(Things I gleaned from my reading, although I don’t usually remember where I read it)
Science has determined that both incivility and kindness are contagious. Like a virus, they’re transmitted from one person to the next. If we experience rudeness or kindness — even if we only witness them — we will tend toward that behavior in our next encounters. So, we have a choice of which contagion we want to spread. It seems like a no-brainer, but a lot of factors can get in the way … There’s lots of evidence that our experiences, our choices, our habits, our practices go a long way to predict how empathetic we become.
We all need spaces and relationships where we are not called into question, whether in small and large ways, because in some way each one of us is not quite the person others had in mind.
Mindfulness is focused attention to the present moment, without judging your experiences as good or bad.
Rolling with the flow makes so much more sense than resentfully swimming upstream, resisting.
They used the word contentment, and described it as a state of “unconditional wholeness,” regardless of what is happening externally.
The value to contentment is that nobody can take it away from us,
and nobody can give it to us, either.
Start where you are and believe in yourself.
Stay in the moment. Breathe a little.
Don’t explain yourself, just be yourself.
If you have enough breath to complain about anything,
you have more than enough reason to give thanks about something.
Mattie Stepanek
(July 17, 1990-June 22, 2004)
“a poet, a peacemaker, and a philosopher who played”
Today is yours to paint whatever color you choose.
Just exactly what I needed today. Thanks so much.