I listen to podcasts, and recently I was listening to an interview with James Doty who is clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University. James Doty has written a book called Into the Magic Shop which documents his childhood experiences with mindfulness and meditation … although he didn’t know that is what was happening for him. His childhood was somewhat chaotic, as his Father was an alcoholic and his Mother was disabled through a stroke and suffered with depression.

As a 12 year old he wanted to escape and would ride his bike to the local shopping centre where he found a magic shop, where the shop owner befriended him and taught him magic tricks, but allowed him to talk about what was happening. She taught him ways of thinking and basically what we would now refer to as mindfulness. James was 12 and it was 1968, so mindfulness was not particularly known about or referred to at that time.

Dr James Doty is the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. In the podcast he talks about the magic of compassion and mindfulness, and the power of words. He talks about the ability to be present, learning how to breathe and stop the noise that is going on around us. He said that he was taught to change the perspective when interacting with others, understanding that we all have an inner dialogue, and this affects how we see the world and how we interact with the world.

Dr James Doty does talk about the science of this in that there are more signals going from the heart to the brain, than from the brain to the heart. Care and compassion when we care for others increases our levels of oxytocin which is the love hormone or the cuddle hormone. So it is good to care, and this is a positive affect of being selfish, because when we care for others it makes us feel good.

He believes that everyone of us everyday has the ability to make a difference to the world, to make at least one person’s life better. Not only would this change someone else’s life, but it will change your life for the better.  When asked what he felt the meaning of life was he replied: the meaning of life is to be of service to others, and this empowers your own life to have meaning, when your children aspire to be like you they think of kindness, compassion and caring.

I think this summed World Kindness Day up for me, but actually... live a life of kindness rather than just one day.