“No act of kindness, no matter how small is every wasted.”
Aesop
Do you ever wonder how some people seem to glide through life whilst others struggle? Have you ever bestowed an act of kindness, without the need for some kind of compensation or gratitude in return?
Karma has been defined as “the sum of your actions in this and previous states of existence, which decide your fate in future existences.”
The idea of karma first evolved in Hinduism. The Upanishads were fascinated by questions about our existence, why we are born, why do we die and what happens to us after death. The Hindu God Krishna emphasises the importance of “doing good deeds without being focused on the reward” in the ancient Bhagavad Gita texts. They saw karma being linked with reincarnation. Any deed or act that you choose to take during your life will have future consequences in this life and the next. A good deed will bring more good into your life, just as a bad deed will bring more bad into your life.
What is kind karma?
Kind karma focuses on your heart. Your purpose is life is not goal oriented, its not to list your achievements, its not public recognition or how others perceive you….its when you choose to act out of kindness and understanding without expecting anything in return.
Kind karma is the positive contribution you make in the world, whilst removing your own ego or need for gratification from the equation.
Kind karma can take many different forms. It can be something as simple as holding a door open for someone, smiling at them or helping them when they fall.
Karma, itself is a law of neutrality, neither good or bad. Our decisions and how we choose to react to situations can, however, influence our karma. Kind karma can increase your empathy and awareness of others, for example, many years ago I was walking home in the rain, soaked through, when a stranger I had never met, came up to me and without a word gave me his umbrella and walked on. I’ve always remembered his kind deed because it completely turned my day around and it taught me the importance of small acts of kindness. Sometimes all someone needs is a smile, a compliment, a bunch of flowers or anything you can think of to turn their day around and help them to feel more positive.
Even in the most problematic of moments, how a person is reacting, is simply a mirror into their souls, highlighting what they have experienced in the past or what they are going through at that moment. Kind karma allows you to remove your own ego and feelings from the situation and just see a person who is hurting and needs support, for example, I had a friend who kept lashing out, reacting aggressively in social situations. When I first met him, he was a lot of fun. A year or two later, we were all shocked by his angry outbursts. It was only when we removed our egos and our own feelings of being slighted or lashed out at, that we spoke to him and realised he was experiencing PTSD from a traumatic experience. It made me realise he just needed support and understanding.
How can I achieve kind karma?
Achieving kind karma is easy! Practicing good karma daily will rewrite your future, so that you only receive good. Remember the more kindness and consideration we give and put out in the world, the more we heal ourselves and all those around us.
The Universe also sends you back the vibration you are sending out so even a small act of kind karma will result in additional abundance and blessings flowing into your life.
Practice kind karma by following our four easy steps:
Be kind always
Being kind doesn’t have to be a chore. Consider it as a way to empower you. Empathy is the key to kindness. Empathy develops through the Mirror Neuron System in our brains. Using social cues we base our our facial expressions and body language, on what we see around us.
Studies have indicated that people who have strong traits of agreeableness and conscientiousness are more empathic, whilst more narcissistic personality types tend to struggle with empathy.
To practice kind karma, refine your empathy skills by practicing this awareness exercise:
Think about an empathic person you know in your life. Their empathic qualities probably include being good at really listening to what others have to say. They usually pick up on how other people are feeling and people often go to them for advice or to discuss any problems they might have.
Now think about a person who lacks empathy in your life. They are usually critical of other people, have a hard time forgiving. They also struggle to listen to others and can have a tendency to play the victim. They prefer to interact on a superficial level because they struggle with emotional situations and/or tend to talk about themselves and their issues most of the time.
Now sit and be honest with yourself. List any of the qualities you think you need to work on to become more empathic.
Finally take 5 minutes a day to actively listen to other peoples difficulties. Sometimes it’s only when we take some time out from ourselves and listen that we realise what is happening in other peoples lives.
Repeat this exercise each week and you will start to practice kind karma by honing your empathy skills.
Love yourself
We all have a tendency to lean towards distorted thinking about ourselves. These core beliefs are negative thoughts and assumptions we have about ourselves and the world around us. Distorted thinking is normal, we all do it. Learning to recognise your triggers and love yourself will make you more aware of others and become more open to recognising that each person deserves to be loved.
Try this core beliefs exercise to identify your triggers:
Take some time were you won’t be disturbed. Take some time and think about what negative thinking patterns you unconsciously do. Be honest with yourself, often we tend to overlap with a few cognitive distortions.
Cognitive distortions include:
All or nothing thinking Over generalisation. Catastrophizing
Personalisation. Labelling Discounting the Positive
Mind reading. Emotional Reasoning. Jumping to conclusions
Should and must statements
Definitions of each of these cognitive distortions are available in our Writing in a Journal article:
Next, think about where your core beliefs come from? Is it a parent’s voice? Could it be a sibling, friend or ex who undermined and belittled you?
Then begin to change how you view yourself. Whenever you hear the negative voice in your head, stop, take a breath and tell yourself a positive affirmation, for example, if the voice is telling you that you are a failure, change it to “I am amazing. I am incredibly successful. Everything I do becomes a success because I love myself. I love being me.”
Kind karma extends to yourself as well. It is only through processing our negative thoughts and emotions, our fears that we can heal ourselves and offer our best selves to the world. As well as practicing kind karma with others, practice kind karma with yourself once a week. Do one thing that makes you become in tune and love yourself more.
Read our article on Self Love for more tips and techniques:
Forgive yourself and others
Forgiveness is liberating. Learning to forgive yourself and others will encourage you to grow as a person. Releasing the anger and resentment that you felt towards someone who wronged you will not condone their actions but it will free you from the bitterness and hatred that weighed you down. Forgiveness is about realising everyone makes mistakes.
Try this forgiveness exercise:
Write down something you or someone else did wrong. Journalling through free writing is an excellent way to help you get everything out that you have been suppressing. Next think about one positive outcome from this mistake or event. if you are struggling to think of any, think about what you might need to do positively to move on from this situation.
Protect yourself through self care
Kind karma doesn’t mean sacrificing your mental health for other people. It took me a long time to realise being kind only works if you establish firm boundaries with others, for example, when I was younger I used to feel immense guilt if I didn’t say yes, listen to or help everyone I came into contact with. It was only when a friend turned to me one day and said, “you’re so easy to rant to“, that I realised, I was giving my own energy away to ‘energy vampires.’
Protecting yourself through self care is essential if you are going to practice kind karma. if we are continuously giving to others, we drain our own energy. Kind karma is about doing small acts that help others but that don’t siphon our own energy or self worth.
Read our article on Self Care for more tips and techniques:
Forget about the reward
Kind karma is not about carrying out acts of kindness to get more followers on social media or for public recognition. It’s not about being able to boast to everyone about all the amazing things you do to help others. Kind karma is about going about your day and every interaction in a kind way. It is about being subtle and making the right choices, to be kind and put more compassion out to the world.
Kind karma is a way we can enrich the world with more compassion and understanding. Practicing kind karma will also encourage you to make good choices and reflect on the role you play in your life too. Kind karma gives us responsibility going forward to be more authentic, to help others for their sake instead of our own gratification and to become our best selves.
Try this kind karma challenge: To do one small kind karma deed each day in a subtle way to help others and the world around us. Your reward is knowing you are putting more good out into the world.