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  With each act of kindness, you’ll cut the cords that bind you to feeling depressed and create new pathways and mental connections. And, of course, WE’s magic multiplier will kick in. The more love and kindness you give, the more you’ll start to receive. It’s a win-win situation. You gain an increased sense of fulfillment, and the world gets more love.

  As I’ve said before, I don’t have the sunniest of dispositions. My natural state is grumpy, and I have to work really hard at joviality. For most of my life, people, even strangers, have said “Smile!” because my resting face is depressed. When the winds are right, or I’ve run out of things to complain about, or I’ve managed to force myself out of this status quo, I can come across as giddy and childish and endlessly silly—until I’m not. But I’m telling you it takes work. And that work is usually climbing out of my head and my self-obsession and doing something for someone else—even if that something else is just being in a better mood. If I appear happy, it’s because I’m choosing it! But funnily enough, it pays off. When I do it for someone else, lo and behold, I start to feel better, more in tune with those around me, and, yes, even giddy.

  —GA

  A Workout for the Soul

  With the disappearance of God, the Ego moves forward to become the sole divinity.

  —DOROTHEE SOLLE

  The full power of WE’s Principles are felt when we apply them all simultaneously. Kindness comes last because the preceding Principles are entirely necessary to ensure that we don’t use others’ pain or drama to deflect attention away from our own.

  Kindness is not self-abandonment or self-denial. It’s a form of wholehearted giving that nourishes our soul. If we try to practice kindness without also practicing self-care, meditation, affirmation, and gratitude, we’re at risk of people-pleasing, codependency, or ego-tripping.

  True kindness comes from a spiritually aligned place. It involves standing in our own shoes and affording others the same dignity. If you find yourself obsessing about another’s suffering, gently remind yourself to step back into your own life. You do not need to play God or feel that person’s feelings. Do what you can and then let go of the results. Remember the Serenity Prayer. (See page 85.)

  No matter how huge your heart and how broad your shoulders, you can give only what you’ve actually got. Giving more than you have—whether in time, money, or emotional resources—isn’t giving, it’s going into debt. When you’re in debt in this way, you slide out of alignment and onto the slippery slope that leads back to self-obsession and ego-driven action and thought.

  Practicing kindness requires you to keep spiritually fit. When we’re aligned with the greater good (or God, or whatever you choose to call him/her/it), we’re able to work miracles in the world around us.

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  WHO’S IN CHARGE?

  Check your motivation regularly to ensure you’re acting from a place of genuine compassion rather than ego.

  Ask yourself who is running your show. Is it the little girl who was starved of attention except when she was being especially good and helpful? Or is it the woman whose heart is moved by the pain of another? Has your ego and its need to be right climbed into the driver’s seat, or have you chosen not to tolerate abuses that you see around you? Look for telltale signs of ego and compulsivity: Are you getting frantic? Is your life getting out of balance? Are you feeling important or indispensable?

  When you’re not sure, pause and return to center. The more frantic you feel, the more time you need to set aside to meditate. Only when you detach from a situation will you gain clarity. If you return yourself to your still, centered core, the answers will be there waiting. Just make sure you create the space to hear them.

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  Giving

  If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

  —EMILY DICKINSON (1830–1886), poet

  Often we feel too far away and too powerless to believe we can make a difference in another’s suffering. But it’s not true. Kindness isn’t limited by geography, kinship, or any other constraint.

  Picture yourself in a street or park in your hometown.

  Right in front of you, a young girl falls facedown into a small pond. There’s nobody else around. She’s going to drown if you don’t act. What do you do?7

  You run and pull her out, of course. Wrap her in your coat or find her a blanket and look after her until her parents or guardian can come get her.

  How about if you’ve got an expensive dress on that will get ruined? “Who cares?” you’d say. “She’s drowning.”

  The answer is clear for all of us. Who cares about a dress when someone’s life is at stake? But what if the child were on the other side of the world? How does that affect your answer?

  Across the world, one child dies of preventable causes every three seconds.8 Do those children matter less? Of course not.

  But the way we live has encouraged us to think either there’s nothing we can do or that it’s not our problem.

  Giving what we can is a solution that has been practiced for centuries in many cultures, but which in our secular times many of us have lost touch with. It involves setting aside a percentage of our income—however small—to give to others who are in greater need.

  It creates a shift within us that leads to a sense of freedom and empowerment.

  Most of us carry guilt for the suffering we know is happening around the world. Even if we think we don’t care or it’s not our responsibility, it’s impossible not to be affected. We see it in the news and on our streets.

  In the long term, global political solutions are the answer, but while we’re waiting for our leaders to act, avoidable deaths are happening all around us.

  Whether it’s 10 cents, $10, or $10,000, setting aside a portion of your income will also stop you from feeling powerless and guilty. There is something you can do, and now you’re doing it.

  If this isn’t something you’ve done before, be prepared for internal objections to come flooding in. But giving what we can afford brings us a sense of agency, and it does so because it saves lives.

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  Exercise 3: Money Matters

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  This exercise is to help you empower yourself by getting honest about your spending.

  No matter how much or how little money we have, most people get stressed about finances. You may not have enough to meet your own needs, or you may have plenty right now but still worry about what will happen in the future. Wherever you are on that spectrum, now is the time to empower yourself. So get curious. Download a spending app or keep a small notebook in your purse. Without judging yourself, notice and name every penny you spend and record it. At the end of a month, take a look at where your money went.

  Knowledge gives you the power to make conscious choices.

  Your spending patterns and priorities may already have shifted as you’ve been reading this book. Noticing and naming where your money goes will enable you to make new choices, so . . . empower yourself.

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  LUCKIER THAN YOU THINK

  If you have a refrigerator, a bed to sleep in, and a roof over your head, you are richer than 75 percent of the world’s population. And if you are reading this book, you are luckier than the estimated three billion people in the world who can’t read at all. Rather than comparing your life with those who have more, turn your focus in the other direction and acknowledge how fortunate you are.

  * * *

  We’re often encouraged to be skeptical about giving: “Charity does more harm than good, and doesn’t it encourage dependency?” “What about all the money that goes into administrative costs or is lost to corruption?” “And what’s the point anyway if my donation is only going to be a fraction of what’s needed?” Except we wouldn’t be skeptical, of course, if it were our daughter who was starving. Then we’d take every penny a stranger across the globe could afford to send.

  * * *

  THE LIFE
YOU CAN SAVE

  Some charities are a thousand times more effective than others. The same tools that are used to measure the efficacy of health treatments can be used to measure the effectiveness of charities. You can use an online calculator to check how much good a range of charities would do with what you donate. It’s even possible to work out how many lives you can save over the course of your own life by giving a regular amount. Visit The Life You Can Save (www.thelifeyoucansave.org) in the United States or Giving What We Can (www.givingwhatwecan.org) in the United Kingdom.

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  WE encourages you to come out of denial. The choices you make affect others across the world. The money you spend on a coffee that you buy out of habit but don’t actually enjoy could save the life of someone somewhere on the globe. Find whatever slack you can in your system and redirect it.

  Once you start giving, you’ll feel like a citizen of the world. It’s another win-win: you’ll be doing something to help another person who is in trouble, and in return you get to feel great. Start small and watch how your priorities start to shift. Before long, you’ll find yourself wanting to increase what you give and discovering that you can.

  Joining

  Just imagine your daughter was standing there. What would you do, how would you fight?

  —ANURADHA KOIRALA, Nepalese social activist

  When you become an active member of your community, you create connections that bring healing both to yourself and to those around you. So while you’re giving globally, try to find a way of acting locally. Many people are isolated, far from home and cut off from those they love. Local action dispels the alienation and loneliness that has become a familiar feature of modern living.

  Most of us have a multitude of issues that we care about, and it can be hard to know which to pick or where to start. Use your heart as your guide and the exercise that follows.

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  Exercise 4: Finding Your Cause

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  This exercise will help you identify your cause. Have your journal beside you to write down what you discover. Close your eyes and picture the world in which you live. Think about the suffering that exists—both locally and globally. Make a list of the issues that upset you the most—those which really move you. We’re not looking for the injustices that make you the most angry or outraged (those are often signs that the ego is engaged), but the suffering that makes your heart feel as if it might break when you think about it.

  If it’s difficult to find any issues that you really connect with, look through a newspaper or watch the news. Which stories provoke a visceral response (not an intellectual one)? Your body will know what you cannot stomach. Try not to judge what you choose. There are no right or wrong answers. Your list doesn’t need to be long or worthy.

  This is not about your intellect; it’s about your inner knowing. There is only what you know in your heart. You may care about children, nature or animals, trafficking or poverty. Maybe it’s the thought of the homeless being cold and alone at Christmas or children in a refugee camp. Maybe it’s animals being killed for their fur or female genital mutilation or the vulnerability of asylum-seekers far from those they hold dear.

  Now examine your list and ask which one moves you the most. There may already be one that leaps out at you. If you’re not sure take it into your morning meditation. Look into your heart and ask which is the one that touches it the most deeply. Trust your first response. Once you’ve identified your biggest sorrow, make a commitment. Agree with yourself to find a way of doing something locally about the issue you’ve chosen.

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  Let the change you want to see begin with you right where you are. Maybe you find a dog rescue center and volunteer on weekends, or deliver meals to the elderly, or start writing to a prisoner who has no one. If you’re in a twelve-step fellowship, you can sponsor and do service. Or perhaps you’ll find a local organization that works on the international issue you care most about.

  As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.

  —MARY ANNE RADMACHER, author and artist

  Spread your roots where you are planted. Becoming an active member of your community creates connections and a sense of belonging where you live, while bringing healing both to yourself and to the wider world of which you are a vital part. Even if you are already time restricted, trust that the space will emerge for your new commitment.

  Remember that small is beautiful. Do only what you can. You will find that as you do, your capacity grows, and you will discover that you gain far more than you give.9 It takes only a couple of minutes to get other mothers to sign a petition at the school gates or to make a phone call for a local charity or to drop some flowers at a sick neighbor’s house.

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  PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION

  It’s often easy to think there’s no point in taking action, political or otherwise, unless we can do it perfectly. But baby steps are better than no steps at all. The global campaign for a Meat-Free Monday is a perfect example. If everyone went meat free for just one meal a week, in the United States alone it would have the same environmental benefit as taking 1.5 million cars off the roads and save 1.4 billion animals from being factory farmed. Plus, it would have a dramatic effect on world hunger, as the cereal needed to raise one cow could feed three people.10

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  I’ve often felt reluctant to take political action because I’ve felt so hypocritical. How can I campaign on climate change if I still fly and drive? How can I be against animal cruelty if I still wear leather? But then in the run-up to the 2009 climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, I discovered that my flawed life could still be useful. Together with a group of other mothers and children, we lobbied the government and held protests at Parliament. Our message to MPs (members of Parliament) was loud and clear: we’ll vote for the party that puts protection for the planet ahead of our individual right to fly. We were able to show politicians and the media that the demands for action on climate change didn’t just come from the environmentally pure but also from those whose lifestyles would be adversely affected by the measures needed to tackle climate change.

  —JN

  The results are not up to you. It is your job only to plant the seeds by taking action. Once you start moving toward your higher purpose, the universe always responds in kind.

  Seek out others who are on this path and care about active change. Use WE’s Principles to start new conversations: in your neighborhood, your local coffee shop, at the departmental water cooler—wherever you find yourself. Support one another. Set goals that relate to the issues that really matter to you rather than the temporal and the material. If you stay open, you will always find sister-travellers to join you on your way.

  Love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.

  —MAYA ANGELOU (1928–2014), poet, writer, and civil rights activist

  As a result of applying WE’s spiritual Principles to our lives, we come to see the extent to which we’ve been blown off course—by life itself, by our conditioning, by our choices—away from what we know really matters. This journey returns us to ourselves: our real values, our true nature.

  Kindness gives us power in the face of suffering. It gives us the power to choose differently, act kindly, give what we can, and join with others. When we do, we find we have a sense of purpose and no longer feel alone. We experience the magic that is generated when all our powerful MEs are joined together as WE.

  Kindness in the Wider World

  If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.

  —ANITA RODDICK, British-born founder of the Body Shop cosmetic company, activist for political rights and protecting the environment

  This is a path of love, and kindness is the tool by which we give expression to it in the world.

  Gratitude has taught us that we’re lucky. Through an accident of birth, we are lucky.
Lucky to be here reading this book. Lucky that it is not our child who is begging on the corner or dying for want of a bowl of rice.

  You may not be able on your own to topple an oppressive regime, change a polluting transportation system, or stop a much-needed women’s refuge from closing, but when you stand together with others, with kindness in your heart, extraordinary things come to pass.

  As you continue to practice kindness on a daily basis, you will see opportunities to effect bigger changes in your family, community, and the world at large.

  Your sensitivity to the suffering of others will increase. Kindness will push you into action. You won’t be able to stand on the sidelines doing nothing because, you know now that when you are spiritually aligned, you are more powerful than you could ever have imagined.

  Reflection

  Politics is about everything we do, from the moment we get up in the morning to the minute we go to bed at night. It’s something everybody and anybody can be involved in.

  —CAROLINE LUCAS, British politician

  When I take action—no matter how small—I have the power to make the world a better place. Using kindness to align myself with the greater good gives me a sense of purpose and reminds me that I’m not alone. I’m part of a wonderful and growing movement of women who are walking into the light, guided by what we know to be right and true.

  Action. Today I will choose to act kindly.

  Affirmation. When I take action, the world is a better place.