{"id":3587,"date":"2013-08-14T10:45:30","date_gmt":"2013-08-14T09:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3587"},"modified":"2013-08-14T10:45:30","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T09:45:30","slug":"love-kindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/2013\/08\/love-kindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and Kindness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Liz Scott for this guest blog. <\/em>Liz is from ‘Liz Scott Coaching and Training’ and she has a vision to bring coaching to every UK school. \u00a0She has seen how leadership coaching and coaching skills training can transform communication and learning and wants to make coaching accessible to everyone in education. Contact Liz if you would like to be part of this vision\u00a0 http:\/\/www.lizscottcoaching.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

______________________________________________________________________________________________<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"We bumped into a neighbour the other day.\u00a0 He was off walking with a rucksack on his back.\u00a0 We live on the edge of Dartmoor, so were fully expecting him to tell us he was off for a day on the moors.\u00a0 With a cheerful smile he informed us he wasn\u2019t trekking across the moors, he was off to pick up some litter.\u00a0 He had noticed some rubbish in the hedgerow whilst driving home and he had decided to set out to pick it up.\u00a0 His cheerful expression and complete lack of blame or grumbling were both a surprise and delight.<\/p>\n

It is amazing how a simple story like this can be inspiring.\u00a0 My husband and I left him and continued our walk feeling really inspired about what he was off to do.\u00a0 We often complain to each other that people leave litter, however, we don\u2019t do anything about it ourselves. Small gestures can have a big impact.<\/p>\n

Then the other day I received a book out of the blue.\u00a0 It arrived in the post from a friend.\u00a0 She had accidently ordered two copies – rather than ask for her money back she popped the spare copy in the post and it landed up on my doormat. There is nothing so lovely as a complete surprise.\u00a0 To make it even sweeter, I was going through a bit of a rough patch and the book was on a subject that lifted my spirits.<\/p>\n

The Dalai Lama bases his whole philosophy on kindness.\u00a0 Whereas many of us are complicating our lives, he seems have a very simple outlook.\u00a0 He says, \u201cThis is my religion.\u00a0 There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.\u00a0 Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what is an act of kindness?\u00a0 After a bit of Internet research I found many examples and they were varied.\u00a0 There were people giving big tips to needy waitresses \u2013 other people returning lost wallets, with the money inside.\u00a0 Sometimes the story is very simple, a man rushing off a tube train to return a glove to its owner, or a stray dog being fed and given a loving home.\u00a0\u00a0 There are probably thousands of acts of kindness that happen every day and they all make a difference.<\/p>\n

An act of kindness is like a throwing a stone in a pond.\u00a0 The act itself can be quite small, but the ripple effects can have a bit impact.\u00a0 This is particularly true in the story of Billy Ray Harris.\u00a0 He was a homeless man in the US and spent his day collecting change from people passing by.\u00a0 At the end of this particular day, when he went to count up his money he found a diamond ring which had accidently fallen in to his collecting cup.\u00a0 He went to get the ring valued (it was worth about $4000) but rather than sell it, he decided to try and reunite it with its owner.\u00a0 Sarah had never expected to see the ring again. She didn\u2019t even know how or where she had lost it.\u00a0 She was amazed and delighted when Billy Ray returned it to her.<\/p>\n

The ripple effect of this story is that Sarah and her fianc\u00e9e were so touched by the honesty of Billy Ray, that they set up a collection for him, which raised nearly $200,000 \u2013 enough money to get him off the street and reunite him with his family.<\/p>\n

There is a quote by Aesop, which says: \u201cNo act of kindness, not matter how small, is ever wasted.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s worth remembering how powerful a small act of kindness actually is.<\/p>\n

Life isn\u2019t made of grand gestures; it is made of small consistent kindnesses.\u00a0 It is so important to never forget the power of a smile, or a hello or a helping hand.<\/p>\n

*******<\/p>\n

I found an old love poem the other day.\u00a0 I had written it as a teenager \u2013 I can no longer remember who it was about!\u00a0 However at the time I was obviously smitten (although he never reciprocated my advances).\u00a0 It made me wonder about this thing called love.<\/p>\n

What is love?\u00a0 It is a question I asked my husband as he peeled potatoes one night.\u00a0 He looked at me and said wisely; \u201cIt is nothing and it is everything.\u201d\u00a0 I asked him what he meant and he went on to explain.<\/p>\n

He said that it\u2019s nothing in sense of being anything tangible you can hold; love isn\u2019t a physical entity. Yet it is the thing that makes us alive and brings everything to life. .\u00a0 He went on to say that it doesn\u2019t matter about the weather, politics, stresses or other challenges; if love is embedded in your life then actually you have got everything.<\/p>\n

I was slightly taken aback by his response. I\u2019m not sure I could have been so eloquent had I been asked the same question.\u00a0 Love is a funny thing.\u00a0 Thousands of songs, films and books have been written about it and yet it is quite an elusive concept.<\/p>\n

You may not think that \u2018love\u2019 would be much talked about in the cut and thrust of football.\u00a0 However, Plymouth Argyle\u2019s new coaching appointment, John Harbin, is clear that love is at the heart of his coaching philosophy.\u00a0 In an interview he said, \u201cThe one thing I know is that if you love the people you work with, you play with, you live with then you\u2019ll achieve more. The ruthless businessman will laugh at what I say, but the bottom line is the only people you\u2019ll die for are you family, so I think love is the greatest motivator in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Harbin goes on to say that he treats the players first as human beings and secondly as footballers.<\/p>\n

I rather like John Harbin\u2019s ideas.\u00a0 What would it be like if we placed love at the heart of everything we did?\u00a0 What if it wasn\u2019t just something we kept exclusively for friends and family?<\/p>\n

I wonder what businesses would be like if they had love at the forefront of their philosophy.\u00a0 Love isn\u2019t something to be embarrassed about.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t a pink and fluffy concept for tree huggers.\u00a0 Love is a vital and elemental part of human nature.\u00a0 I wonder if the time is right for more people to be brave and talk about love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Liz Scott for this guest blog. Liz is from ‘Liz Scott Coaching and Training’ and she has a vision to bring coaching to every UK school. \u00a0She has seen how leadership coaching and coaching skills training can transform communication and learning and wants to make coaching accessible to everyone in education. Contact Liz if you would like to be part of this vision\u00a0 http:\/\/www.lizscottcoaching.com ______________________________________________________________________________________________ We bumped into a neighbour the other day.\u00a0 He was off walking with a rucksack on his back.\u00a0 We live on the edge of Dartmoor, so were fully expecting him to tell <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[544],"tags":[1426,1462],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9xvDN-VR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}