Step 1: Get up. Go to a mirror. Look into said mirror.
Step 2: Observe everything about yourself. Withhold judgement as best you can. Do your best to remain objective and not fixate.
Step 3: Say these words to yourself, "I am my own person. With enough time, effort, patience, and love I can become anything that I want. My actions, thoughts, and feelings are my own. No one else's."
Step 4: Get a piece of paper and pen. Write down a few interactions with people you have recently had over the past few weeks. Write down things you liked and did not like about each interaction. Anything that you said, thought, or felt.
This next part can be difficult. I know that is was for me.
Step 5: Upon writing and reading this list, say to your self, "I take personal responsibility for everything on this list. These are my thoughts, my words, my actions, and my feelings."
Step 6: Challenge yourself to go back through the list again and think "Where could I have injected kindness into these situations? What could i have done to show compassion to everyone, myself included, involved in these situations?"
Kindness is not weak. It is the strongest, bravest thing you could possibly attempt. When we come up to our personal issues they can seem like an impenetrable wall. Kindess is the grappling hook we use to scale the wall. Anytime you start feeling down on yourself, ask "What can I do right for someone that I care about? How can I make someone else happy?" You can send a nice text. You can give someone a ride. You can do someone's dishes or mow their lawn. You can simply ask someone about themselves and reeeeally listen. Do something without expecting something in return. Discover the joy of altruism.
It is impossible to be generous, useful, AND unhappy all at the same time. Every human has remarkable capacity. Every human can be a superhero to someone.
