“Have courage and show kindness towards others. You have more kindness in your little finger than most people have in their entire body.” These were the words spoken to Ella (Cinderella) by her mother moments before she passed away. Moreover, this was the advice that rang in the young Ella’s mind that carried her through her challenged life to achieve her wildest dream.
I recently saw director, Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Cinderella along with a surprising amount of other adults that were unaccompanied by children. Now before you tune out because you think this post is only about a Disney fairytale, stay with me as there’s a whole lot more to it than a glass slipper.
Cinderella remains popular in the 21stcentury as like many other fairytales and their heroes we have unconsciously adopted them as metaphors that we live by. We connect with these stories on a deep level of our being, identifying with characters and situations that resonate with of our own experiences in life.
A synopsis of the story before we go to a more visceral and practical note
Ella’s mother dies when she is young having installed a belief in magic and leaving Ella with her profound parting words: ““Have courage and show kindness towards others.” Ella’s father remarries moving the new wife and two not so kind stepdaughters into the family home.
Image via Wikimedia Commons – Public Domain
Ella’s father dies suddenly leaving her to the mercy of a cruel stepmother and stepsisters who reduce Ella’s life to cleaning fireplaces– hence the moniker Cinderella and as scullery maid.
Cinderella meets handsome prince in the forest. Cinderella rides off and the prince makes it his mission to find out who the mystery girl is by having a ball and inviting all the maidens in the land.
The evil stepmother forbids Cinderella to go the ball. Enter kindly beggar woman, her fairy Godmother who is empowered with a magic touch that she uses to transform Cinderella into a beautiful princess.
Cinderella goes to the ball to meet her prince and you know the rest – they live happily ever after.
Courage, kindness and a bit of magic can transform even the most of dire situations and create a wish fulfilled – a dream into an amazing outcome.
How courage, kindness and magic play out in our daily lives
Courage
Is the quality of mind or spirit that enables us to face challenges, pain, danger etc without giving way to fear.
Having courage when it comes to physical pain can be challenging enough, having courage in the face of a relationship/marriage break-up, financial woes and the courage killer- criticism is in another league.
Do you “have courage of your convictions?” Can you achieve your big dreams no matter how tough the criticism including from your own inner critic? Whilst we may not have the courage of our convictions as the likes of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama there are ways we can live by the idiom to “take courage.”
- Ensure that your convictions match your values and it will be easier to stay on course in spite of rejection or criticism
- Dealing with criticism: Take a step back – a Meta position and evaluate if the content has relevance for you; you can learn from it or it has benefits for you or is it possibly the other party expressing something more about themselves
- Remember when your courage reserves are at a low, that “nothing is permanent and this too will pass”
Acts of kindness are remarkably powerful and can have lasting and beneficial effects on both the giver and receiver.
In a study “How small versus large acts create more happiness” by Melanie Rudd and Jennifer Aaker from Stanford University and Michael I. Norton from Harvard Business School, these pundits inform us that “while the primary purpose of a prosocial act is to do something good for another person……….. the perception that one has positively impacted another with a prosocial act can in turn boost one’s own personal happiness, creating a “helper’s high” (Luks, 1988) or “warm glow” (Andreoni, 1989; 1990) for the giver.”
In case you are not familiar -Prosocial behaviour is behaviour intended towards being of benefit to another, the wider community or humanity as a whole. Volunteering, donating, sharing, helping and caring for others are some ways of engaging in prosocial behaviour.
Whilst we may like to think that, our sole motivation for engaging in prosocial acts is altruistic, there is generally a warm-fuzzy in it for us. The study also points out that engaging in these behaviours can enhance our well-being and happiness.
When we experience well-being and happiness, our own dreams and goals tend to come to fruition more easily and we are better positioned to help others achieve theirs.
How to do simple frequent acts of kindness
- Smile – A simple smile can turn someone’s day around and it will make you feel good too
- Cook – Cook a nutritious meal and deliver it to someone who is unwell or feeling down
- Walk – Know someone who wants to get fit and who needs a bit of encouragement? Offer to walk with them
- Communicate – With positive and encouraging words. Communication can also be about what you don’t say. Refuse to engage in gossip or malicious content on social media
- Animal Magic – Help and injured or orphaned animal
- Be skillful – You have a myriad of skills you can offer to a friend, group or charity in need
I had a threesome and it made me smile
Stopped at the red light I noticed a young man on the footpath at the pedestrian crossing. He caught my attention, even through the heavy metal and glass of my car and the distance between us, there was something about him, and then I caught his attention. He seemed to be staring at me so I beamed him a smile.
An elderly woman held out her hand and sidled up next to him. I was fixated as he looked at the woman and then questionably at me as if to say, “What do I do now?” My mind went looking for answers: “Elderly woman at lights 101” Begging maybe, no didn’t feel right. Then the woman looked at me as she looped her arm through the young man’s arm at which point the penny dropped. She wanted help to cross the road.
I now had them both with their gazes fixed on me seemingly waiting for a signal. Then the magic happened: I involuntarily beamed my biggest Duchenne at both of them, the young man beamed his back at me followed by the woman who beamed hers at me and then at her escort.
The pedestrian light turned green, the two started to walk and as the woman held onto her escort, I felt that heart-warming glow that comes with a magical moment. The two looked back at me and the three of us laughed.
Kindness repaid with a magical smile
It doesn’t take much to be kind. You can do it in your everyday life as demonstrated by that young man. The easiest way is to start local. Remember that charity begins at home. The more individuals practicing “Frequent acts of kindness,” the better of the planet and all of humanity will be.
Do you have magic powers?
Of course you do, and some of those powers you may not have tapped into yet. How much of the capability of your brain have you really put to use? Are you working with your intuition, doing activities to enhance neuroplasticity and practicing dynamic meditation techniques?
Then there are those other magic powers; the magic that helps to turn your life around or when you become the miracle in someone else’s day.
Image via Wikimedia Commons – Public Domain
You have magic powers when you:
- Learn to use more of your mind in more ways
- Highlight the good in the world so that it shines brighter than anything else does
- Can transform unresourceful patterns in thinking, behaviour and emotion
- Do prosocial acts without the conscious need for recognition or reward
- “Be the change you wish to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
- Create and achieve the small goals that make the big difference i.e. to make 10 people or more smile each day
- Share the Bliss – the highest happiness or joy; the highest happiness of heaven
That’s the thing with magic. You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you. – Charles de Lint
When you keep it simple, expressing courage and kindness through your everyday life and business you can bring to the world more magic moments.
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