Ep 381: Happy World Kindness Day!!!

Today is World Kindness Day!!!! And what better way for me to celebrate than to offer a video on the value and importance of kindness and compassion. Kindness and compassion are associated with lower levels of stress, depression, and anxiety; and these are associated with higher levels of happiness, fulfillment, optimism, and general wellness. But to me, the most important benefit of kindness and compassion is that the practice of them opens us up to fully experiencing life. When we engage in the opposite of kindness, and we think of the person who is the object of this opposite of kindness, we trigger the stress response in our bodies. Meaning, all of our energy and resources are devoted to reconciling this danger or harm we perceive. And when we are in this place of trying to resolve these fear based emotions, if someone we love reaches out to us in that moment, we simply aren’t available to them. We simply aren’t able to be present. Which means, we simply aren’t able to be happy. So today (and every day) I invite you to set an intention to be kind to yourself and others. And if you’d like to learn a super simple practice to help cultivate kindness and compassion, please let me know!