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Spontaneous Acts Of Kindness In London With MyPosted by Trishna Shah on Nov 17, 2015
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At a personal level for me, it was a magical hour of being fully present and opening our hearts to everyone passing by, to share the love and kindness we were cultivating with others, and what a gift it was to do this together in the company of noble friends! In a conversation with Uncle Nimo (as Sareena endearingly refers to Nimo) and I on our way back home, here's how Sareena summed up her experience (which probably is true for many of us as well the first time we did something like this) :)
Others who joined in also shared lovely reflections about their experiences:
"I decided to offer free hugs in the end in memory of my friend... I felt vulnerable opening my arms to complete strangers it was difficult to do, I pushed myself to do it although it felt uncomfortable. There was a lot of rejection and there was also openness to the experience. I was aware that if I was on the other side I to would react with unease and maybe not hug a random person. All sorts of biases and judgments were coming up for me in terms of who to hug and not to hug, I tried to be as open as I could be to be inclusive of all and put myself out there. What I found was, the more I did it the easier I found to keep doing it. Although it is intense and exhausting to have the energy to hug people for an hour. I realised that I needed to be in an upbeat state to give good energy to others, I thanked everyone that hugged me and they thanked me as well. I noticed the missing human connection that we all need. Hugging is an art difficult to match like a handshake. I got some great hugs and felt very alive and energised in the experience."
"I spent a lot of the evening distracted from my work day and the prospect of continuing working later. Seeing the number of people who stopped to chat or just smiled and received hugs was uplifting and eventually I stopped clock watching and tried to be more present. I was struck by the persistence of the huggers and Sareena's enthusiasm was so infectious! I noticed I was smiling almost constantly and although a few people walked by almost unaffected I realised it didn't really matter. I could do this for me and if it improves anyones day then that's a bonus. I've since added kindness reminders to my day to reinforce the idea."
Most of us were so refreshed from this experience that we want to continue organising these spontaneous acts of kindness events going forward every month or two to cultivate this deeper sense of unconditionally kindness in our own hearts. As always, so grateful to the ServiceSpace ecosystem for planting seeds and inspiring even the littlest people in our community to practice kindness :)
Posted by Trishna Shah | | permalink