In 1997, a variety of international humanitarians and organizations came together with a shared goal of championing kindness in society. Calling themselves the World Kindness Movement, their first order of business was to establish World Kindness Day on November 13 of every year. This year, in 2020. World Kindness Day will be celebrated in over 28 countries, including US, UK, Canada, India, Italy and more.
At Sun & Moon, we’ve been practicing kindness since we opened our community-supported doors in 1994.
We believe that a regular yoga practice helps us live from our true nature of loving kindness. As Rodney Yee talked about during his November visit with Sun & Moon last year, working to go deeper inside oneself is key to increasing connection and reducing loneliness in this world—to touch infinity is to touch the human condition, which fosters empathy and compassion.
After all, kindness and its internal engine, compassion, are the strongest of all human instincts. Charles Darwin himself and today's leading evolutionary thinkers still agree that our survival for the last million years was most likely predicated on our ability to feel compassion for and cooperate with others. In short, we evolved to be kind.
In 2020, we need kindness more than ever—kindnesses bestowed to us and by us. It feels good for a reason. Cultivating kindness and compassion calms our nervous system, slows our heart rate, and stimulates the release of oxytocin to create a positive feedback loop. Along the way, kindness builds resilience against stress by increasing overall vagal tone and reducing reactivity in our amygdala, the smoke alarm in our brain that tends to react more to smoke than fire in modern life.
Behaving kindly also changes the way we see ourselves. The positive increase in self-concept opens our heart to a wider community and increases our generosity, altruism, and sense of inter-connectedness. On the receiving end, kindness can travel up to three degrees in a social network—that’s half-way to Kevin Bacon!
So how do we set ourselves up for kindness? Like most things, environment and culture plays a big role, which is why the World Kindness Movement organized in the first place. Social scientists across the country and world are also leading the charge, such as Berkley’s Greater Good Science Center, University of Wisconsin’s Healthy Minds and UCLA’s Kindness Institute. And of course, Sun & Moon's Hatha yoga’s classes will help you cultivate kindness and compassion, both on and off the mat and for yourself and others.
So help us celebrate World Kindness Day. Small or big, one-time or on-going, opportunities for kindness are everywhere. Smile when you walk by others, call a family member or friend you haven’t spoken to in a while, hold the door open for someone, pick up trash or litter when you see it, plant a tree, donate to a social justice organization, practice gratitude or volunteer.
And then on November 14th and every day after, keep being kind. ️
~ Chrissy Boylan
