Random Acts of Kindness & Compassion

I can't believe it's week 5 of this project already and we are posting our final products and blog posts! This has been such a great challenge and I've learned so much about kindness ,and a lot about myself through this process as well. I always find it a bit shocking that even know we know something is good for us we still can somehow find ways to avoid doing them. Kindness is a way of life, but completing random acts of kindness doesn't always come so naturally. I've learned that being busy makes kindness acts a little more difficult, but also the more kind acts you commit to the more you want to do them. This week we spent the week up at my sister's cottage near North Bay and I didn't feel that I was making a lot of extra efforts to do kind things outside of what I would normally do. We spent a lot of overdue time with our family though and that felt great!  One of the only things I really recorded doing as a random act of kindness while we were away was ...

This was another challenging week for me to get in those random acts of kindness. The crazy thing is that I know completing the RAOK (Random Acts of Kindness) makes me feel great and actually lifts me up, but when I'm busy with life it os really hard to fit them in. I guess this isn't the only area of life in which we know something is good for us, yet we still don't do it. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I think that being busy can really be the rival of some of the best things in life! This week I took a few moments to send a couple of texts to people I haven't connected with in a while just to let them know I was thinking of them, I wrote some little encouraging notes for my family members and left them in random spots for them to find, and I paid for the person's order behind me in the Tim Horton's 'drive thru.' I also continues with some extra walks and play time for the neighbours dog while they are away. I've been making some good progre...

Can I be honest for a minute? This week was busy for many reasons. As a result of my busy days and overall full schedule I found it difficult to follow through with performing random acts of kindness this week. At times in the week it just felt like a weight I was carrying along with me and if I'm being honest, if it weren't for this Genius Hour project I probably wouldn't have completed all the acts that I did. I've come to learn that being busy can actually be the rival of intentional kindness acts. This being said, I have to admit that once I completed the acts that I did this week I felt a huge lift. It almost seemed to alleviate some of the anxiety and frustration I was experiencing.  This is not only for just getting them done, but for knowing I was supporting someone else, or something else outside of what is going on in my own little corner of the universe. One of my goals has always been that I want people to know they are seen. I want people (and dogs in this...

What a week! I kept moving ahead with my 'Random Acts of Kindness & Compassion' activities this week. Some acts were simple like sending a text to a friend or someone I hadn't seen in a long time and just letting them know that I've been thinking about them and miss them. Sending 2 of these messages this week literally gave me a sense of companionship. I felt connected. It took seconds. I also intentionally over-tipped our pizza delivery person on Saturday providing approximately 3 times what I would normally tip. He was happy and that made me happy.  Sometimes the simplest things can feel so good. For example, when I got groceries at 'No Frills' this week I left my quarter in the grocery cart for the next person to use. $0.25 that cost me and I felt like I was paying it forward to someone that might not have a quarter when they got to the store. Or maybe someone else would just take it.  Other acts were a little more involved... My son and I went to the gar...