It’s Not Your Fault!

It’s Not Your Fault!

It’s not your fault . . .

That you have fibromyalgia

It’s not your fault . . .

That you were abused as a child or adult, beaten up, hit, or yelled at.

It’s not your fault . . .

That you were abandoned as a child or adult

It’s not your fault . . .

That you were neglected at a child or adult

 It’s not your fault . . .

That you were minimized, restricted, or controlled as a child or adult

You Deserve . . .

Kindness

Attention

Respect

Compassion

Caring

Love

Being heard

Being Seen

And FORGIVENESS

From yourself

And from Others

 

Stand Tall In your own

Truth

Love

Respect

Forgiveness

Kindness

Compassion

Self love

Self Care

May you know that your are already blessed,  💕Bindu

Personal Benefits of Kindness

Personal Benefits of Kindness

Personal Benefits of Kindness

The benefits from kindness are more than just feeling good. Kindness affects both our emotional and physical body in different ways.  Here are some of the benefits of being and showing kindness to others.

  • Kindness slows down the aging process. People who volunteer tend to experience less aches and pains than others. Kindness and helping others will protect your health in the same way aspirin helps against heart disease.
  • It improves our relationships and connections with others. Kindness helps us relate to other people and have more positive relationships with everyone we encounter.
  • Kindness increases happiness. In a study by The Journal of Social Psychology, who practiced an act of kindness or tried something new each day enjoyed a higher level of happiness than those who didn’t make any changes.
  • The release of feel-good hormones happens from acts of kindness. Doing nice things for others can increase your serotonin levels. These are the neurotransmitters responsible for our feelings of satisfaction and well-being. Kindness also releases the endorphins known as the “helper’s high”.
  • Kindness improves our own self-respect and self-love. It makes us happier and in a better mood more often by doing kind acts often. Buy someone coffee or lunch, help someone in need or volunteer your time to get the pick-me-up you need.
  • Kindness helps prevent illnesses caused from inflammation. These health problems include diabetes, cancer, chronic pain, obesity and migraines. Volunteering seems to lower the levels of inflammation. Oxytocin is released, even from small acts of kindness, which in turn reduces inflammation. Share a smile, make a donation, help others in some small to feel the effects of kindness.
  • Kindness eases your anxiety, whether it’s mild nervousness or you’re having severe panic. Being nice to others is one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways to fight of anxiety. Look for ways to help others when you are feeling anxious. Smile at someone, call a friend or lend your time to an organization.
  • It is good for your heart. Kindness not only makes your heart feel good; it also affects the actual chemical balance of your heart. It releases the hormone oxytocin which reduces blood pressure thereby protecting the heart.
  • Kindness helps reduce stress. Helping others lets you move away from your own worries and problems.

For those of us with fibromyalgia, taking on extra responsibilities may be daunting or impossible.  If that is the case, begin at home.  Begin where you are.  How can you offer simple acts of kindness in your everyday life?  A smile, a kind word, a compliment.  Holding back on an unkind word.  

Remember yourself among those you are kind to.  Compliment yourself.  Remind yourself of the things that you are strong in.  Counter an inner criticism with a compliment.  Stop a moment to take a breath or gaze at a flower.   

Incorporate the smallest acts of kindness every day. You’ll notice changes in how it affects your life and begin to see the ripple effects on other people as well.

 

May you experience kindness in your heart.

Until next week, 💗Bindu

That I Feed the Hungry

That I Feed the Hungry

Food for thought.

Men and Women with fibromyalgia are kind giving souls.

Yet, do you hold yourself with the same love and caring as you do for others?

Are you able to hold the abandoned, isolated, exiled and hidden parts of yourself with love and compassion?

Can you give to yourself what was withheld by your family?

Can you ask for what you need?

Can you tend to your own needs?

 May you hold your self with all the love and compassion that you provide for others.

💗Bindu

Cultivating Joy and Kindness

Cultivating Joy and Kindness

Fibromyalgia is a devastating illness.  Not only are we in pain all or most of the time, but it impacts every area of our life.

It challenges our relationships.  It can limit our career and ability to express ourselves in the world.  It brings anxiety and depression daily.  It limits our ability to socialize and enjoy it.  It steals our sense of self worth and well-being.

It can completely take over our life and sense of self.

 

Emphasize the Positive

Yet, we can bring some balance and sense of self by emphasizing the positive.   One of my favorite teachers taught me that we had to balance our experience by emphasizing the positive.

Especially with fibromyalgia, there is so much negative experience on a daily basis it can be very easy to be consumed by it.  To the extent that it can become our identity.  We forget who we really are.

During my worst years of my fibromyalgia, I was nearly consumed by it.  My saving grace was my practice of yoga and meditation along with teaching yoga.  Those practices gave me a sense of who I was beyond the fibromyalgia.  They brought love, joy and peace into my life.  And helped me greatly.

Since then, I have learned more ways to emphasize the positive on a regular basis.

 

Challenges of Emphasizing the Positive

I understand the challenges of emphasizing the positive.  There are days that you simply can’t do it.  On those days, practice compassion and kindness for yourself, accepting where you are.  That in and of itself is emphasizing the positive.

 

Joy

The idea of cultivating joy had always been something that I didn’t think I could do.  Joy seemed to be out of my reach.  Then one of my teachers explained that Joy wasn’t jumping around in a state of bliss.

Joy could be finding peace in reading an inspirational book or listening to some calming music.  Or doing something that you love, gardening, drawing, watching a funny movie, having a talk with a dear friend.

Anything that you do that helps you to feel uplifted is cultivation joy.  The options are endless.  What do you do, or can you do that gives you a sense of peace, relaxation, or upliftment?  That is you cultivating joy.

 

Kindness

Kindness to yourself and others is a wonderful balm for the heart, mind and emotions.  Even if you are having a horrible day, if you are compassionate with yourself, that is an act of kindness.  A smile or compliment to someone, whether a family member or stranger is an act of kindness.

I used to notice things I appreciated about people, like I liked a piece of jewelry or clothing that they were wearing, or a hair style.  Then I thought, why share that with them person.  It is remarkably amazing.  Lifts my spirit and theirs.

When you have a bad fibro day, kindness to yourself is your best ally.   That could look like sleeping and resting for the day, taking a nap, having a warm cup of tea.

How do you show kindness to yourself when you are having a rough day?

 

Peace and Love are offshoots of Kindness and Joy

When you are cultivating kindness and joy, peace and love are natural and flowing.  It brings you in touch with your heart, your needs, and your self-love.

 

Contemplation for this week

This week, take some time to contemplate where you are regarding cultivating joy and kindness or love, and peace or compassion into your life.  Easy?  Hard?  Got it mastered?  Could use some work?

Then make a list of things that you do or can do to cultivate joy and kindness in your life.  Get creative around this.  Here are some questions to consider.

  • What calms and relaxes you.
  • What brings you joy and delight.
  • How do you practice self-love and compassion?
  • What do you like to do?
  • How do you take care of yourself on a bad day?

By making a list, on those days when you are having a fibro flare and life seems miserable and never ending, you will have a list of things that you can do to navigate the day.

 

May you cultivate Joy and Kindness into your life, 💕Bindu

The Power of Kindness on You and the World

The Power of Kindness on You and the World

Our societal norm has become “me first”

The type of society we live in has become known as “me first”. We’re taught early on to look out for ourselves first, and many do that. We’re self-focused, self-possessed and find it difficult to see beyond ourselves at those around us. We often don’t see how our actions affect others.

But our actions do affect others, sometimes in large ways and sometimes in small ways that create a wave of actions. The Butterfly Effect in Chaos Theory states that on tiny event in one area of the globe can have a substantial effect somewhere else. The same is true with small acts of kindness.

Every time kindness is performed it creates a ripple effect.

It spreads from person to person, continuing endlessly. You could say kindness is contagious, like a disease in which the outcome is beautiful.

Kindness keeps us from being short tempered with others when we’re stressed and frustrated. It helps people realize we’re all on the same team.

Jamil Zaki, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab conducted a series of studies observing how witnessing kindness inspires kindness, saying it causes it to spread like a virus.

Zaki says, “We find that people imitate not only the particulars of positive actions, but also the spirit underlying them. This implies is that kindness itself is contagious, and that that it can cascade across people, taking on new forms along the way. 

When we were to look at how important an act of kindness can help someone in need, we realize how it can empower both ourselves and others.

Today, we are bombarded with social media and news media that focuses on the negative interactions that affect us.  It’s seen in the victims of bullying, of abuse, and of those who abuse their power.  Even our entertainment is often riddled with abusive comments and negative actions.

Helping the disabled person who is struggling to gather items out their reach can change the course of their day. By giving a hungry person something to eat or helping a homeless person find shelter can change their outlook on life. Helping an elderly neighbor carry in groceries, mow their yard or just check on them occasionally, can help them feel less lonely. If you say thank you, please, and hello to others who are serving you, you brighten their day.

 

If you perform even the smallest act of kindness, you have the potential to change the course of persons life, even if only for a short period of time.

But kindness not only effects the one you are performing it for. It has a positive effect on you as well.

  • When you are kind to someone, your body gets a surge in serotonin, feel-good endorphins and oxytocin, all hormones that promote a natural high.
  • These hormones reduce pain and lower bread pressure, helping you feel relaxed and loved.
  • The person you are kind to will experience this surge in hormones too. And anyone who witnesses the act of kindness will feel the same feel-good effects.

Kindness fuels curiosity to know each other better. It helps us hear each other without putting up any pretenses. It’s considering other people and what they experience and their concerns and how you can make their lives easier.

 

Kindness is contagious.

It ripples and grows, effecting the unsuspecting and the observing. One act of kindness can change thousands of lives.

In the words of Maya Angelou, “People will forget what you did, they will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

Simple acts of kindness can contribute to rebuilding our health.

Simple acts of kindness remind us that we have something to offer others and the world.  When we offer kindness to another, we feel that kindness within our own heart, which helps to heal any hurt that we carry within.  The ripple effect not only impacts others, but our own heart. 

 

Contemplation for this week:

Become more aware of the balance of selfishness and kindness in your world.  What brings selfishness into your world?  What brings kindness into your world?  What can you do to tip the balance toward the kindness side?  Remember to include yourself in your acts of kindness!

 

May kindness fill your heart, mind and soul, 💕Bindu

12 Steps to Self Care

12 Steps to Self Care

Remember . . .

When you take care of yourself you will have more to offer others.

When you love yourself, you will more readily accept love from others.

It is not selfish to take care of yourself, it is an act of self love.

Every time you treat yourself with love and kindness,

it seeds the collective consciousness with love and kindness.

💗Bindu