This is the first of 10 weekly reading assignments and kind action recommendations using the book “The Power of Kindness” as inspiration.
Reading: Read the Introduction & the chapter called “Honesty.”
Please read slowly, putting the book aside when you find your mind wanting to consider something further or when you find yourself connecting something in the book to a situation or story from your life. Pay attention to these. Write them down, or take notes in the book.
Kind Action: Practice Being Transparent in Your Interactions
In the spirit of this week’s chapter, I encourage you to put into mindful practice the concept of transparency. Look for an opportunity to engage in an act of transparent kindness and then complete it.
Is it by being honest with someone when your temptation is to talk around the truth? If so, as stated on page 16, be honest using intelligence and tact.
Is it by being honest with yourself, perhaps by recognizing a problem rather than pretending there isn’t one, as described on page 17?
Or is it by saying no when you really want to say no, instead of saying yes?
Original Kind Living Art from Fish Astronaut!
The first series of Fish Astronaut’s Kind Living art is officially on sale. He has created a set of three 6″ x 6″ paintings that can be purchased for $100. They are individually hand-painted and you’ll get the actual paintings themselves, not prints. And since they’re hand-painted, no two will be exactly alike. Of the six sets of this first series he’s created, only two remain. Email me right away if you want to reserve a set! –Andy
Kind Living 
Love this! Looking forward to a newly kind week. 🙂
Thank you for taking time to do this. I was and continue to be a secret agent of compassion. Love it!
Kim, love that, “secret agent of compassion.” Wow! 🙂
Andy: just getting up to speed, when we do our kind action this week, should we post our experience here or share it somehow? Just curious! Thanks!
I do hope that everyone who can will respond to the assignments… I may not be able to do all the readings, but I follow this blog and would love to hear how others are responding!
It’s so great to have some folks commenting here!! I would love to have people share their experiences with each week’s assignment so please do feel free to use the comments section here. The assignments are going out to hundreds of people so I’m hoping there are a few who will support each other. If anyone wants me to create something more private, let me know.
Regarding the Secret Agent of Compassion reference, in 2012 I was asked to create a game for the new Compassion Games (which have grown quite a bit since then). I’ve archived the missions I created in 2015 for the Compassion Games at http://secretagentofcompassion.org. I have designs on uploading even more there (if I get the time!). Anyway, check it out for more context.
Thanks, Linda! – for your thoughtful observations and stories. Looking forward to hearing more! 💖
Hi, I’m not quite done with this week’s assignment, but I wanted to share how I decided to respond and its effect. After reading about honesty and how it leads to more transparency in one’s kindness, I thought about the people in my life that I have not always been truthful with about their impact on me. This is a little difficult to talk about, but this has to do with my saying, “Oh, it’s okay that ____” (whatever they did), “I’m fine with that,” and yet, really, it was not okay and it had been hurtful to me. I had been talking around the truth.
So, this week I took some time just to acknowledge to myself what the truth was, that it wasn’t okay for a parent to leave his wife and small children so that he could life his own “bachelor” life, and it wasn’t okay for a stepparent to be continually giving advice without a clue about my own life and values. This is more about realizing that I was trying to be overly accommodating all those years (understanding, etc.) and I was not acknowledging the pain their action caused me. In many cases these individuals have apologized or at least acknowledged what they did was wrong. But I had the habit of brushing off their apologies so that it would seem like I wasn’t holding a grudge. This week’s reading on honesty and transparent kindness helped me see I needed to be more honest with myself.