I got the nicest note in the mail yesterday. One of my yoga students had the kind and generous impulse to write me an actual letter, from a hotel in Hammond, IN where she was staying on a business trip, to tell me that she had thought of me that day and had really enjoyed the yoga class she’d been in the previous night.

I have a lot of kind impulses, but I’m not that good at carrying through. I want to change that. Writing letters to people to thank them is kind not only to those other people, it is a way to be kind to yourself. Expressing gratitude is shown to make you happier.

I saw another kind thing recently. My friend Kate walked out of a yoga class and spontaneously said to my friend Rhonda “Do you have someone in your life who tells you that you are beautiful?” It was a kind thing to say, and I bet it made Rhonda’s day. (It’s true, too, by the way…Rhonda is staggeringly beautiful, and she has this glow of positive energy around her that just enhances the effect.)

I have thoughts like that, but more often than not I don’t actually say them out loud. I am inspired to do more of this sort of thing. Sometimes the universe shows you examples just to remind you what you meant to do.