How Kindness Changed My Life
//Beautiful Kindness – Matthew Kelly – Life is Messy//
Life is Messy – The #1 Reason You are Unhappy
“There are four aspects to the human person: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
Physically, when you exercise regularly, sleep regularly, eat the right sorts of foods, and balance your diet, how do you feel? You feel fantastic. You feel more fully alive. You’re healthier, happier, and you have a richer, more abundant experience of life.
Emotionally, when you give focus and priority to your relationships, what happens? You switch the focus off yourself and onto others. As you do, your ability to love increases… and as your ability to love increases, your ability to be loved increases. You become more aware of yourself, develop a more balanced view of life, and experience a deeper sense of fulfillment. You’re healthier and you’re happier.
Intellectually, when you take ten or fifteen minutes a day to read a good book, what happens? Your vision of yourself expands; your vision of the world expands. You become more focused, more alert, and more vibrant. Clarity replaces confusion. You feel more fully alive, and you are happier.
Finally, spiritually, when you take a few moments each day to step into the classroom of silence and reconnect with yourself and with your God, what happens? The gentle voice within grows stronger, and you develop a deeper sense of peace, purpose, and direction. You’re healthier, you’re happier, and you have a richer experience of life.
Physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, we know the things that infuse our lives with passion and enthusiasm. We know the things that make us happy. We just don’t do them.
It doesn’t make sense, does it?
On the one hand, we all want to be happy. On the other hand, we all know the things that make us happy. But we don’t do those things. Why? Simple. We are too busy. Too busy doing what? Too busy trying to be happy.
This is the paradox of happiness that has bewitched our age.
Perhaps it is time to slow down. Maybe a better future involves less rather than more.”
Life is Messy – When the Problems of the World Overwhelm You
“The world is a mess… again. The news each day brings news of war and famine, destruction and dehumanization, people behaving like animals and people being treated like animals. All of this can lead us to experience stress, anxiety, depression, and a general feeling of being overwhelmed.
The problems of the world are a summons to reassess the way we are living our lives and an invitation to participate in the much-needed situations.
Feeling overwhelmed makes us feel helpless, but we are not helpless. None of us. Ever. There is always something we can do to improve our situation and the situation of others. It may seem small, but even small efforts radically alter our psychological, emotional, and spiritual health.
When the problems of the world overwhelm you do something besides worry.”
Life is Messy – The #1 Reason You Are Unhappy
“There are four aspects to the human person: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
Physically, when you exercise regularly, sleep regularly, eat the right sorts of foods, and balance your diet, how do you feel? You feel fantastic. You feel more fully alive. You’re healthier, happier, and you have a richer, more abundant experience of life.
Emotionally, when you give focus and priority to your relationships, what happens? You switch the focus off yourself and onto others. As you do, your ability to love increases… and as your ability to love increases, your ability to be loved increases. You become more aware of yourself, develop a more balanced view of life, and experience a deeper sense of fulfillment. You’re healthier and you’re happier.
Intellectually, when you take ten or fifteen minutes a day to read a good book, what happens? Your vision of yourself expands; your vision of the world expands. You become more focused, more alert, and more vibrant. Clarity replaces confusion. You feel more fully alive, and you are happier.
Finally, spiritually, when you take a few moments each day to step into the classroom of silence and reconnect with yourself and with your God, what happens? The gentle voice within grows stronger, and you develop a deeper sense of peace, purpose, and direction. You’re healthier, you’re happier, and you have a richer experience of life.
Physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, we know the things that infuse our lives with passion and enthusiasm. We know the things that make us happy. We just don’t do them.
It doesn’t make sense, does it?
On the one hand, we all want to be happy. On the other hand, we all know the things that make us happy. But we don’t do those things. Why? Simple. We are too busy. Too busy doing what? Too busy trying to be happy. This is the paradox of happiness that has bewitched our age.
Perhaps it is time to slow down. Maybe a better future involves less rather than more.”
Life is Messy – How to Change Your Situation
“Life is choices. This is a great truth and a hard lesson. It is a great truth because it reminds us of our power. Not power over others, but the often untapped power to be ourselves and to live the life we have imagined.
It is a hard lesson, because it causes us to realize that we have chosen the life we are living right now. It is perhaps frightening for us to think that we have chosen to live our life as it is today. Frightening because we may not like what we find when we look at our lives today. But it is also liberating, because we can now begin to choose what we will find when we look at our life in the tomorrows that lie unlived before us.
What will you see when you look at your life ten years from now? What will you choose? Life is choices.
You have chosen to live this day. You have chosen to watch this video. You have chosen to live in a certain city. You have chosen to believe certain ideas. You have chosen the people you call friends.
You choose the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and the thoughts you think. You choose to be calm or restless, you choose to feel appreciative or ungrateful. Love is a choice. Anger is a choice. Fear is a choice. Courage is a choice. You choose.
Sometimes we choose the-best-version-of-ourselves, and some- times we choose a-second-rate-version-of-ourselves. Learn to master the moment of decision and you will live a life uncommon.
Life is choices. Most people never fully accept this truth. They spend their lives arguing for their weaknesses, complaining about their lot in life, or blaming other people.
We choose, and in doing so, we design our lives.”
Life is Messy: 5 Ways To ELEVATE Your Life This Summer – Matthew Kelly
“Spring is here and summer is right around the corner, and I love summer. So, I have been thinking about how I would like to improve my life this summer. I have come up with five things. I am not suggesting these be your five, but I want to encourage you to come up with your own five. Here are five ways I am going to strive to improve this summer:
1. Eat Healthier. More fruits and vegetables.
2. Move. Get up and get out and move around… walk swim, run, jump, dance.
3. Get to Bed Earlier. We all know how important sleep is to our physical, emotional, and spiritual health… but we are quick to neglect it.
4. Check email less. One distraction upon another is preventing me from giving my best energy to the things that matter most.
5. Connect with old friends. It’s been too long. I am going to seek out a couple of old friends this summer.
What 5 things will you do to improve your life this summer. Not sure what to focus on? Remember, our lives only really improve when we improve as human beings. So, once you make your list ask yourself: Will each of these help me become a-better-version-of-myself?”
Life is Messy – Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?
“We can all be our own worst enemies from time to time. We all find unique ways to sabotage our own happiness and success. Let’s take a look at six ways you may be sabotaging yourself and what you an do about them.
#1. You Have Stopped Dreaming. Your dreams are yours for a reason. When we stop dreaming, we become disengaged from every aspect of life, we lose our enthusiasm, and we start dying a little bit each day.
#2. Negative Self-Talk. How you talk to yourself has more impact on your life than how anyone else talks to you. But you may have picked up negative self-talk from the way your parents, siblings, or friends talked to you when you were young. So you might have been carrying around a bunch of HeadTrash or many years. It’s time to take out the trash and learn how to speak to yourself in a healthy way.
#3. The Victim Mentality. Blaming others and our circumstances are excuses we all call on from time to time. Learning how to make the most of a negative situation is critical life-skill.
#4. Lack of a Plan. Napoleon observed, “Those who fail to plan can plan to fail.” Without a plan we cannot reasonably expect our lives to improve.
#5. Impulse Control. Our addiction to instant gratification has eroded our impulse control and this is essential to succeed in any area of life: relationships, career, personal finances, health and wellness, spirituality, parenting…
#6. Focusing on the Past. You are more than what has happened to you. You are more than the worst thing you have ever done. Do not let your past determine your future. It is time to chart a new path.
These are six ways we all sabotage ourselves from time to time. The number one reason we don’t get beyond self-sabotage is because we don’t have the encouragement and accountability that are critical.
Today I want to invite you to invest in yourself by collaborating with one of our amazing life coaches.
Your coach will help you to put together a plan for your bigger, better future. Your coach will help you defeat these self-sabotaging behaviors. And your coach will help you to start achieving your dreams again!
Your dreams are your dreams for a reason… click here to learn more about our life-changing coaching experiences. And remember, don’t just be yourself, be the-best-version-of-yourself!”
Life is Messy – Impulse Control
“In 1972, researchers at Stanford university conducted a study that has become famously known as the Marshmallow Test. Children were offered a reward, a treat of the child’s choosing, which was placed on the desk in front of them. But they were also offered the option of receiving two rewards if they waited to consume the treat until the researchers retuned 15 minutes later.
Since that time, hundreds of similar studies have been conducted, some over long periods of time, and have determined that impulse control has an enormous impact on the quality of a person’s life.
People with the ability to control their impulses are more independent, have more friends, make better choices, perform better in school, exercise more regularly, have more success professionally, are significantly less likely to participate in dangerous and self-destructive risky behavior, develop broader vocabularies, have happier and longer primary relationships, feel more confident and have higher levels of self-esteem.
What exactly is impulse control? The ability to control the desire for immediate gratification.
So, how would you rate your own impulse control? Are you an impulsive person? Are you becoming more impulsive? Is impulsivity a problem for you?
There are very few people in our society who are not experiencing increasing levels of impulsivity and all the soul-destroying consequences that flow from it. What is impulsivity? Impulsivity is rapid, unplanned, reactions to internal or external stimuli, with diminished regard for the negative consequences for yourself or others.
What is causing this rise of impulsivity in our culture? The culprit is in your pocket or purse. The smartphones that are making us dumb are driving impulsivity through the roof.
Impulse control and the ability to delay gratification are essential ingredients if we want to flourish and live life to the fullest. Your phone is robbing you of your impulse control. If you think that’s not true, try to ignore it when it rings, beeps, vibrates, sends a notification, or any of the many other things it does to distract you from what you are actually doing.
Ignore your phone at least once a day. This habit alone will increase your impulse control, and everything improves as our impulse control grows.”
Life is Messy – Guilt is Good?
“Guilt is good. I am not saying we should go looking for it or try to increase the amount of guilt in our lives, but the natural emergence of guilt within us has a purpose… and is good for us.
When you do something that you know is morally or ethically wrong, guilt is a good thing. It is the-best-version-of-yourself encouraging you to return to the right path. If you didn’t feel guilty in these situations it would be a sign of moral bankruptcy or sociopathic behavior.
No surprise that moral bankruptcy and sociopathic behavior are on the rise in a culture that encourages people to do whatever they want to do and celebrates moral relativism and situational ethics at every turn.
It is also interesting to note that more and more people describe themselves as feeling stuck in our culture. When we are not in touch with appropriate guilt, we do not receive the corrective direction we need to set life back on the right track. Without this corrective direction we remain stuck.
Sadly, when we remove something that has a very specific purpose from our lives it is usually replaced by a destructive imitation of that good and purposeful thing. In the case of guilt, we have replaced it with shame.
Shame is a useless emotion, because it feeds off itself and relishes itself. One thing above all else will prevent you from getting unstuck: shame. Beware shame. Enduring shame is like falling in love with being stuck.
Stuck is often the result of shame when what we should be processing is a little bit of healthy course-correcting guilt.
It is good to feel guilt when we do something wrong, because that guilt is simply trying to get us back on the life-giving right path. Guilt is good for us. Not endlessly or all the time, but guilt serves a purpose in our journey and it is a mistake to try and avoid it at all costs… because those costs ultimately lead to loss of self.”
Life is Messy – Do Something to Fall in Love With Life Again
“Do you love your life? Take some time to think about that today. Resist the temptation to rush to judgement. Sit with the question, really sit with it.
If the answer is yes, great, but test your answer. What is it that you love about your life? Is it your family and friends, things you have done or adventures you are looking forward to, lessons you have learned and people who helped you learn them? Perhaps it is the sheer gift of life itself? Or the Giver of the gift?
If you sit with the question and come to the conclusion that you don’t love your life, that’s okay. Coming to that realization sooner rather than later is highly preferable. Now, the question becomes, what are you going to do about it? Plenty of people wake up one day and realize they don’t love their lives. Few do something about it. Decide right now to be one of the few.
Do something today to fall in love with life again.”