Category: kindness

kindness, RECK, Uncategorized

2021: The Year of Kindness

Matthew Vasko

Although it started out like a normal year, 2020 ended up being anything but normal. Times of great change can teach us a great deal. The social isolation of 2020 taught us how much family, friends, and community matter. There was more complexity to 2020, of course. There was also social and political unrest, and mourning for the loss of loved ones to COVID-19 and to other causes.

Perhaps 2020 also brought you some joy. Hopefully, it did. That seemed to be a lesson of 2020: that we all have the power to help improve the lives of those around us in small and large ways. And that’s where our theme for 2021 comes in. We’re branding 2021 as “The Year of Kindness.” The time just feels right. Doesn’t it feel like we need a year of kindness?

So, let’s focus on the positive. Let’s think of ways to brighten the days of the people we love and even complete strangers. Practice random acts of kindness towards all kinds of random people. Practice deliberate acts of kindness for the people close to us in our lives. Stated simply: Let’s keep kind in mind. Do all things with kindness.

At Century of Compassion, we believe that all people deserve to be and should be treated with respect, empathy, compassion, and kindness (RECK). Often, when I speak of kindness I make reference to loving kindness. This is kindness taken to the next level. Kindness done for, through, and with love. Kindness matters. And we should be kind in a loving way.

Please subscribe to our blog and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @RECKforAll. We’ll continue to provide inspiration throughout the year.

With love,

Matthew Vasko

Founder, Century of Compassion

compassion, empathy, kindness, Obliterate Hate, RECK, Well-Being

For Greater Inner Peace, Don’t Enimate!

Matthew Vasko

Have you ever had such a difficult time with a person that you have come to think of them as your enemy? And then, almost unconsciously, you begin to imagine them doing all sorts of terrible things behind your back to sabotage you or actively do you harm. You start to imagine future scenes in which this person is being openly hostile towards you or picking a fight with you.

This can happen. We cast someone in the role of the enemy and then animate them in our minds doing all sorts of horrible things that might even cause us to begin the resent or dislike them more… or even actively hate them. I have coined a term to help describe this process of enemy animation: I call it “enimate” or “enimation.” We animate people in our imaginations as our enemies behaving like enemies.

I’ve done this before and I suspect we all have. We enimate people doing all types of terrible things that validate our negative feelings towards them. But what I’ve learned over the years is that this type of obsessive thinking is much more harmful towards me than it is towards the other person.

First of all, it’s not true! The person hasn’t actually done the things we are imagining them doing. And they probably never will. We are making these individuals into worse humans in our minds by eminating them into these terrible stereotypes which they are not. They are full human beings just like us with a full range of emotions who also want to be well liked and even loved and admired (possibly even by us).

Secondly, enimation is ultimately harmful to ourselves. It gets our blood pressure up and turns us into angry and resentful people. The next time we see the person we’ve been spending our time enimating they might even wonder what the heck they have done to make us so angry towards them! It’s unhealthy for us both physically and for our relationships.

Instead of enimating people who get us upset with them, we should actively work to think of them with respect, empathy, compassion, and kindness (RECK). This will help us to calm down and it will help us find inroads to connecting with them. If you spend your time thinking of people with RECK instead of enimating them you will discover that the next time you see them you will suddenly have lots of positive things to say to them. You might even find yourself liking them and having better interactions with them.

So, don’t simply treat everyone you interact with every day with RECK, but also think of them with RECK. Imagine yourself being respectful, empathetic, compassionate, and kind towards them. You might be surprised how quickly this turns your relationships around and makes you feel more positive and happier.

With love.

Matthew Vasko

Founder, Century of Compassion

compassion, empathy, family, kindness, Love, RECK, respect

Stuck at Home with Family? Practice RECK!

Matthew Vasko

These are unusual times. The novel Coronavirus has more and more states telling people to stay at home and requiring Physical Distancing if we must go out. This puts many of us in a situation where we are “Safer at Home” with the people we love… and getting on each other’s nerves!

Never fear! RECK is here! To save you having to click over to another page to discover what the heck RECK is, I’ll take a moment to explain it here. RECK is an acronym that stands for respect, empathy, compassion, and kindness. It is meant as a simple guide to help us treat others in the best way possible. And don’t we want to treat the people we love most in the whole world in the best way possible? Of course we do.

Think of it this way: all people need respect, empathy, compassion, and kindness in order to stay emotionally healthy. When you think about harm that has been done to people, in every instance, one or more of these four principles has been violated. In family situations, most typically the principle we forget to adhere to is to be kind to one another.

Here’s how to utilize RECK at home during this unusual time:

First, do your best to remain respectful towards your family members at all times. This can be a tough one, especially when we are feeling irritable. Disrespectful words are usually those words that we end up regretting later. When it comes to trying to create a harmonious home atmosphere, being disrespectful is a line we simply should not cross. Being respectful towards your family all the time will help you maintain a healthy self-respect. When you are respectful to others, you feel good about yourself.

Next, make an effort to be empathetic towards the feelings of others. This one can be especially challenging with young children. They tend to feel things strongly and are often unable to completely articulate or even understand their feelings. As adults, we have an important role to play in helping them identify their emotions and learn to understand and control them. Remember, empathy is deeper than sympathy. Sympathy is to feel for someone, while empathy requires us to go even further and feel with them. A good way to understand empathy is to remember the adage of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.

Then, strive to always keep your compassion switch in the “on” position. This is a tall order. Compassion calls us to feel another person’s suffering with them and then work to relieve it. Compassion, however, is a game-changer for children. Kids feel so often misunderstood and like their suffering is ignored. As adults, we can sometimes wish children would simply “get over it.” But we need to remember that their feelings are very real to them and when we take them seriously and respond to them, children feel heard. Although perhaps more pronounced in children, this is true for all people. And during these stressful times, lots of people might be feeling strong emotions. We all would be well served to hear one another out, take each other’s feelings to heart, and make an effort to provide comfort whenever possible.

Finally, in all situations and at all times: Be kind. If you think this one is easy or trivial, then think back to the last time that you know you hurt someone else’s feelings whether they said so or not. You might not have to think back very far! Kindness is the grease that oils the gears of healthy family dynamics. Being unkind is like throwing a wrench in the works. How often has everything been going just fine at home and then someone did or said something unkind and all heck broke loose? Kindness is the key to unlocking family harmony.

If your family is struggling to get along right now, then make a big sign that says “RECK: Respect, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness” and put it up someplace everyone can see it. Then, make sure everyone knows what all of those words mean and make a promise to treat each other with RECK. You’ll be amazed by how much better everyone gets along.

All the best,

Matthew Vasko,

Founder, Century of Compassion

compassion, kindness, Love

Kobe Bryant: 8/24

Matthew Vasko

Image: A mural depicting deceased NBA star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna is displayed on a building in Los Angeles. Mario Tama, Getty Images

 

By Rochelle Leon

If you had asked me a few weeks ago what I knew about Kobe Bryant, I would have told you he was a famous basketball player. That’s pretty much all I knew. I wasn’t a basketball fan, I had never watched a Lakers game and I don’t think I’d ever even seen Kobe Bryant play, except perhaps catching a highlight reel while waiting for the sportscaster to throw it back to the anchors. And yet, on Sunday January 26th 2020, I found myself glued to the TV, heartsick and weeping as I heard about his death and the 8 other souls, Gianna Bryant, John Altobelli, Keri Altobelli, Alyssa Altobelli, Sarah Chester, Payton Chester, Christina Mauser and Ara Zobayan, who perished in the helicopter crash earlier that morning.

Tragedies happen all too often and you would think as a culture we might start to become immune, but thankfully, we have not. And on this terrible day, when a helicopter fell out of the sky with 9 people on board, WE collectively mourned, all of us, the whole world, together. You could feel the universal swell of empathy and compassion and it felt like a spotlight on the best of humanity.

That night I had a dream about Kobe Bryant. I dreamt that he and I were having a conversation and he talked to me about success, faith and love. When I woke, I was a little rattled, because it was one of those dreams that seemed so real and so clear. Don’t worry, I didn’t think it meant that Kobe Bryant had just spoken to me from the great beyond, but it did make me realize that I had been genuinely affected by what happened and that I couldn’t just dismiss that.

It seemed wrong that I knew infinitely more about Kobe Bryant’s death, than I did his life, and all the other lives lost that day, so he next morning I turned on the TV to learn more about them. The first news story I saw was of course about Kobe. The reporter was interviewing someone who worked at the church he had attended. He spoke of the fact that Kobe Bryant was a devout Catholic. He went on to say Kobe had attended church by himself the very morning of his death, as he would often do, as to worship without being a distraction to the other parishioners during Sunday services. Hearing this did send a shiver down my spine. I just had a dream where Kobe Bryant talked to me about God! But until this moment, I had no idea he was a man of faith and honestly, I would not have assumed that. Which made me think, why wouldn’t I have assumed that?

Another news story I heard later that day focused on exactly that type of unfair assumption. The kind we all unfortunately have a tendency to make, shifting that spotlight now from the best of humanity, to the worst of it.

The story was about a video that had been recorded by one of the students at a local high school, taken the Monday morning after the helicopter crash. It was of a teacher speaking to a sea of Lakers jerseys and sad faces, and he was shockingly going on an angry and judgmental tirade about Kobe Bryant. He referenced the controversies and scandal surrounding his life and career and his words were the polar opposite of what you would imagine grieving, emotional students needed to hear. It was appalling, insensitive and insultingly ill timed! How dare he??? I was incensed! My first thought was, this sorry excuse for a teacher is an uninformed, judgmental, small-minded imbecile who should be fired and never teach again!!!

…But then, wasn’t I doing to him, the same thing he had done to Kobe Bryant? The same exact thing I had been so incensed about?

What if this rant was this teacher’s most shameful, most regrettable moment of his career? Perhaps his greatest mistake? We all make them. He is a teacher after all, is it possible that he has nurtured, supported, and encouraged hundreds of students for years and that this was just one isolated incident? On an ordinary day he could have been caught imparting wisdom, inspiring his students, and teaching invaluable lessons? Should I be assuming whom he is from this one news clip, judging him without having all the facts, projecting my own anger and preconceived notions upon him? Should this 10 second video be what defines this man? I didn’t even know what he said 5 minutes before the video or 5 minutes after!

This realization prompted me to re-watch the video. To my surprise, I wasn’t re-watching it at all, I actually watching it for the first time. You see, the section I had seen on the news was all of about 10 seconds and the video clip in its entirety was 4 minutes and 20 seconds. So in fact, I could hear what he said minutes before and after. I was very glad I listened.

He did in fact say some very harsh, very controversial and completely speculative things about Kobe Bryant. Things I definitely did not agree with or approve of him saying to High School students, especially in their raw emotional state. However, if you listen closely (and I can promise you I did), you’ll see he was also using this tragedy as a teachable moment. He was extending warnings to his students about carefully choosing your heroes and openly speaking your mind, even if your views may be unpopular. He cautioned that if any one of them in that very room were to be accused of the things Kobe had been accused of, they would probably go to jail and that money and power can get influential people out of a lot of precarious situations that ordinary people cannot get out of. He informed his class of the dangers of traveling by helicopter, explaining that they are one of the most dangerous types of transportation. He talked about how just because you have the money and means to do something, doesn’t always mean you should do it. And he warned that making selfish decisions could hurt those you love and those who love you. I didn’t agree with the way he was doing it, but I could clearly see his intentions were good and that his advice was honest and sound and valuable.

From everything I could tell, he was genuinely trying to reach these kids and help them to prevent making mistakes by idolizing someone who, though a beloved sports figure was, like all of us, in no way perfect.

Ummm… who was the uninformed, judgmental, small-minded imbecile now? Spoiler alert – it was me! I normally consider myself to be an open-minded, accepting, respectful, fair and kind person, so what in the world was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking – I was assuming! I judged him rashly and without all the facts. Who am I to decide who he (or anyone else) is, based on hearsay or sound bites? And yet, that’s exactly what I did… and that’s exactly what he did! And sadly, it’s what we ALL do, so much of the time!

Think about it, when you see a car swerving all over the place on the freeway, what is your knee-jerk reaction? “That idiot” (because they’re always an idiot! or moron! or maniac!)… “That idiot is texting! Or drunk! Or both!” How many times has your first thought been, “Gosh, I hope he’s alright! Maybe he’s having a heart attack or there’s something wrong with his car?” For whatever reason, it’s human nature to automatically assume the worst. And the saddest part is, it’s so ingrained in us, that most of the time we don’t even know we’re doing it! We go through our whole lives this way. But if we could only wake up to this backward way of thinking and focus on it just long enough to reverse our natural response into one of compassion and of giving the benefit of the doubt, it could literally, make all the difference in the world!

Simply put, what we do matters. Who we are matters. Whether you are an NBA super-star, a 13 year old girl, a mom, a dad, a coach, a pilot – all of us – we all matter. And how we treat each other, matters.

I’ve learned a lot about Kobe Bryant over the last week, but the thing that strikes me the most, even more than what an exceptional athlete he was – one the greats of all time or how he has inspired millions of people, was simply that he was just a man, a man who was deeply, deeply loved. Deeply loved by his family, friends, teammates, fans and the world. To fill the world with that much love in a lifetime seems like the best way I can think of to spend it.

Now, when I see the numbers 8/24, they hold a new and deeper meaning for me. They represent that extraordinary, sweeping kind of love – to give it, show it, receive it, enjoy it, and be grateful for it. And further, those numbers will always be a reminder to be kinder, more aware and more accepting… to be the very best we can be, separately and together as a team.

A few weeks ago, I hardly knew anything about Kobe Bryant other than that he was a famous basketball player. I know so much more now.

Rochelle Leon

Rochelle Leon is a writer, wife and mom. She formerly owned a greeting card company and is currently working on a novel. Rochelle has a passion for compassion and believes in a brighter future where everyone is a little kinder to one another. She lives in Southern California with her family.

compassion, empathy, kindness, Love, RECK, respect

Parenting with Respect, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness

Matthew Vasko

Parenting can be a challenge, but it can also be a joy. As parents, we are always searching for tools to help us overcome the challenges and bring us to that place of joy. One set of such tools that has been highly effective for me is learning to parent with respect, empathy, compassion, and kindness (RECK). This transition, which happened gradually for me three years ago over the course of about 18 months, has been absolutely transformational.

The first thing I discovered when I put these tools to use was how often I was completely unempathetic to things my then 6-year-old twins were experiencing. After all, I had been six once myself. And I remember what a strange, magical, and sometimes frightening place the world could be. Harnessing my empathy allowed me to slow down and see things from their perspective. Respect played a part in this too, because first I needed to have a certain amount of respect for the fact that what they were experiencing was very real to them before I could start to empathize with them.

Over time, this experience changed me. I became a much more patient parent. I came to realize that when they didn’t immediately hop-to-it when I asked them to do something it wasn’t because they were defying me, but because they needed a moment to shift gears. Children have full inner lives just like adults and – like adults – children need a moment to process a request, finish up whatever they were doing, and move forward.

For me, compassion was an easy one when something happened to my children physically, but a challenging one when things happened to or within my children emotionally. Compassion, for me, was very much about learning to read my children better. Yesterday, for example, I told my son that I was a little disappointed that he had gone against one of the house rules (it was really just kind of an aside, no big deal). He didn’t react much at first, but about five minutes later he got up from the couch and went to his room. A few years ago I would not have understood what was happening, but thanks to working on my compassionate response I was immediately cued in to the fact that he was beating himself up over what he had done. I went to his room and we had a long talk about the fact that I love him and that he needs to talk to himself the way he would expect a good friend to talk to him. He wouldn’t let a friend speak to him abusively and he shouldn’t speak to himself that way either.

Finally, in all things, I have learned to be kind. The world is a tough place and children need a place to feel safe, secure, and loved. I don’t know about you, but I want that place to be our home. I am constantly conscious of the atmosphere of our home now. If I’m not feeling the love then I make an effort to pump it up. We don’t need to worry about toughening up our children – the world is going to do that to them whether we want it to or not. But we do need to worry about our children’s psychological and emotional well-being. Harm that happens at home and harshness inflicted by a parent can leave scars that last a lifetime. I have adult friends who will testify to this.

In the end, children learn to treat people the way they are treated. If we treat our children with respect, empathy, compassion, and kindness, then we will raise humans who are respectful, empathetic, compassionate, and kind. And isn’t that really what we all want as parents?

Much love to you all,

Matthew Vasko

Founder, Century of Compassion