to repeated experiences.

If we want the respect of our children, we need to treat them with compassion and empathy, as best as we can. There is no rule that says the adult cannot apologize if you make a mistake.

It shows the child that you respect them when you admit when you are wrong. It teaches them that everyone makes mistakes.

When you forgive your children for their mistakes they will learn to forgive you for yours. This will help to build their self esteem.

Self esteem is critical for survival. If we bring up children to be adults that cannot self-generate self esteem then they will be targets for predators and abusers.

Children and teenagers that learn to express their feelings and expain their side of things will be better equipped to deal with the people they meet as adults.

 

Let Your True Passion Guide You

More

Humanity needed in the world of humans

Soft sweet touches

An understanding ear to hear

Laughter bursting from the small bodies of children

Old hands carefully baking bread for a neighbor in need

Or crafting a blanket with yarn for a stranger in the hospital

A nurse’s reassurance to a frightened patient

Looking at them with the self confidence of the profession; but adding something personal in their glance

A worker willing to go outside the usual procedures  and protocol…in the name of  helping someone who is in danger of foreclosure on their family home

Too many medical bills and not enough time…

Time spent working to take care of loved ones has to be balanced against the need to just be with them

Sitting next to a stranger and matching their body language… their hopeless slouch on the bench…

just to let them know someone sees them…and they are not forgotten

…they are not invisible

Humanity enough to pay the extra 2 dollars for the pizza at the Mom and Pop shop; to drive the extra mile to get there

Rather than paying the “fast-food- dictators” their tithe;  the Mama Rosina Pizza places need to be there…on the Main Streets

What happens when no one cares anymore about the “little” people; will they truly become little people after all?

And the smallest gestures of holding doors for a mother carrying a child and helping the elderly woman cross the street safely…

What will becomevof these small acts of random kindness ? What shall we say to those …who call us foolish for wasting our time…

On people of no consequence?

Who has the right to determine who is more or less significant?

And what does this say about mankind…

If we are just too busy spending time making money…and nothing more?

Isn’t there something further? Isn’t there something more?