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N.B. If you have arrived here, because you are feeling scattered and scared that there is so much pain right now, I hear you, I welcome you. I hope you find my site to be a safe place, I invite you to join my Trailblazers’ Facebook Cafe for further solidarity and support. I may not have solutions, but I will share all the knowledge and experience I have with you. In this space we don’t deny the negative but we focus on building awareness, resilience and compassion, for ourselves and for all. 

I am acknowledging the pain, injustice and loss. I am taking steps to be a part of the solution, to take positive action against and prevent such prejudice and injustice (a post on this is on it’s way).

I am also keeping myself fuelled and adding kindness and good back into the world, along with my work to take injustice and violence out of it.

On that note, I want to share with you a welsh concept; Cymhortha (from cymhorthu, to help) is something akin to community co-operation and kindness.

It was a characteristic of welsh medieval society with smallholdings and farms helping one another, building a system of cooperation and goodwill within the community. This kindness was vital to the harvesting of crops which even now can be a very tricky business.

[Tweet “Cymhortha is essential for survival of the individual and the whole.”]

How can you embody kindness and cymhortha in your own life at this time?

Cymohortha Co-operation Inspirations:

– Volunteer at a local charity dear to your heart

– Walk the dogs at your local animal sanctuary

– Make an extra big batch of food and share it, to get to know your neighbours

– Throw an all-ages, everyone-welcome party

– See what community activities are already on in your area and get involved – good source for this is your local council or tourist office

– Offer to mow a neighbour’s lawn or take in their post

– Ask a friend if you can pick anything up from the shops for them when you are heading out

– Give vegan fairy cakes to the post person

– Plant bulbs ready for the spring

– Pick apples and share them

– Go to the Farmers’ Market, collect the unsold food and distribute to people who need it

– Give away something new to charity, not just old things you no longer want

– Take some time and be quiet with loved ones and give them space to bloom

– Pay the toll of the person behind you

– Leave inspiring words around town

– Ask someone you know about the things they love

– Choose to purchase from locally owned stores

– Use your local library, should you have access to such a wonderful resource

– Write to the author of your favourite book or blog and tell them why you loved it so and how it’s touched your life

– Volunteer as a listener at the Samaritans

– Mentor someone

– Pass on your skills – notice what you can do and share or write about it

– Practice what you know and love so the knowledge is not forgotten

– Make music and share it

– Recommend a great film to someone

– Give a compliment

– Do book crossing

– Freecycle

– Use LETS

– Choose an ethical product over a non ethical one

– Make your garden/doorstep/window box pretty

– Pick up litter when you see it

– Sow wildflowers in bare patches (some flower seeds can overwinter)

– Take a course at your local community college

– Learn Sign Language, Spanish, or anything to make you more available to the non-English speaking population

– Volunteer to do language swapping classes

– Teach English to asylum seekers or refugees. Ask your local support centre what they need

– Donate books to schemes helping adults to read

– Donate good clothes to charities helping homeless people go to interviews and get jobs

– Sign up to the bone marrow registry

– Write to Post Pals

– Volunteer with Healing Boxes

– Put food and nuts out for the birds when the weather grows colder

– Buy an extra treat at a shop and ask the person behind the counter to give it to the next customer to buy anything

– Look after someone’s child without calling it ‘babysitting’ or a ‘chore’

– Hold a door open for someone

– Reach out to make a new friend rather than to one you already have

– Speak honestly

– Spend time with older people, it’s sad how our culture can isolate elders when that’s the last thing we want to do

– Make somebody a gift rather than buying one

– Throw a cooking party rather than a dinner party, everyone can take home something they make

– Listen rather than offering solutions

– Call someone who’s ill especially if they’ve been ill for a long time and most people have moved on now. Learn how to support them

– Give blood

– Give someone your seat on the bus

– Give someone a hug

– Donate your Pokemon Go lures to a children’s hospital

– Appreciate the people closest to you

– Give a massage

– Get back in contact with a relative and just chat, no pressure

– Plant a local tree (winter is the ideal time for this)

– Learn how to make a dish of delicious food and then share your results

– Invite someone new

– Take a day off from complaining

– Share that quote/sing/story that bought you joy

– If you liked a website or blog, comment and say so

– Make cards and send thank you notes

 

What are your favourite ways to add kindness to the world? Let me know in the comments.

P.S. You may also like to read Orlando, Mourning, Wounding and Healing in the Hardest Times, Brexit,  Britain and the EU: 3 Tools for Building Emotional Resilience, and When it hurts more than you can bear, read this.