Her Unique Glow

When I say the phrase:

“do a good turn”

Well from that 7 year old Brownie I have now grown up to become an ‘Owl’ and help out in my local Brownie pack every week and I love it! This week it got me thinking about good turns. I asked the Brownies to go home and write down a good turn that they will do every day for that upcoming week. It just made me consider:

Do I still do a good turn every day?

I used to love the praise and gratitude I received when I was younger after I did something for someone else. I remember reading my little sister stories at bedtime, helping her to ride a bike and swim, making my bed and yes…making my dad a cup of tea. The thing is as you get older these ‘good turns’ just develop into everyday activities and unless you evolve as a person too, and step up your ‘good turn’ game, all you will do is fall behind and live in a world where your actions only benefit yourself. When we step into adult hood, good turns should develop from that into kindness and compassion.

This week I started thinking about:

“Random acts of kindness.”

Surely as adults that’s what we should be doing? So I’ve spent the rest of my week making sure that every day I’ve been doing a random act of kindness to someone I know - Something that I don’t normally do (So this time making a cup of tea doesn’t count!). For example, I wrote little post it notes to my hubby to read when he came home from work. And honestly, I felt that same euphoria that I did when I was 7 making a cup of tea for my dad. That feeling of doing something for someone else just to show them kindness and make them smile.

What I’ve started to realise is that now in the time we live in, life pretty much is centred around social media. When I was younger encounters with friends only happened on play dates or in school, so your home life was precious and you were present around your family and attentive. Now it’s so easy to come home and continue a virtual chat with someone without really being present around those people that actually matter. If we are always glued to social media our sense of what is real becomes distorted and we forget what matters. We forget to show that special attention to those we love to make them feel cared for.

I’m not saying get rid of social media, or it’s wrong, I’m just saying that maybe we should think about giving ourselves half an hour each and every day just to take a moment and think:

‘What can we do to show kindness to someone else?’

and

‘What can we do to help someone else?’

Doing good turns shouldn’t just be encouraged for 7 year old girls, it should be encouraged at any age!

Just because we are growing up and have ventured into the adult world does not mean the old fashioned principle of doing a good turn every day should stop. It’s more important now than ever before to continually show kind heartedness and good nature especially with all the stresses, expectations and pressures of todays society. We should all be channelling our inner Brownie and showing the world every day how random acts of kindness can make a difference. Not only does that in turn help someone else, but that euphoric sense of achievement from helping someone else really does bring about an amazing empowerment in your self-esteem that you are making a difference in this world.

So this week, release your inner Brownie, and see what good turns and random acts of kindness you can shower on the world and those you love. See what a difference it makes to those around you as well as yourself.

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