“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” — Dalai LamaIn these distressing times, kindness and gentleness can be an antidote to stress, a balm for body and soul. When someone is kind to us, especially when we’re feeling vulnerable or it’s unexpected, it feels like Grace. We breathe a sigh of relief and begin to release accumulations of tension that have built up throughout our tissues. We can even feel ourselves expand from a contracted state and resume our natural shape, come alive in our senses and become more fully present, more fully who we really are. As we release inner tensions, air and blood circulate more freely throughout our bodies, bringing fresh nourishment to our cells and removing toxic debris. If lack of nutrients and the presence of toxins are the two sources of all disease, tension and stress increase both. No wonder stress is linked to so many diseases. Dis-ease is the absence of ease. Ease comes with that sigh of relief that we are not deserving of…

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”—a quote attributed to Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne—is great for those times when you want to pull out all the stops to meet a challenge and attain a worthwhile goal, but what about when every day is tough, and it keeps getting tougher?That’s life for a lot of us in the age of COVID. And when stress is unrelenting, it goes from being eustress—stress that’s challenging and beneficial, to distress—stress that wears you down and causes all kinds of disease.The challenge is to balance stress with relaxation; switching off the “fight or flight” mode, and switching on the recuperation mode.One problem is that our culture values and rewards the “fight or flight” mode far more, and most of us are even addicted to it. Our American culture teaches us that anyone can and should be “a winner” by trying harder and working smarter, so like caged rats on a running wheel we keep plugging away hoping to come out on top. Rarely are we encourage…