Stories of Kindness from Around the World

Being There

I made a site visit to the outskirts of our city Chennai India along with my client. He is in the process of trying to sell some plots which are part of a large Lay-out.
He was very happy I accompanied him. Sometimes you need to be available and also help them professionally so that they have better hope.

This too is kindness, that is, giving my time and being with him and also helping him to get back some of the money he has invested in the land.
Being an architect I give him right advice. More importantly he has complete confidence in me.
My presence reassures him and we get along well.
Please wish him well!

Green alternative with Soap Nuts

Today I tried out soap nuts (aka soap berries) instead of conventional laundry detergent. Only 5 for a full washload and my clothes came out sparkling clean and smelling lovely. Really pleased with the results and will continue to buy and use these. No way back now for me!

Keen to do more for Mother Earth by reducing some more plastic / cutting out chemicals where I can. Seemingly you can even use soap nuts to clean your home, wash your dishes and even wash your hair. So I boiled up the soap nuts which came out nice and soft from the washing machine and let them simmer for about half an hour. Totally looking forward to trying out a new green cleaning detergent and a washing-up liquid. Next plan is to replace plastic water bottles for glass ones as these will def get recycled.

Expressing Joy and Love

I will visit friend tomorrow at the Chinese restaurant and tell them that I love them. New or old friend is a story of where I've been. So many stories. Finished trimming rhubarb. Wildflowers bushel are ready for reseeding. Father is happy. 🐇. 🐇. 🐇. June 9th is Strawberry Rhubarb pie 🥧 day. Mother will enjoy harvest sweetness.

Let’s Talk Mental Health

Let’s Talk Mental Health Each month I attend an open stage event at a local café and read a few of my inspirations. It is fun to participate and to enjoy the talents of others who take to the stage to perform. May is youth mental health awareness month. It took me some time to write something I felt would be relevant and meaningful. I felt what I had written was too long to share in one post, so I have broken it down into three parts. Part 1: Starting the Conversation Discussions about mental health are more acceptable today but it was not always the case. As a young person I vaguely knew about death by suicide, nervous breakdowns, postpartum depression, grief and different mental health conditions such as bi-polar disorder. If they were talked about at all it was in hushed tones and not in front of children. Things are changing. ... Read Full Story >>

Kindness Trip To New Jersey

Kindness trip to New Jersey

On May 22, I consulted with my family doctor in New York. Gave some quote cards. He gave me a ride to his house in New Jersey. I am grateful to him.

My divine sister picked me up and accommodated me in their house for four days and prepared lunch and dinner for me. I am grateful to her family. I gave books, Date-nuts sweets. Handkerchiefs, fancy paper bags made by Utthan, quote cards, and Mindy's Origami Peace Dove quote cards. Talked about positive thinking. Adjusted sewing machine to run smoothly. 

I met other friends and family. 

I returned to New York on May 26

I am grateful to Sri Sathya Sai Baba for giving me these opportunities of kindness and guiding and helping me in this regard

Helping

On our walk home last night from our friends’ home we were passing a house on their block & saw a frail elderly woman using a cane about to walk down her steps to put a bag of recyclables at her curb for collection. ♻️

I asked her if we could do that for her & she smiled wide & gratefully accepted our offer. It felt good to be able to do that for her. ❤️

63+ Gifts

♡

Well, I lost track again. I'm doing okay though and should reach my goal before next March 29th (my 64th birthday). So many people here on KS inspired me to do this and it's been great fun.

This past week:

• Created a vid for a friend.
  Sent a small donation to three light-filled places doing great work (one is our NRHugs in HI).
  Interviewed JohnnyO today for his memoir. He'll be joining us for the group.
  Created another "you rock" graphic for my mom. (Attached.)
  Had a nice conversation with my neighbor about my little garden (tomatoes and herbs so far). He's going to grow beans and we're going to share.
  Wrote a snail mail letter to a friend and sent three others.

Kindness Gives Joy

After almost two years of being away from my kindspring home, I decided to start a new kind of journey on June 1.

But kindness came one day earlier for me as one of our janitress at the office informed me that she will be transfered to another office starting tomorrow.

It felt good to give her some cash token and a note to tell her how grateful I am for her dedicated service to us.

Indeed, to give is to receive more in terms of joy and fulfillment. May this post be my personal reminder to be equally committed and faithful to living a life of kindness, one kind act at a time.

So help me God!

🌱 Healing Garden Gives 🙏

A visit to our local hospital’s healing garden gave me an opportunity to utilize the prayer tags in the prayer hut that the CRAFTERNOON Kindness Crew made a few months ago to replenish the dwindling tags. One for MisterM - he’s doing better, but it’s slow going, and another for my brother in law - who is currently in hospital, but hopefully will return home in time to celebrate his daughter’s wedding this weekend. A tag posted on the wall caught my attention. It read, “For my grandma, that she has a peaceful death.” 🙏 I put my hand, palm side down over the tag, and said a prayer for the author and for the grandma 💕 . 🪴 Displayed a can of laminated “pot stickers” - made from daily tear off calendar pages, for folks to take and stick in flower pots, garden, etc…The CK Crew made them last week and it’s ... Read Full Story >>

Daily Joys

I’ve been finding daily joy thanks to Mindy’s catnip mousies. Ever since we lost our little feral friend Doofus recently, we are gifted to watch her feral friends playing with the catnip mousies we put in the backyard…they roll around, leap in the air…it’s like watching a cat ballet 🐈 🩰 🐈‍⬛

I think of Doofus & hold the good memories of our sits there in the sunshine with her, feeling her loving presence & have good cries. It’s all part of the grieving process…

Grateful for our feral friends ❤️

Thank you Mindy for your generous sharings 💕


🖼 Artist Credit : S Hee

Cross-stitch

I used to regularly do counted cross stitch but after I had my daughter there was less time to do it and I moved on to other crafts. However, recently I found a kit to stitch an owl so I've been doing a little each day so I don't tire myself so much. I'm making it for my daughter as we share a love of owls.

This morning while shopping, I joined a queue and then the store opened up another till. There was a couple behind me and I could see they hadn't as much in there trolley as I did so I told them to go across.

🇺🇸 Red, White & Blue Cheer

Our CRAFTERNOON Kindness Crew crafted some stellar patriotic centerpieces for Memorial Day, which can also be used for 4th of July celebrations.

Using a minimal amount of cash and LOTS of time and energy, we made enough centerpieces to give to the Meals On Wheels organization, assisted living facility, plus a few for the VFW and various others.

Grateful to realize the power of our combined creative energies to BE THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD! 🌎 🕊️

Easy Kindness….

How was I able to share some kindness yesterday…..always chances present themselves ❤️

Told someone it was a pleasure dealing with them and that they were very kind & a nice person….a big warm smile & a thank you resulted. Lovely man ❤️

Shared laughs & smiles with one of our favorite servers where we enjoyed a lovely mid-day meal. 😊

Smiled & shared hellos with several back & forth trips a mom & then dad who were escorting their little ones to the washroom, as they passed our table a few times. 😊

Giving Support to Families

My partner trying to make the best use of a bin bag with garden waste to take to the skip :-))) Lots of workers in the house, trying to be patient and kind, offering tea and water every now and then, sometimes treats :-)
One of the workers is from Rumania, he asked for help setting up a new debit card and account. He hardly speaks English. He is so hard working! He deserves support. Told me all about his family, 5 children! Gave him some starter reading books for them so they can also practise the language. I have a lot of respect for people who work very hard and care deeply about their families.

Supporting Environmental Projects

When the repayments come in at the end of the month from lendwithcare - I usually find I have enough funds to lend to four more people or groups. Today was no exception and I immediately lent the minimum amount to a lady entrepreneur who was expanding her farm to help with her family. Then I noticed four groups of people who wanted loans for solar panels. I decided as it is my birthday in the coming week, I would make a loan to all four groups using some of my birthday money as well as the credit I already had.

I'm really glad when I can support environmental projects especially when it helps them to improve and help their own community.

Kindness Meet

Kindness Meet On May 21st, 2023, I visited my cousin brother who is 94 years old. His elder daughter was taking care of him. He loved my visit to him. I love him too. I talked to them about intense positive thinking and Fatemah story and also had nice family talk to make them happy and get inspired. His elder daughter went out, his younger daughter came in. Later their friend and her husband join in. I gave quote cards. Talked about positive thinking and my experiences with it. I told them intense positive thinking story, Fatema story and Chinese lady's story whose love for her son and positive thinking brought her son out of coma whereas doctors declared that they can't do any better to bring her son out of coma after trying for six months. I told them that it is not me giving quote cards and talking but God ... Read Full Story >>

Feels Good To Thank

Still finding my way in the website and glad I finally found where to post my story for today.

I wrote a short note to someone who led a class where only 2 participants had showed up. It was a great class though. I wrote to tell her some of the cool things that have happened to me since the clsss,  which I believe are because of what she led.

It made me feel good to do that.

Little Fun Party With Children

Little fun party with children: It was a very nice program and we all enjoyed it. There are summer vacations going on and every child wants to have fun and enjoyment. So we organized a little fun party for all the children from the library. Children did singing, dancing, storytelling, poem reciting, acting and mimicry etc. There was no rule, no restriction. Children have the right to do anything as they want. Children made the event very interesting and funny. They were full of fun.

We also arranged some fruits, sweets, chocolates, toffees, and ice-cream for children. All the children enjoyed it and had great fun.

Thanks to all the children.

Kind Acts During The Day

Kindness filled days:

While driving, let lots of cars cut in front of me.
Allowed walkers to cross in front of me while stopped at a stop sign.
Complimented a lady on her dress. She proceeded to tell me she had it custom made because she loves retro 50 dresses.
Went to the YMCA to get back into yoga ..self kindness.
While there the receptionist complimented me on my bracelets and jokingly said she'd be happy get one. We laughed, then I gave her one. So much more that I cannot recall.

But I sure felt good to be able to do chair yoga again.

📚 Sharing Uplifting Books To Hospital Shelf💕

“Looks like you found some good books,” Jessie, the library director observed, as she was about to total the sale.

“I do enjoy your book sale room,” I replied, "and I’m donating these to the hospital’s free shelf, so I tried to choose books with a positive and uplifting message.”

Jesse put her hands on the stack of books, looked up at me and said, “Mindy, please just take these books, with our appreciation, no charge.”

That’s the beautiful thing about kindness and knowledge, the more you give, the more you inspire and encourage, the more it ripples out in such lovely ways! 📚