“Be kind”. I love seeing this on t-shirts. Yet I’m struck by lack of kindness we see and experience daily.

Any one of us might be unkind without meaning to. When we notice it, we often see it began in an animal-brain moment, a surge of sympathetic activation. Stress narrows our awareness, the prefrontal cortex fades into the background, and we lose fluid access to empathy and choice. In that state, we can slip out of our integrity.

Being kind is possible. When we attune to those animal-brain moments, pause, breathe, move, shake it out, we can come back to center. In short, we come back online. Sometimes we need five minutes. Sometimes we need a few days. Kind is possible.

Kind also creates an emotional and motivational climate where people think more clearly, collaborate more freely and create with more vitality. When we are conscious, we awaken to the capacity to choose kindness over a triggering “snap”. We strengthen belonging, inclusion, openness, a place to challenge each other and learn, even in high stakes and pressure.

Time and again, I’ve seen small, incremental gestures of kindness positively shift the vibe of an entire room of people.

What conscious act of kindness could open something different today?

In kindness,

Eva