Love at the Drive-Thru
A number of years ago, I had a love affair with espresso. As such, I frequented a popular coffee shop each day – sometimes twice a day. When I traveled for business, I always included a pit stop to the nearest coffee shop drive-thru for a shot or two. The expresso runs had their own routine. Drive up to the speaker connected to the massive menu board, put your window down and shout your order to the nice person on the headset inside the store. Next, head to the pickup window, pay and collect the gold. One day, however, the espresso run was anything but routine. At the pickup window was a small sign hanging on the wall that said, “Random Acts of Kindness Day”. The sign invoked an immediate smile. My heart was engaged and a gentle, relaxed feeling came over me. Kindness has this effect on us.
The random act of kindness bestowed upon me was a free drink. My random act of kindness was paying for the drinks for the people in the car behind me. The whole thing just felt good. Kindness, an aspect of love, took complete strangers and connected them that day. Even though we had not met, we had forever touched each other’s lives in a beautiful way. What’s interesting is, at the time, this entire event felt really random. But, my life experience has since taught me that nothing is random.
Random acts of kindness aren’t random. They are pre-planned moments of expressions of love from the heart. They are precisely expressed at a time when all involved will receive the maximum benefit. The duty of the heart is to convey all forms of love, including kindness, all the time. That’s what it does. So when we are connected to our heart, that’s what we do. And we are set up to deliberately give love to ourselves and each other from this place within us. This is what makes kindness deliberate whether we are consciously aware of it or not.
Nothing Left to Chance
Most of us have had momentary meetings with people that were life changing in some way. Maybe you decided to tag along with a friend to a party and you just happened to meet the person you would spend the rest of your life with there. Perhaps you had a teacher who spent a little extra time helping you, instilling confidence that propelled you through the rest of your school years. Maybe you applied for a job you wanted, but didn’t get it and then you found out that company went bust six months later. Chance meetings and events? Not in the least. The human mind will call these coincidences, kismet or fate, but your heart knows better.
Everything that happens to us is meant for our soul’s highest purpose. The deeper dimension of who we are .¨ our soul energy .¨ is aware of the reasoning behind our life events. And at the soul level of our being, we whole-heartedly accept all of the challenges, as well as all of the joyful times, that make up our life. From this vantage point, we don’t question anything or anyone. We accept and honor everything in life, knowing there are greater, deliberate reasons for all who enter our life and all life situations. This may be a tough pill to swallow when we are faced with a serious illness, the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one. But, each person and each circumstance in our life holds something for us whether that is an experience, a lesson or both. Everything that happens in our lives is meant to assist us in some way. The heart knows this.
The mind, with all of its beliefs and thoughts, is not capable of knowing or explaining the deeper reasons and connections behind the people in our lives and the events that happen to us and around us. That doesn’t mean our minds aren’t busy spending countless hours struggling to figure out what is going on as it analyzes this person or that situation. In fact, we spend an inordinate amount of time making up stories about what is going and why things happen the way they do. We do this with thinking that isn’t connected to true wisdom and true intelligence. This is because, in large part, the mind tends to repeat the conditioned patterns of thinking it has been taught, whether those thought patterns are helpful or not. The mind’s busy analysis of anything it is not capable of knowing or understanding is, obviously, less than helpful.
True wisdom and intelligence comes from deep within us .¨ from the place where thinking isn’t needed .¨ the heart. And in the deliberateness of the heart, we are paired with the people and events that help us learn the most about ourselves at that moment. The soul provides us with these significant experiences to help us change, grow and transform our lives. And in this important endeavor, nothing is left to chance.
Living a Deliberate Life
Kindness, like other forms of love, is a deliberate act by the heart. Every time we leave a note on someone’s car telling them we noticed a nail in their front tire in an effort to save them from a flat tire later or leave money in an envelope taped to the vending machine that says, “Have a treat on me”, we are being deliberately kind. One might argue that the person on the receiving end of kindness is random, which is where the saying random acts of kindness comes from, but this is not the case. Our inner intelligence, the intelligence connected to our heart-center and our soul, has deliberately chosen the person who receives your act of kindness. That may not be something our minds can fathom or agree with, but true love isn’t connected to, nor does it work through, the mind. The heart, our soul, easily understands and accepts this. We have to be open to seeing life from a different perspective in order for this concept to make sense.
The part of us that gives without question, without worry, without expecting something in return is who we are at our core. This is the real us. When we are connected with this aspect of ourselves, we can’t help but be deliberately grateful, gentle, helpful, understanding, compassionate, kind, peaceful, and, of course, loving.
Over the millennia, we have gotten away from this aspect of ourselves. We have gotten in the habit of looking out for number one, afraid someone is going to get in line before us or get to the red light in front of us. We tend to connect more regularly to the thoughts in our mind rather than the love in our heart. But, as I said, this is just a habit. Maybe it’s time to break it.
Think back through your life and write down at least five occasions when your life was changed because of someone in your life or some situation that occurred. Take one or two of those and connect the dots between the people or the situation and the life changing event. When you trace back on any of these five life experiences, you will see that none of it was by chance. You will see a greater plan unfolding that saved you in some way or that pushed you when you needed to be pushed the most. The greater intelligence within you has deliberately and lovingly set this up for you.
Going forward, make it a point to connect more often with this heart-based energy and express acts of love every chance you get. You can show kindness to someone you haven’t shown kindness to in the past. You can also open your heart to someone you have spoken poorly about in the past. Don’t just tolerate them- accept them for who they are. This is an expression of understanding. Show compassion to someone in your family who is struggling. We often forget that our family members are as deserving of compassion as anyone else.
These, and similar, deliberate acts on your part give you a more consistent life experience. And the more we tap this energy, the more expressions of love that are given and the more that are received. The benefits and transformations that come from expressions of love are immeasurable. Practice being deliberate with love every chance you get. It can change your life for the better.
