Practicing Kindness – Practical tips and Chakra Energy Techniques

Hello all, Happy August!   My theme of the month is Practicing Kindness. To be honest, it was going to be Community, but recently my 5-year-old daughter, Maia, somehow got LICE (yuck) and gave it to me (FML).  And then as soon as that was under control, we all tested positive for Covid, again.  Sigh. 

I think the Big Guy in the Sky is telling us to keep to ourselves?  So, instead of Community we will focus on Kindness.  Kindness to our kids as we enter another season of quarantine, stepping on each other’s toes in the house without an exterior outlet.  Kindness to each other, while we work from home and attempt to busy ourselves with projects around the house amidst requests to play Legos or barbies or demands for snacks.  Kindness to our friends going on trips to the Fair or date nights or Hawaii (those jerks, jk) and posting beautiful photos on the gram. 

How can we evoke kindness when we’re so frickin’ irritated?  And how do we become one of those people whom kindness seems to come so naturally?  Who can see the good in all?  Who easily repress negative or sarcastic comments, or maybe don’t even think them at all? 

Well, I don’t have a silver bullet answer, but I have some techniques that can help and a few ideas I want to explore.  Let’s dive in.

Morning Routine

We’ll begin with a practical but challenging tip.  I suggest you start your day with a Morning Routine.  This is not a “to-do” list to get you physically prepared for the day like brushing your teeth.  Though, please do that.  A proper Morning Routine gets you Mentally and Emotionally prepared for your day. 

The length and itinerary of your Routine is completely up to you, and feel free to play around with it.  But the most important rule is to wake up early enough to complete it before your daily obligations.  That is the single hardest part, but if you can tackle that, you’re in the clear.  For me, this means setting the alarm 30 minute before my kids wake.  For you, maybe that’s 20 minutes before your spouse rises, or you clock into your job, or you log into your first WFH conference call.  Here’s mine, as an example.

Leila’s Morning Routine

• 5:30 – Wake up, prepare freshly squeezed lemon water, begin the coffee maker.
• Drink my water while I read my current personal growth book. 
• Switch to coffee and journal/reflect/pray/meditate on my reading
• 6:00ish – Kids wake up.  Routine over. 

That’s it.  In the past, my routine has included exercise, walks, hikes, writing, podcasts, face masks, but this season is busy and that’s all I have time or energy for.  But it’s enough.  When my kids wake my body is hydrated and energized, while my mind is calm, and prepared for the chaos. Let me present Exhibits A and B:

 

In contrast, if I sleep in, the first thing I hear in the morning is, “MOMMY!”, or a pounding on the door, or occasionally I feel a Thump, as a child jumps into our bed.  When this happens, I am not in a good head space to show kindness to my children.  Or anyone who enters my sphere of influence: my husband, or whomever messages me right away.    

In fact, as my morning routine has shifted over the years, I am now a bit strangely obsessed with other peoples’ routines.  Here are a few links to celebrity routines if you’re interested.  I find it fascinating.  Tony Robbins reportedly takes an ice bath every morning – Wow!

Kindness Through our Words

So now that you’ve set up yourself for success in the morning, it’s time to practice Kindness.  I believe Kindness is such an important and relevant topic to discuss, personally, and globally right now.  How can we use our voice to be kind to others?  I’m sure you can think of a few people in the media right now who are doing the opposite, right?  Can you take a different approach and choose your words wisely to uplift someone instead of put down, or poke fun at? 

I love this song “Be Kind” by Zac Able.  Just listening to his voice and the fun beat makes me smile.  And the lyrics are spot on,

“If there’s one thing in this life that is guaranteed

It’s that you and I might see a few thins differently.

In a World where you can be anything

I’ll be Kind to you. Could you be Kind to me?”

“be kind” by zac able

Amen, brother. 

Kindness Word Test

In Yoga Teacher Training, I was taught a little word test to check my own speech.  You can think of it like a ‘Kindness Barometer.’   Before you speak aloud, you ask yourself these 3 questions about your chosen words:

1. Is it True
2. Is it Necessary
3. Is it Kind

After this mental review, I often find myself checking 2 out of the 3 boxes, but one of them doesn’t fit.  Especially when replying to my children. 

• Maia, “Can we go Jumping?!” 
• Mom, “No.” 
• Maia, “Why?” 
• Mom, “Because it’s closed.” 

It’s not closed, Leila. That’s not “True” and it was a lazy response. 

Can you recall a similar spoken statement?  When this happens, we should simply re-phrase our thoughts to complete the Word Test.   Or maybe, to truly comply, in stressful moments, we should be silent altogether.  I think the world could use a dose of the kids’ mantra, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.”   

Energize or Drain

When I married my husband 9 years ago, we underwent a few pre-marital counseling sessions and our Pastor gave us the book, “The Me I Want to Be”.  One passage has stuck with me ever since,

“We are always – always being energized or drained by every interaction.”

“The Me I want to be” – John Ortberg

That is such a powerful statement if you think about.  I’m sure you can recall an interaction you’ve had with someone where you’ve felt drained.  Now turn that around and analyze your impact on others.  Every person you meet – your kids, husband, co-worker, grocery store clerk, waitress – you either drain or energize them.  It’s that simple.  Black and White.  Your words, your tone of voice, your stance, your gaze, or lack of it tells a story whether you like it or not.  I decided long ago that I want to be a source of energy to all.  But it takes mindfulness, and practice. 

Repeat, Practice.  Try, Try and Try again.  If there was a Kindness Ladder, I would probably rate my existence on a rung about 3 quarters of the way up.  Or maybe one or two steps down, between the hours of 5 am and 7 am.  I am working on thinking before I speak, and editing, to be kind.  But sometimes I f-up and resort to apologies.

However, where I really strive to be, is at the top of the ladder, where my thoughts are kind.  A magical mindset where I don’t have to try so hard.  A state of being where purity and compassion emanate naturally.  Where I can offer grace to over-tired kids, and see the goodness in irritable people. 

Throat Chakra Energy

Obviously, I’m not there yet, and I’m not speaking from experience, but I’ve read about a way to naturally progress into this stage by: Rebalancing your Throat Chakra. 

What is a Chakra?  Well, here’s a broad overview.  Chakras are a system of energy centers along your spine, each related to different aspects of your being.  These internal sources of energy were first written about in traditional Indian texts called the Vedas between 1500 and 500 BC, and have been expanded upon with further research ever since.  They fascinate me, and I’ve been researching the topic the past year – feel free to read more about them here.

 The Throat Energy Center is primarily related to our communication and expression, aligned with our goal of showing kindness through our interaction with others.   Also, the Sanskrit name for this Chakra is Vishuddha, meaning Purity, emphasizing that our communication is meant to be truthful.

 Though we all inherently possess these Chakra energy centers, honing them is another story.   Throughout our days, as we move into different seasons of life, and especially through traumatic situations, our chakras vacillate.  They can get out of whack and may require extra effort to be brought back into state of equilibrium. 

So how do we balance or open or enhance our Chakras?  Well, there are many ways, but I’ll summarize two below from the book I’m reading, “The Chakra Directory – Discover your Chakras for Healing & Balance.”

Balance Chakras through Yoga

We’ll start with Yoga.  If you’ve ever been to a typical western yoga class or seen one on TV, you know you do a lot of stretching.  To exercise your Throat Chakra…drumroll please…. you stretch your throat – it’s that easy!  In most yoga classes, your instructor leads you through a series of postures that stretch out every major muscle groups, and that includes your throat, or front body line.  But this month, in the classes I’m teaching, I’m including extra postures that feature this area.  Poses like Camel and Fish open and elongate the front of your throat are balanced with Half Tortoise and Plow which compress the front and stretch the back neck tendons.

To be honest, I don’t know how this correlates to my energy, but I’ll tell you this – I feel phenomenal and calm and ready to be a kinder human after every yoga class I take or teach. Please join me for a class! I update my schedule on Instagram, link here.

Open your Chakra with Color

But after yoga, you then you get in the car, and someone cuts you off, or you read a disturbing article in the news, or receive an annoying email, and become off-kilter again.  The true trick is to be able to achieve balance through difficult situations.  You can’t just run back into a yoga class every hour. 

That’s why this next tip intrigues me;  Each energy center is said to be associated with a color – a specific color with a unique wavelength.  I’m not going to get into the science of it here…if you’re interested, read this post with a few links attached citing research-based articles.  The key takeaway is that the color associated with the Throat Chakra is Light Blue. 

And according to Chakra studies, if you surround yourself with Light Blue, you can enhance that energy center.  However you want to do that is up to you: wear blue clothes, wrap yourself up in a blue blanket, stare at the blue sky, find a blue paper and meditate on that…. Knock yourself out!   (I know some of you are thinking – Thank God, I’d rather do that than go to Yoga ha.)

If you’re having trouble getting on the Chakra train, look at it as a gentle reminder.  This month I painted my fingernails sky blue, and as I look at them throughout the day, it’s a reminder of my goal to practice Kindness.

Conclusion

So there are my tips for August to Practice Kindness, friends.  Commit to a Morning Routine, Use the Word Test to think before you speak, Stretch your neck, and wear Blue. 

And let me know how it goes!  Thoughts, comments, leave a (kind) message below please.