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Kindness Warriors

The Boomerang Effects of Kindness

When I’m sad, I find doing an act of kindness for someone gives me a considerable amount of joy. By writing a letter, baking and delivering cookies or just calling a distant relative initiates happy thoughts. It chases those “poor me” thoughts out of my head. Spreading kindness is always a win for both the receiver and the giver.

Then, there are those really rough, terrible days when you need to know someone cares, you need a friend to hold your hand and a sister to give you a hug. Peggy Onwiler, founder of Sister Hugs, has taken this message to the next level and is this month’s Kindness Warrior Award winner. Many people contribute to the success of Sister Hugs, including Peggy’s friend, Marilyn, who has been with her every step of the way, and Mary who puts most of the inspirational posts on Facebook.

Sister Hugs’ mission is “To brighten a day, to spread a hug. We cannot fix, but we can improve a little bit.” They live their mission by delivering “Love Bombs.” The concept is when someone opens their gift; they are literally “bombed” with love. How fun to put such a positive twist on a negative. Sister Hugs first “Love Bomb” was delivered on July 5, 2012. Sister Hugs has since delivered over 700 Love Bombs all across the country. If you know someone that is going through a difficult time, someone that needs to know that others care, you can nominate them for a Love Bomb. No judgement just kindness.

Sister Hugs is a community of almost 10,000 on Facebook. They further connect people by fundraising for Sister Hugs. There is no better way to connect people than with the mission to spread kindness. It is a village effort with contribution from so many.

If you are in the Lincoln, Nebraska area why not plan to attend Sister Hugs “Spring Fling?” The “Spring Fling” is a first step to taking Sister Hugs to a new level. Peggy states: “Our spring fling is going to be held on April 14 and is a fundraiser for our next phase, “Nana’s Place”. This has been a long-time dream to have a physical address for Sister Hugs. and to create a comfort zone for people to go, to share, to spead time with others. When we think about the Norman Rockwell “Grandma’s House”, we think about cooking together, gardening together, hanging out together, grandma rocking the baby while mom gets some breathing time…all things that can get lost in today’s busy world. We want a place where people can go for a hug and a cup of coffee. Love will be plentiful, judgement left at the door. Our world needs us to act on this today.”

The amazing fact about kindness is that it is a win-win for both the giver and the receiver. As Peggy states, “Everyone who has ever delivered a Love Bomb or been connected to a project always talks about the fact that they end up receiving way more than they give. We refer to that as the boomerang effect. Everyone connected talks about what it does for their heart and how much they want to do it again.”

The boomerang effect is what chases your sadness away when you do something kind. Why not deliver your own Kindness Bomb to today? Perhaps, if you are too busy, Sister Hugs can pick up the baton and relay your kindness for you.

Thank you, Sister Hugs, for your passion and ability to mobilize a community to spread kindness to those that need a hug, to connect others together for great causes, and your positive Facebook messages. A Kindness Warrior is someone who uses love to change the world and someone who champions kindness in all they do. You are a true Kindness Warrior, an inspiration to us all! Thank you, Peggy, for your vision, your passion, and being a true kindness champion.

To find out more about Sister Hugs, follow their Facebook Page by clicking here.

Staying in Touch: Barbara Hirsh can be reached at info@LiveKinder.com  I love hearing your kindness stories.  Please sign-up for almost weekly kindness message at www.LiveKinder.com or follow LiveKinder on Facebook! 

Kindness Warrior Inception

In a previous post, I awarded my first “Kindness Warrior Award.”  I thought you might like to know how that award became to be.  The following post was written over a year ago and now I am finally brave enough to post it.

I love hiking in beautiful places.  So, I talked my husband into hiking to Boynton Pass when we were in Sedona, Arizona.  It was not a long hike but one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever experienced, right up there with the hike on the island of Capri. My secret motive was to better understand vortexes and see if I could feel it. 

As we were climbing up to the Boynton Pass, we met two couples that we had shared a jeep ride with earlier that day. They asked if we could feel the vortex and at the moment all I could feel was the beating of my heart in my head from the upward climb to that point.  I returned the question and she said, “No, even though I tried to be open.” 

 I went to the top of the knoll with no expectations and started really looking at all the twisted juniper trees. Strange how the trees are only twisted in the vortex areas and that the juniper trees grow straight in other areas. Then, I realized how many years in took for the trees to show the effect of the energy vortex. It took years to be twisted. I realized most people won’t be able to feel the energy in just five minutes in the knoll.

So I sat down, partly to lower my heart rate and partly to be grateful for the chance to be there.  Vortex or not, it was one of the most beautiful places on earth.  I thought how lucky the Native Americans were to live and be in nature and not work in cubicles.   Prehistoric Indians made this area of Sedona home thousands of years ago.  Boynton Canyon is still sacred to the Yavapai Native Americans who consider Boynton as their place of origin. As I sat there and meditated I was surrounded by Native American chiefs (in spirit) there to help heal me.  I was hoping they were there to heal my sinus / ear infection, but that was not their mission.

The Boynton vortex is known to balance the feminine and masculine energy.  They explained they were there to help my spiritual side strengthen, so I would have the strength to publish my kindness blog. They explained my soul story is one of a warrior and that I should not think of warrior as a bad, evil person but a strong person wanting to make a better world. They suggest choosing the wording of “kindness warriors” over ” kindness ambassadors”, and that is the origin of my kindness warrior program. My mission is to use masculine traits to bring about more feminine traits into the world.

I could have stayed there all day but I pushed it as long as I could with my husband. I was happy for the half hour plus.  Going down the mountain was so much easier, having gravity in your favor.

I realized that feeling the vortex is correlated to how we deal with everyday life.  In our society, we want the instant energy “feel”, but it doesn’t really work that way for most of us; we have to slow down to raise our awareness and to feel God’s loving energy.  It is about us meeting the loving vortex energy on its level and taking the time to really experience it. There is just too much inferences in our society’s thinking to feel the energy for most of us.  You have to take the time to allow it to seep into our hard shells.  So, no, I really didn’t feel the energy as most people expect but I did get clarity on how to proceed with this blog.  What a wonderful gift.   I feel so honored, to have experience such love and peace.  Peace is the vortex “real” feel.

Staying in Touch: Barbara Hirsh can be reached at info@LiveKinder.com  I love hearing your kindness stories.  Please sign-up for a weekly kindness message at www.LiveKinder.com or follow LiveKinder on Facebook!

How Does Your Life Define Who You Are?

I love biographies.  It is fascinating how people discover their current path.  Some people use their past as an excuse; not Nicole.  Her childhood was far from ideal.  You can read about Nicole on her website here.  She overcame her childhood to graduate from the University of Wisconsin, to become Miss Wisconsin, to be a news anchor,  and a newspaper columnist.  This is a very impressive list of accomplishments when you consider her troubled beginning. Many times we have very little control over what happens to us but we can control how we react to it.  We determine whether our circumstances control us or we overcome them.  We make the choice.

Thank goodness Nicole made the choice to live in kindness and report on kindness in her newspaper column and kindness blog.  You can tell from her stories she has a caring heart, but her influence goes far beyond her friends, she is a true kindness advocate. She is changing the world with her kindness reporting.

In her own words:  “When I close my eyes, I see all of the people on Earth standing and staring at the sky. Only they aren’t looking at the real sky, they are looking at a huge black tarp blacking out the light. Each time someone does an act of kindness, a tiny pin size hole is poked into that big, black tarp, allowing in a speck of light. Someone notices the light and does another act of kindness, creating yet another little hole. Someone sees that new light, realizes what is happening and starts creating more little openings for a light through their own acts of kindness. I see my job, through writing a column, as pushing my fingernails through those pin-sized holes and ripping them open with all of my might. I want to let in as much light as possible by drawings attention to the acts of kindness being done”

Nicole is inspiring us by helping us see the light of kindness.  Everyday we can be depressed and feel we can’t make a difference in the world or we can can get up and go make a difference, like Nicole.

Being a kindness champion is not an easy task, as some may think.  Grousing in negativity is easy, to hate, to fear, or to give up that is the easy way out for way too many.  To fight for love, peace and kindness in our world takes a special person and that is why I am honoring Nicole Phillips, as the first Kindness Warrior.  Nicole’s blog has influenced many and gave me the courage to expand my own kindness mission, Live Kinder.

What makes Nicole so powerful is her authenticity. She isn’t a super hero but one of us.  We all have struggles that make life difficult.  For Nicole, it was breast cancer.  We can let our adversity swallow our better self or we can become a kindness warrior, like Nicole.  Again, it is not so much what happens to you but how you react to it that determines who you really are. Thank you, Nicole, for letting us see your struggles, your courage, your negativity, your wins, and especially your kindness.  By being authentic, you inspire us to live a little kinder by giving us hope.

This week’s questions to ponder:

  • Does your past hold you back or does is it making you stronger? 
  • Do you believe you can make a difference in your own life and in the world?

To learn more:

If you would like to read Nicole’s articles. I would suggest, “Kindness is Courageous,” 100 of her favorite newspaper articles on kindness or follow her on Facebook.

Staying in Touch: Barbara Hirsh can be reached at info@LiveKinder.com  I love hearing your kindness stories.  Please sign-up for a weekly kindness message at www.LiveKinder.com or follow LiveKinder on Facebook!