Paying It Forward

Life Liberator Inspirations: Paying it Forward

It can be too easy to feel frustrated and angry when we experience the bad behaviour of another person. Next time you catch yourself judging or complaining about someone else, replace that negative thinking with thoughts of what you can do to redress the balance. Put some light back into the world that this person has tried to extinguish.

Replace negativity with positivity.

Replace fear with love.

Replace taking with giving and pay THAT forward.

Maybe you know someone who’s going through a tough time right now or maybe you don’t. Think of a quick and easy act of kindness you can do and put it out there. Don’t limit acts of kindness to people you know and don’t give with strings attached.

• What can you do? • What are you willing to do? • What will you do? • When will you do it? • See yourself doing that and feeling really good about it • Pay it forward joyfully

This need not cost money nor take much time at all. You could give up your seat on a train, pay a stranger a compliment or leave a flower on the windscreen of a car anonymously. Try it out and see what happens.

At a corporate gathering this week, I complimented a stranger on how warm hearted I found her and how instantly calm and happy I felt in her company. She smiled and thanked me. At the end of the day, she came up to me, her eyes flooded with tears as she gently told me how much my words had meant to her and how she’d phoned a friend to tell him what had happened. As we hugged, I said softly: “You never know what’s going on in another person’s life, do you?” and she nodded.

What can seem like a small thing to you can be something big to someone else.

I felt so much love, compassion and humanity in that simple exchange. I also felt sad that such wonderful qualities that were so obvious to the outsider, had not been mirrored back to this woman and I was struck by how important it had been for her to hear them that day.

What a wonderful privilege that I’d been the one to shine that light for her. I had just told her what I had seen. The gift was hers. I’d just reflected that gift back. It had taken just seconds and it had cost me nothing.

How have you paid it forward recently?...