Kindness Matters: this has been my mantra for 2021. When immersed in conversation, whether online or in person, different views emerge. I’ve learned to honor each person’s point of view. It doesn’t signify that I agree with their opinion; often, I do not. But whether we concur with others’ positions or beliefs doesn’t matter as long as we respond with kindness.
At first glance, we feel the challenges when confronted with strife and conflict on social media, television, and even on our neighborhood streets. When friends and family see things differently than you, it throws you off-kilter. It’s not usually personal; most people perceive their truths through deeply ingrained cultural and family beliefs. That’s how they comprehend life.
How can we navigate these often-turbulent waters when you look around and discover your lifeboat has disappeared?
When you’re in over your head, don’t struggle. Fighting against a riptide can lead to disaster; instead, release and take a deep breath. Bring in the higher vibrations of love and kindness.
Easier said than done? No. Not really. Here’s an easy fix; it’s a hack anyone can do: smile. That’s it. That’s all. It’s that simple.
Here’s a little secret that I learned years ago in my training as a psychologist: You don’t have to feel like smiling; you just need to smile. Force it. Make your lips curve upward. Make your eyes crinkle into a smile, but then you’ll notice something that’s almost magical. That smile that you just contrived? It becomes real, it becomes genuine.
How? Smiling creates a hormonal rush throughout the body. As our brain releases neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, these chemicals flood through the cells of our physical forms. The end results? This chemical rush elevates your mood, enhances your immune system, lowers blood pressure, and reduces pain.
But there is more added value to this simple act: The smile isn’t just for you, there’s a ripple effect. Smiling jump-starts a process of using our heart to expand. Within moments, a bubble of energy surrounds our physical bodies, affecting everyone we encounter. Suddenly, we realize all those little things that troubled us aren’t as bothersome.
Intuitively, you take a deep breath and look around with a different perspective. The sky is a little bluer, the air a little fresher, and everything around you shines a little brighter.
Embracing kindness as my mantra served as my compass to navigate the storms of life from 2021. At times, it was my lifesaver, keeping me afloat—and all I had to do was smile.
What’s in store for next year? I recently posed that question to the messengers.
You can view the answers below in my video
- Biography
- Books
In ten minutes, my life changed forever. My comfortable six decades of living became unrecognizable. Change brings different perspectives, and I soon discovered I questioned everything I knew, or thought I knew, about life.
In ten minutes, my life changed forever. My comfortable six decades of living became unrecognizable. Change brings different perspectives, and I soon discovered I questioned everything I knew, or thought I knew, about life.
Before that August morning, I epitomized normalcy—others might have called my life boring. I went to work each day, came home, read a book, and talked on the phone or sat in front of some sort of electronic screen. My life revolved around my work and my children. In 1987, at the age of thirty-five, my husband died, and I was left to raise my son and daughter by myself. Both are now married with children of their own. Phillip works in the music industry and lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and Cassie lives just a few miles away from me in Naples, Florida. As I look back on my life then, nothing appeared out of the ordinary—not in the way I dressed and spoke, or in my habits, work, friendships, or thoughts. As a psychologist, I differentiated normal from abnormal, and my life represented nothing but the commonplace.
On August 28, 2013, a brief experience changed everything. The foundation of my belief system cracked. I had to suspend my assumptions about the world to make room for different truths. As a result, I careened off life’s comfortable, and perhaps mundane, path. I now view the universe quite differently. Looking back, my life before that ten-minute experience seems as if it belonged to someone else.
● The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief – Order Now
● The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure Into the Angelic Realm – Order Now
The Reluctant Messenger book series leads the reader through a doorway into another dimension that exists simultaneously with what most people would describe as reality. Author Candice Sanderson is a psychologist whose training taught her to engage her world by the physical senses, but that all changed on morning when she began to receive messages from other realms of existence. Follow this ordinary person’s extraordinary journey into the unknown through her books, The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief and The Reluctant Messenger Returns: An Unexpected Adventure Into the Angelic Realm.
The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief
The Reluctant Messenger chronicles the spiritual journey of Candice M. Sanderson, a psychologist who inadvertently veered off of life’s comfortable path when she began to receive messages from other realms of existence. Her extraordinary journey into the unknown began early one morning on her commute to work.
As a psychologist, her training had taught her to measure her surroundings by the five physical senses. It something could not be heard, seen, felt, smelled, or tasted, it did not exit. This early-morning commute changed everything. These communications were too strong to ignore, and the clinically-trained psychologist had to work through doubt, fear, and her own professional judgment to acknowledge these messages.
Though reluctant, Candice became a messenger, bringing news of a verifiable spiritual dimension. She learned truths about the fluid nature of time and how near-death experiences could alter timelines. Ascended masters and beings from the angelic realms shared both universal and personal messages of love and hope. Messages from star beings and other galactic entities communicated to her about energy grids that protected our Earth. She learned of the very nature of our existence.
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I can’t agree more about being kind. You can make someone’s day better with kindness alone. So, an example of this just happened to me. I was Christmas shopping a few days ago and the stores are crowded with shoppers. People are feeling a little more stressed during the holidays. A woman was being very rude to everyone she came into contact with, me included. She was ruining the day for a lot of people and I felt kind of upset. I could really feel a negative vibration. I decided to go to a different part of the store to continue shopping but at a distance from that woman. I was looking at the products when a different woman came up beside me and began looking too. She turned to me and said, “Happy Holidays”, and started a small conversation. She was just one of those people that you can feel are genuine and kind. Even though our little conversation lasted but a few minutes, she put me back into a great holiday mood. Kindness really matters.
It’s all a matter of perspective and how we choose to see the world. Do we harbor anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, or do we choose a different path? The choice is ours.
It sure is, Candie.
I saw this today and wanted to share it: “Kindness is like snow. It beautifies everything it covers.” ~ Kahlil Gibran