Photo a Gourd With a Heart by Katheryn Laible
Thanksgiving…it’s a word that brings gratitude and kindness together. It’s a wonderful reminder to count our blessings, and pay them forward. We thought you might appreciate the following:
Kindness Matters
Kindness matters! It’s good for the people we offer it to. It’s good for our own health as well. Here’s a quick video from an organization called the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, where the mission is “to make kindness the norm.” You can learn more on their website and facebook page.
Here’s a thoughtful reflection on the difference between “nice” and “kind” by Donna Cameron, award winning author of “A Year of Living Kindly: Choices That Will Change Your Life and the World Around You.”
Of course, it’s easier to be kind if we can bring ourselves to recognize and appreciate the blessings around us.
Gratitude is Good for Us
Gratitude sounds like a simple thing — and it is! — but it’s also quite deep. This piece, How to Practice Gratitude by Kendra Cherry, MSEd in verywellmind.com offers a very useful how-to, complete with an exploration of various aspects of gratitude, notes on established benefits, tips on how to work more into your life while avoiding “toxic positivity.”
How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain — including really helping with depression and anxiety — from the “Greater Good Magazine: Science Based Insights for a Meaningful Life,” which is based out of UC Berkeley
Here are 14 Health Benefits of Gratitude According to Science from positivepsychology.com. We’re talking things like increased energy and reduction in inflammation, as well as simple happiness and psychological well being!
We love these 40 Simple Ways to Practice Gratitude by Lifehack.org
and this piece on Why Kindness Matters by Positive.News
Bringing It Home
Our friend Cindy Mardenfeld a dear “Kindness Ambassador who maintains a blog toward this end, will remind us that November is kindness month and encourage us to do it loudly. This is not to be bragging at all, or to bring any unwanted attention to those being served, but to be a good role model and to spread good cheer. We are grateful for the sunshine she brings into our lives.
Another dear one, whose name we won’t mention, once offered the sentiment in a another way that is perhaps more palatable to some: “This week, I am ensuring that I do one act of kindness daily in honor of Thanksgiving. I’m not going to post a picture. Not going to post a status other than this one. I just hope that some folks might do the same thing. It doesn’t take a lot but I can make people happy.”
Say it loudly, do it quietly, it’s all the same to us…Just please give it your best to appreciate the good and to make more of it. Always. Thanks!!!
