I did not become kind because I healed.

I began to heal because I became kind.

I know you are probably rolling your eyes right now, and old me would have been too, but I’ve got to tell you, friends, when you really commit to kindness, magical things start happening. I get how crazy it sounds. Trust me, I do. I spent my life as a junked-out skeptic that couldn’t control my criminal thinking and who had the most self-serving habit ever known to man.

There comes a point in one’s life when you experience real, true magic that is absolutely UNDENIABLE, and that’s what consistent kindness has done and does for me. Just please keep an open mind and try it consistently for 9 days. It has to be genuine, authentic, random acts of kindness that benefit you in no way, and that you don’t tell others about. Let’s get into it.

That distinction between the above-stated, “I did not become kind because I healed.

I began to heal because I became kind,” took me years to understand — and when I finally did, it changed the way I saw everything. My recovery. My purpose. The small daily choices that were quietly rebuilding me from the inside out.

When I was deep in addiction, kindness felt like a foreign concept. Not because I was a bad person. But because survival mode leaves little room for thinking about anyone else. You are too busy trying to get through the day without being sick.

But somewhere in the early, fragile days of rebuilding — before I had much to give, before I trusted myself, before I was anything close to healed — I started doing small things for other people.

Smiling at strangers. Holding doors. Listening without waiting for my turn to talk. Leaving a few dollars on the gas pump and on the diaper packs at the convenience store.

On one of these occasions, I had my five-year-old daughter put the dollar bills on the pump, and we went into the store. While we were waiting in line, a man came in with a HUGE smile on his face and told the cashier he needed more gas. He said he would now be able to make it to Burlington to his grandmother, who was in the hospital. Talk about a beautiful lesson! I couldn’t have planned it better myself.

A few weeks in, something shifted.

There is a particular kind of shame that comes with addiction and incarceration.

It is not just guilt about what you did. It is a deep, cellular-level belief that you are fundamentally less than. That you have forfeited your right to belong. That the human being you once were — or hoped to be — is gone. It is a horrible feeling, and I still struggle with it at times. “Nobody cares what I have to say.” “Nobody will follow me. What do I have to offer?” I believe it’s called imposter syndrome. Take imposter syndrome and multiply that feeling times 1000, and that is how it feels to carry a lifetime of addiction and incarceration.

I carried that shame like a weight I did not know how to put down.

And then, slowly, without really meaning to make it a practice, I started noticing opportunities to do good things for people. Small things. A kind act here. A word of encouragement there. Checking on a family member I had neglected. Showing up for someone when nobody was watching.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing that would make a good story.

But something was happening inside me.

Every act of kindness — every selfless act, however small — was casting a vote for a version of me I actually wanted to be. It was rebuilding something I did not yet have the language for.

Later, I would learn it was self-worth.

I was not waiting to feel worthy before I acted with kindness. I was acting with kindness and slowly discovering that I was worth something after all.

This is not just lived experience. The scientific research is extensive — and it is worth understanding.

Here is what happens in your body when you perform a kind act:

When you do something kind for another person, your brain triggers a release of oxytocin — sometimes called the love hormone — which promotes feelings of warmth, trust, and social connection. At the same time, levels of serotonin rise, creating feelings of happiness and emotional well-being. Your body also releases endogenous opioids— the same feel-good chemicals triggered by exercise — which reduce psychological distress and contribute to an overall sense of calm.

And it does not stop there.

Research from the University of British Columbia found that people who performed random acts of kindness showed significant increases in positive emotions and social connections. A systematic review published in the journal Psychological Bulletin found that prosocial behavior — helping others — consistently predicted better mental health outcomes across age groups, including older adults.

Studies have also shown that kindness buffers stress. When stress hormones like cortisol spike, kind behaviors create a counteracting release of feel-good hormones that regulate the body’s threat response. Over time, regular kindness practices have been linked to lower blood pressure, better cardiovascular health, reduced risk of heart disease, and even a lower risk of mortality.

The release of nitric oxide during kind interactions relaxes blood vessels and supports heart health. The reduction in stress hormones reduces the kind of chronic inflammation linked to cardiovascular disease.

Kindness is not soft. It is physiologically powerful.

recovery, carrying the weight of everything I had done and lost, I started making eye contact with people and smiling. Not because I felt good. Because I needed to remember that I was still a human being capable of connection.

And they smiled back.

That sounds like nothing. It was everything.

Listening Without Judgment.

In early recovery, I was surrounded by people carrying pain similar to mine. I started really listening to them — not to fix, not to compare, not to wait for my turn. Just to hear them.

That kind of presence is a kind act. And every time I offered it, something in me softened.

Showing up for someone when I had nothing to give.

There were moments in my early rebuilding where I helped someone else with something I had not even solved for myself yet. I made phone calls for people. I drove someone to an appointment. I sat with someone in a hard moment.

I did not have much. But I had that.

And those simple acts of kindness did something that no amount of self-focused healing work had managed to do — they made me feel like I was part of something. Like I had a sense of purpose. Like I belonged.

your own nervous system. You feel good.

That feeling motivates another kind act. That act deepens social connections. Those connections reduce social isolation. That reduction in isolation improves mental health. That improvement in mental health makes you more capable of kindness.

Around And Around It Goes.

This is the Ember Theory at work — small actions, compounding quietly, producing profound change that nobody could have predicted from the outside.