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  And then in a nanosecond, joy swoops in and in a humungous way clears it all away, just like that.

  —MONI VANGOLEN, spiritual teacher

  Some of us come to the spiritual path with an active faith, others with a faith that has been broken, and yet others with no faith at all or with an active antagonism against faith.

  It doesn’t matter what you think you know. If you keep an open mind and seek out joy, you will start to have a spiritual experience.

  Spiritual experiences take many different forms. They might be a dramatic, life-changing moment of spiritual awakening in which your whole attitude and view of life change forever. But for most people, the process is gradual. It starts as a result of using the Principles to heal the wounds and attitudes that have blocked you from seeing your own true nature and that of the world.

  As you nourish yourself with joy, you will notice that you are lighter in spirit. You will begin to feel a sense of ease and confidence where before you felt awkward and insecure. You will find it easier to enjoy time alone and will start to seek it out.

  Increasingly you’ll find yourself grateful but not surprised when life meets your yearnings and needs in return for you nourishing your soul with joy and stepping forward into your own spiritual truth.

  You’ll become aware of coincidences and opportunities that are increasingly difficult to dismiss as happenstance.

  You’ll notice that the trust you once found hard to practice has crystallized into a faith that you are being taken care of.

  You’ll notice that others who are walking a spiritual path will be drawn to you, and you will find companions to aid and accompany you on your way.

  Then you’ll realize that you are experiencing joy and an internal sense of freedom and happiness.

  The process may sound magical, but it comes about as a direct result of you applying the Principles to your life. And the more joy you allow into your life, the brighter the spark of the divine burning within you will shine.

  Joy in the Wider World

  When you shine your unique light, bit by bit, you light up the world of those around you. And, one by one, you inspire them to light up too.

  —REBECCA CAMPBELL, British spiritual teacher and author

  When we attend to the needs of our soul, we prepare ourselves to be of real use in the wider world. The brighter we shine, the greater the light we’ll cast for others.

  Joy prepares us for the work to come. WE’s final Principle—kindness—leads us out into the world of activism, where we will be called to have emotional resilience, and it’s joy that will sustain us.

  The more urgent and necessary the work we undertake in this life, the more important it is that we make space for joy. It will prevent us from slipping into adrenaline-driven or ego-based ways of working. It doesn’t matter if we’re engaged on a micro or macro level, joy makes our work sustainable.

  Whether we’re battling climate change, volunteering in a hospital, or trying to help a friend deal with her divorce, we have to connect to something stronger and bigger than the challenge we’re facing if we are to be effective. That means taking time to connect with the energy that pulses through life and allowing it to nourish and nurture us.

  But joy does more than just sustain, it also informs how we work as activists. It allows us to play and laugh along the way. We don’t need to be serious all the time. We can scatter joy as we go.

  We’re told that angels fly because they take themselves lightly. But it is joy that puts the wind beneath their wings. So create, pray, and look for moments to enjoy beauty, and you will not only find yourself soaring high, you’ll also beam light into the darkness for others.

  Reflection

  Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

  —ANNE LAMOTT, writer

  When others are suffering and I’m trying to help, I can get so caught up in the urgency of the situation that I can forget to make space for joy. When that happens, I take a moment to connect with nature, beauty, or the wonder of a beating human heart, and that reminds me that there is a much bigger picture. And that joy can shine a light to brighten any darkness I let in.

  Action. Today I will seek out joy and let it fill my heart.

  Affirmation. I am resilient and filled with joy.

  Principle 9

  KINDNESS: Love in Action

  Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people.

  —AUNG SAN SUU KYI, Burmese politician and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

  Kindness is what love looks like when we take it out into the world. It pierces our hearts as keenly as any arrow, and in doing so, it allows love to flow in and out. Through gentle, loving actions, kindness transforms us into spiritual activists.

  Kindness brings a sense of meaning and purpose. As we apply this principle to our lives we discover that love starts to flow through us with increasing velocity and that we now feel truly part of the extraordinary world in which we all live.

  Without kindness, no matter how much we do, have, or achieve, there’s a hollowness at our core. A yearning that persists.

  Most of us have spent our days pursuing goals that don’t ultimately bring meaning. What we’re conditioned to think matters most often ends up mattering least. As we shift from a state of self-concern to one of inner freedom, we acquire a new perspective.

  We see that our ego’s quest for “more” will ultimately always make us unhappy. There is no “enough.” We have been suffering—individually and culturally—from the disease of more. And each time we’ve scratched the itch, it has only gotten worse.

  The journey has shown us that no amount of material achievements or possessions can assuage our spiritual longing. But the good news is that where self-seeking has failed, kindness steps in to bring meaning and happiness. It is the final step on our journey from me to WE.

  What Really Matters?

  Happiness is not a goal, it’s a by-product.

  —ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, First Lady of the United States, 1933–1945, diplomat, and humanitarian

  At the center of all our lives is a quest for meaning. When times are tough, all our energy may be absorbed in trying to get by. But when the pressure eases, we find the question there, lurking beneath our daily struggles, calling for our attention. Is this it?

  How should we spend the time we’ve been given, the uncertain number of days between birth and death? What will bring fulfillment and a sense that there is a point to our existence?

  * * *

  Exercise 1: Gaining Perspective

  * * *

  This exercise will connect you to what really gives your life meaning.

  Have your journal ready and then center yourself by taking five deep breaths in and five slightly longer breaths out. Close your eyes and imagine you are a much older version of yourself, coming to the end of your life. Look back at your time on Earth and ask this older you what has really mattered. What are you glad to have experienced, and what do you care about most?

  Open your eyes and write down what the older you has to say. Stay in this future state with your wiser self until you feel she has given you all you need to know.

  Now close your eyes again and allow yourself to time travel back to today. Center yourself in the present. Take a look at what you wrote down and think about how you spend your time now.

  How much of your energy is focused on the things on your list? How many of the items on your list have to do with looks, achievements, and material possessions? How many are about relationships and love?

  If you keep this list in mind as you go about your days, you’ll find that the awareness it gives you will gently result in your priorities starting to shift.

  * * *

  How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

  —ANNE FRANK (1929–1945), German-born diarist and victim of the N
azi Holocaust

  Like love, kindness is an action. It allows love to flow through us so that we become channels for a greater purpose than our own limited wants and needs.

  It’s the neighbor that keeps an eye on the elderly lady next door. It’s the woman who passes a homeless person sitting on the sidewalk and stops to offer him help. It’s the mother who offers a home to a stranger’s child. It’s the student who sets up a stall to collect food for a local soup kitchen. It’s the friend who noticed you were looking sad and calls to make sure you’re okay.

  Before we started this journey, kindness was easy to overlook. It felt limp, small, not quite up to the job, but increasingly we come to understand that if it were to govern our interactions, the world would be a very different place, and our own quota of happiness would increase as a natural result.

  Kindness carries within it the potential to overthrow orthodoxies, hierarchies, and regimes. What if we care for those whom we are told are our enemies? What if we give to those we are told are not deserving? It busts the myth that there is nothing we can do to change things.

  The previous Principles have prepared you. Now kindness plants you firmly on a path of spiritual activism. Through four simple practices—Choosing, Acting, Giving, and Joining—we discover how to unlock kindness’s transformative power.

  Choosing

  If not me, who? If not now, when?

  —EMMA WATSON, British actress

  Everyday life involves making choices. Often we feel small and powerless, as if there’s nothing we can do to change our world. But there is.

  With every choice you make, you have power.

  All decisions have some impact. When you use kindness to guide your decisions, you will begin choosing the options that represent your values and beliefs. Your goal is congruence and the inner freedom and outer influence it brings.

  Start small. Start where you are. Remember that mustard seeds can shift paving stones. You choose how you spend your time and your money—no matter how much or how little you have of each—so start using those choices.

  Our actions, and inaction, touch people we may never know and never meet across the globe.

  —JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ, founder of the global nonprofit venture-capital firm Acumen, which seeks to improve the lives of the poor

  Women in the United States control 80 percent of all consumer purchases.1 Imagine if we used that power to demand ethically and sustainably produced goods, at affordable prices.

  * * *

  AN UNTAPPED POWER

  In the United States alone about 50 million plastic water bottles are used every year.2 The plastics used can take over 500 years to decompose.3 Scientists predict that by 2050 there’ll be more plastic than fish in the sea. Plus, it takes 17 million barrels of oil each year just to produce them—enough oil to fuel a million cars for a whole year.4 Some American cities like Concord and San Francisco have banned the sale of small plastic water bottles, as have a number of university campuses like Leeds in the UK. How great would it be if we got their use banned altogether, first nationally and then globally?

  * * *

  Kindness can guide all sorts of choices: who you bank with, who you shop with, who you do business with, who you invite into your home. But don’t beat yourself up with it. Change comes incrementally—your job is not to force it but to allow it.

  Notice and name when you discover a gap between your beliefs and your actions. Over time, if you create the space and awareness through using WE’s Principles, you’ll find you’re making new choices across the board.

  * * *

  Exercise 2: One Choice a Day

  * * *

  This exercise helps identify the choices you make on a daily basis that you could make differently. How often do you notice something that upsets you, but you do nothing about it? We can get so used to living with situations or avoiding things that are unpleasant or unacceptable that we stop noticing.

  For the next week, notice the small, everyday decisions that you make from habit, necessity, or haste that don’t reflect your true values, and jot them down in your journal.

  Perhaps you are passionate about the environment, and yet you buy bottled water at lunchtime rather than refill a reusable one with tap water before going to work in the morning. Maybe you feel sad every time you rush past the old woman who sits alone in the park feeding the birds. Maybe you never open the emails you get from the human rights organization you signed up to with such enthusiasm. Or you bitch about a colleague rather than stand up for her.

  Notice the moments and name them to yourself. Write them down so that you remember them.

  This isn’t about making you feel bad. It’s about becoming aware of the opportunities that exist every day that can help you to feel more powerful.

  Think how great you’d feel if you decided—every day—to exercise one small choice that would increase the positive impact you have on the world around you. It doesn’t even necessarily mean doing anything “extra”; it can just involve doing something that you already do but in a new way.

  * * *

  Acting

  Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

  —ANNE HERBERT, writer

  Once we start becoming aware of the power we can exercise through our choices, a space opens up to begin making changes.

  Action

  Changes

  Things

  So commit to carrying out one deliberate act of kindness every day and see how differently you start to feel about your life.

  It can be as simple as picking up a bit of litter or giving a compliment to a stranger on the bus. Perhaps it is making someone an unexpected cup of tea or paying for the unknown woman behind you in the line for coffee. Small is beautiful. Often we feel that, unless we can do something big, there’s no point in doing anything at all. This is not true. The more of us who hold up candles, the brighter our combined light will be.

  Pick little things that fit into your life as it is now. If you’re stuck for ideas, you can look through the list you made in the previous exercise and choose just one of them. Or you might like to check out the website recommended in the resources section, which is devoted to ideas for random acts of kindness.

  Starting small is important. If you give yourself lofty or ambitious goals at this stage, you can set yourself up to fail or be burdened by yet another thing to add to your to-do list, in the process creating an opening for your ego to rear its unhelpful head.

  * * *

  A HIDDEN PRICE TAG

  Actions require energy, but not acting also carries a price. Often we carry a low level of guilt for the things we haven’t done. These avoidances rattle around at the back of our awareness, weighing us down. When we start acting consciously, we release ourselves from guilt and become energized and empowered.

  * * *

  Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time.

  —MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, activist and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund

  This is not about showing how “good” you can be—to yourself or to anyone else. It’s about creating a new muscle group that will serve you as you walk forward on this spiritual path of activism and power.

  * * *

  ACTION LOG

  When we act kindly, it naturally boosts our self-esteem. Try keeping an action log of what you do each day to make a positive difference in the world.

  Often we women minimize the good we do and compare it with the things we don’t do. So notice and name your actions. Then, if you’re feeling bad about yourself or powerless, you’ll be able to see in black and white the power you have through the choices you make. You’ll see that you’ve done plenty to feel good about.

  * * *

  Don’t tell anyone about your actions. Anonymity ensures that we stay humble and prevents them from becoming ego driven. Obviously, with some actions (paying a compliment or signing a petition), you c
an’t hide your identity. But be anonymous whenever possible and watch how great it feels to feed your soul rather than your pride.

  When I was about eight or nine, I offered to help an elderly woman carry her groceries down the road to her house. But afterward, I felt a huge amount of shame, and for years I couldn’t figure out why. Then I realized that the pride I had felt in myself was disproportionate to my action—and that even though I hadn’t told anyone about it at the time, deep down I was embarrassed. But in retrospect, how cool that at that age it even occurred to me to do a good deed! Unfortunately, it may have been the last time until my twenties, and I don’t doubt it was the shame that put me off doing it again.

  —GA

  * * *

  MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY

  Scientific research shows that a sure way to be happier is to be kind to others. According to a study at the University of California, performing five random acts of kindness in a week increased happiness levels for up to a month.5 In addition, various studies have found that giving to others can increase well-being and longevity,6 and inspire others to do the same.

  * * *

  Acts of kindness will change your default setting to one of affinity and compassion for others. That’s not to say you’ll always feel like being kind, especially if you’re hurting. There’ll be plenty of times when you feel like retaliating, complaining, ignoring, or avoiding. You’re human, after all! But acting kindly every day, no matter how mean you feel, will readjust your outlook, attitudes, and responses.