Author: Andy Smallman

When I was a little boy I experienced significant night terrors for about two years.

My parents took me to a child psychiatrist who recommended family counseling so we tried that. A behavior modification program was created. Still, the terrors got so bad that I was hospitalized for a week when I was in 4th grade, studied by doctors and nurses to try to determine the root of the problem. One memorable experience in the hospital was when electrodes were attached to my head to study my brainwaves. Nothing significantly wrong was determined and I returned home. Ultimately, I seemed to grow out of the night terrors, but the experience cast a dark shadow on me for years.

For instance, I was horribly embarrassed by it, even into my young adulthood, and never talked about it. It was my deepest and darkest secret. But during college I started to make peace with it and even started to appreciate how the experience helped make me who I am. I believe the empathy and compassion I have for children is a direct result of my experience with night terrors, of undergoing counseling as a child, and from the experience of spending that week in the hospital.

I learned in college that holographic images can be recorded on glass.

Looking at them, they appear 3-D despite being in 2-D form, and seen from different angles give you the look of seeing the image from different perspectives. Further, if the glass that holds the image is broken, each piece contains the whole image. It’s not like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have to be reassembled to form a whole. Each piece CONTAINS the whole. Learn more here.

My belief is that each person is one piece of glass of a broken hologram, each of us containing the whole. Our job as individuals is to contribute positively to the whole, doing our part to reunite or repair it through positive, conscious action.

That’s the highest human calling.

I’ve been thinking about the exchange of energy that takes place during an act of giving and receiving.

In short, I think the giver and the receiver are doing pretty much the same thing. The receiver “gives” something by accepting the gift, and the giver “receives” something by providing the gift. It’s an immediate cycle in which both parties take on a level of giving/receiving responsibility.

Think about it. You can’t give something unless someone is willing to receive it, thus giving you the gift of accepting your gift.

Sometimes a great gift you can give someone is to receive what they want to give you.

A couple years back, a student in one of my kindness classes shared her understanding of the Buddhist protocol known as “Right Speech.”

She learned that the best way to practice “Right Speech” is to ask herself three questions about what she is about to say before saying it:

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

The answer to all three questions must be YES or one should remain silent.

This is something I’m working on myself. And I’m expanding it to include email (and text messages and blog posts and…).

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

I admit, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the existence of God. But I do believe we live in a benevolent universe. Take this story for example.

4 year-old Meredith wrote a letter to God about the death of Abbey, her family’s beloved dog, wanting to make sure God recognized the arrival of Abbey in heaven. She stamped the letter and, with her mom’s help, dropped it in a mailbox. A couple of weeks later, the family arrived home to find a package on their porch. Someone in the post office had taken it upon her/himself to provide Meredith with an answer.

Among the many things I like about this story is the little girl not being the least bit surprised that God wrote back to her. Something about that makes perfect sense to me.

Read the whole story, including both letters, here.

The more loving we are to others, the more love we experience. Recall the children’s song “Magic Penny” by Malvina Reynolds, the one with the chorus, “Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more.”

Access the power of a “magic penny” by noticing more of the every day beauty that surrounds you, including the fresh scent of a flower or the kindness extended when a young person on the bus gives up his seat to someone older. By exercising the loving side of yourself, it becomes stronger and more aware.

And any tendency you have to focus on negativity is weakened.

“A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” -Anthony Trollope

Smile at the grocery store clerk. This is something I think about in my life every day. Although simple in practice, it may have a profound impact on his life. Yours too.

Many people who participate in my kindness classes think they need to complete grand acts of kindness. But what I really want to do is help people not to worry about how profound, significant, or large their actions are. I say to just let their actions come from a place inside that is filled with positive excitement.

Whatever you do, let it radiate from that place.

I’m posting this at 3:04am, 20 years to the minute after my daughter Chloe was born in 1993. And I’ve been thinking.

How many insignificant things had to come together at just the right moment for something significant to take place, like the birth of a baby?

I once told a newspaper reporter about my belief in the human behavior implications of the “Butterfly Effect,” the concept that something as seemingly insignificant as a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can impact the weather in another part. The flapping wings cause an atmospheric change that sets off a series of events that ultimately leads to something significant. She mentioned this in her final article which, incidentally, set off a chain of publicity that contributed to me creating this blog.

I’ve learned to trust seemingly insignificant things.

Not too long ago I was talking to one of my students about managing anger and suggested he experiment with what it would be like to be grateful for his anger and other so-called negative emotions. I told him that considering this concept when he’s calm might help him learn how to control these emotions when they occur.

Sometimes accepting your full self has to do with respecting your rougher sides. Being human affords us a wide range of emotions. Learning how to celebrate all of them in an appropriate manner helps us appreciate our feelings. And as Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen noted in her brilliant book “Kitchen Table Wisdom,” “The part in us that feels suffering is the same as the part that feels joy.”

In other words, it helps to remember that coins have two sides.

This may be a case where something is more significant to me than it is to anyone else. I went two whole days without posting to this blog. That’s NEVER happened since I started it 2 1/2 years ago. And it makes me feel a little discombobulated.

Anyway, everything’s fine. I just haven’t had easy Internet access and I’ve been extraordinarily busy.

By the way, I just took a look at the recent stats for viewing the blog and noticed that more people have accessed it today (42) than on Wednesday (22), the first day I didn’t post. And yesterday there were 33 views, the second day I didn’t post.

I wonder how many would be checking in tomorrow if I hadn’t posted today?