News from the Unscripted Self

The quieter you become, the more you can hear, Ram Dass.

Cheers! It’s our 40th issue.

Be kind only.

See everyone as your teacher.

See everyone as guiltless (including yourself!)

How to be kind

1. Listen to what people have to say. Often people feel left out or that no one’s listening to them and that their opinions don’t count. Everyone knows how to talk but few know how to listen. Cultivate being a good listener.

2. Give praise and acknowledge what people do. Let them know they're appreciated. If it’s someone giving a talk you could say, ‘I liked how you explained that difficult concept, it never was clear to me before until you did’. Obviously be sincere about it.

3. Kindness is contagious. It's been proven that when you do someone a kindness they are nice to others in turn. That way your one act gets replicated over and over. You can start an epidemic of kindness!

4. Let someone go in front of you in a queue. People often get frazzled (for some reason) with shopping or in the mall. They grumble about the little old lady who’s taking all day before them in the queue. By introducing kindness here you are completely changing the energy in the situation.

5. A really amazingly simply one is to smile at people. When we smile we release happy chemicals and neurotransmitters in the brain, which is obviously good for us. But research now shows that due to something called ‘mirroring’ these happy chemicals and neurotransmitters are released in the person you smile at too. Cool!

6. Your thoughts can be kindling (yes it’s a word!) too. You see, how we think reflects the condition of the heart. For example, if you’re deeply envious of someone you’re not being kind. If someone is very fortunate that’s the universe or God rewarding them. It’s no accident. They earned it. Do not begrudge them but join with the universe and send them good wishes.

And always, always be kind to animals. They love us so much.

Genuine kindness comes from the heart. It’s being helpful without being intrusive. It is loving without leaving a sense of obligation. It is there when called for and then gets out of the way when it’s no longer needed. Acts of kindness can be immediate, spontaneous, responsive and automatic. They don’t have to be detailed or involve making lots of plans. The person who lives in the moment is more prone to doing them on a regular basis anyway.

Reading Room

The link to the article is

http://www.the-unscripted-self.com/suicideanddepression/html

Find the good and praise it, Alex Hailey.

Distant Healing

And by the way thank you all for sending healing to that very troubled spot over the last few months. It's really appreciated.

Again, getting back to kindness, your kind thoughts and good intentions did bear fruit. Never doubt this.

Funny Bone!

This joke won the Edinburgh festival just recently. It goes:

"Today I threw out my hoover.

Well, it was only gathering dust around the house".

Not bad. Well, not great either.

Now here’s a genuinely funny man.

Be yourself, because everyone else is already taken. Oscar Wilde.

Last word on kindness:

There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you ― Paramahansa Yogananda

That's all folks

Take care,