kindness project
I sent this idea out to clients and friends a couple months ago, and I wanted to share it with you.
For the next day, week, month, year (whatever time line aligns for you) place notes of encouragement on strangers cars, bicycles. Trust what you write on the note, things like “you matter, don’t give up on you dreams, thank you, trust your instincts,” to name a few.
Who knows maybe one will end up on your car or bicycle.
Ripples of kindness can change the world and will.
So here is what I do. I take 25 small pieces of paper and write kindness notes on them. I put them in a small baggie in my car so at anytime I can spread kindness. I then place them on a car, a bicycle, or if I feel inclined, hand them to a person. You could also set aside a couple of hours during the day and drive around placing them on cars … let this organically take shape for you.
Add it to your to do list, make room in your schedule.
Don’t be quick to dismiss classical music as old and stodgy – not only can it be pretty cool, but it can really help you transform, release, regenerate, rest and rejuvenate.
“Classical music affects the brain’s organization and abilities, through its melody and rhythm. The rhythm raises the level of serotonin produced in your brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, involved in the transmission of nerve impulses that helps maintaining joyous feelings. When the brain produces serotonin, tension is eased. In fact depression is a consequence of the scarce production of this hormone. Serotonin is released when the brain is “positively shocked”. For instance: if we look at a splendid painting, smell a delicious scent, feel an extraordinary sensation, eat something delicious or listen to some charming music, then the brain lets off a certain amount of serotonin which arouses and maximizes pleasant feelings. Music’s rhythm can also stimulate other natural cadences of the body, resembling the heartbeat, or the Alfa-rhythm of the brain, and this effect is used to counter the development of clinical depression. The melody instead, is the “sparkle” that catalyses the creative process in our minds.
The peculiarity of music is that while poetry and the literature must rely on the rational transport to inspire an emotion, since they are mediated from words, music omits this stage and points directly to stage of communicating emotions. Music does not pass through rationality to express its essence; it crosses right to our emotions. Through generating a sequence of different emotions, listening to certain music can give a different base to your thoughts, words, and actions.”
http://www.classicalforums.
I have compiled a list of both what my team recommends, what I have used over the years as well as some new pieces I downloaded for you to try on for size. Take this as a very brief introduction; find your songs, your classical lanterns and healers. Find your composition for what you are looking for right at this moment. Trust the composer you want to type in first, follow your fingers searching the web for their songs as they followed their fingers in composing the pieces for you.
Get still, take a breath. Allow, receive and accept and simply press play. You can follow the suggested meditation steps for each song or you can draw while you listen, clean while you listen…just let these rhythms inside your energy.
1. Healing and letting go. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
2. Shadow self work. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JcIyTiKwDvU Mozart concerto for clarinet in A major. List your five favorite qualities about yourself (kind, generous, independent, etc) and now write down the opposite of the five. These opposite five characteristics are your shadow side. Visualize a beautiful door, you hear a stirring behind it, knowing someone is on the other side, you feel calm and excited to open the door-feeling like an old friend is on the other side and as you open the door press play, this song will help you to meet your shadow, allow whatever to unfold, observe what it looks like, does it speak, does it want to talk or play, try and show love to your precious shadow as best as you can.
3. Embracing the growing process. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
4. Studying. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
Mozart K545 Sonata in C major.
5. Getting energized. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
E.S. posthumous Unstoppable. Focus on your main chi spot, your perineum; focus on its golden red energy. Picture a copper wire uncoiling, a rope unraveling.
6. Experiencing your I am moments. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
7. Hope. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
8. Dream your world into being. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
9. Path to spiritual partnerships. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
The Last of the Mohicans – Promontory (Theme). A spiritual partnership is not just romantic love; a spiritual partnership is a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. Visualize yourself walking down a river; you are walking with your feet in the river. Notice what’s around you, trees, flowers, day or night, is it cool or hot. As you walk notice the people and memories that you are walking past. With each person or memory you pass thank them/it, bless them/it, love them/it and keep walking down your river notice changes as you continue walking. Allow doors to close, speak, etc with each pause on the river, whatever feels in alignment. Notice your breath as you begin walking towards equal partnerships with the purpose of spiritual growth. Notice how the river moves as this point and your surroundings.
10. Needing answers, can’t turn off your mind. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
Antonio Vivaldi 9 Concertos for Transverse Flute,Kuijken. Before listening to this piece write the questions you need answered, worries, chatter down on paper, so they are not out wondering around in the ethers to be answered. When you write them down you ask them to be answered in the physical. It also helps keep your mind clear and clutter free of questions. Allow the answers to come, but maybe once the song is complete you won’t need them answered anymore.
11. When all the cards are on the table. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
Chopin.Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20.Idil Biret . Basically here it’s the gambler song, know when to hold em, know when to walk away, know when to run…. Ask divine wisdom to download into you during this song the perspective of the highest good for you.
A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder
To see a World in a Grain of Sand.” When William Blake wrote Auguries of Innocence, he could only imagine just what microscopic vistas are held by the billions of sand granules that clog our toes when we walk on a beach. In A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder, Gary Greenberg takes us to exotic locales in our larger world to explore extraordinary beauty witnessed on a microphotographic scale.
Maui Sand: This is a montage of Maui sand grains floating above a beach. The image is made up of 27 different photographs put together in Photoshop. (magnification 40X) [Link to this slide] Gary Greenberg
Star Sand: This star-shaped grain of sand is from a beach on Taketomi Island in Okinawa, Japan. The sand contains the remains of microscopic shells known as forams. (magnification 50X) [Link to this slide] Gary Greenberg
Namibia: Sand from Skeleton Coast in Namibia, Africa, contains well-rounded black magnetite, garnet and possibly a tiny diamond near the middle left of the frame. (magnification 250X) [Link to this slide] Gary Greenberg
Minnesota:
The glacially deposited sands around Lake Winnibigoshish, Minnesota contain abundant sediments from the igneous and metamorphic minerals of the Lake Superior basin….[More]
Six Sand Grains:
The tip of a spiral shell has broken off and become a grain of sand. This spiral sand grain has become opalescent in character after being repeatedly tumbled by the action of the surf. It is surrounded by five other sand grains made of (from noon clockwise): 1) a pink shell fragment; 2) a foram; 3) a microscopic shell; 4) a volcanic melt; and 5) a bit of coral. (magnification 200X) [Less] [Link to this slide] Gary Greenberg
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet themat the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~ Rumi~