I've asserted that kindness can cure the world, can make it better for others as well as for yourself. Reasearch can tell you how it changes the chemicals in your brain. And that is interesting, of course. But how does it cure others?
Kindness is an expression of empathy, your ability to feel what others are feeling. There is cognitive empathy and emotional empathy. We can imagine cognitively how someone probably feels. Or we can actually feel the same emotion that someone feels. To have motivational empathy, empathy that leads us to act with kindness, we need both.
And the healing comes when we feel happy to help another. That's right, it can make us happy. When we help someone without any thought of gain, when we are truly happy to help, this is the beginning of healing. And each act of selfless acts of kindness brings about deeper healing for us and for the other.
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." The Dalai Lama
Altruism is compassion in action, doing things in the service of others selflessly.*
*The Kindness Cure, How The Science of Compassin Can Heal Your Heart & Your World by Tara Cousineau, PhD
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