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A Front Row Seat To Kindness

Posted on by Maya Enista Smith

Introducing the Cups of Kindness Collection

Six months ago, our Executive Director Maya Enista Smith shared the story, below, of a fundamentally simple but deeply human act of kindness that she witnessed at her local Starbucks.

Today, we’re so excited to announce that Born This Way Foundation and our Co-Founder Lady Gaga are teaming up with Starbucks to spread that message of kindness even further. We share a belief that our communities are strongest when we treat one another with compassion, respect, and generosity and we want to inspire music lovers, coffee drinkers, and everyone in between to put that philosophy into action.

So to kick off this partnership, Starbucks is launching the Cups of Kindness collection – four delicious and colorful drinks inspired and approved by our very own Lady Gaga. For every drink purchased between June 13th and June 19th, 25 cents will go towards Born This Way Foundation and our work to build a kinder, braver world.

So head to your local Starbucks and enjoy a Cup of Kindness today! You’ll be helping to support Born This Way Foundation programs like Channel Kindness and the idea that kindness can be a force for good.

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It’s pouring rain in Northern California and I’m just sitting down to start an action-packed day of work, preparing for #KickOffForKindness and planning an epic Year Of Kindness. I – of course – have my coffee with me; that coffee is one of the few things I’ll leave my office for today.

My job is kindness, and it’s incredible. In 2017, I’ve committed to thinking about kindness beyond the fact that I’m lucky to have it as the number one deliverable on my work plan; how is the world kinder because of your work today? I’d love to expand the answer to that question and think about what it means for me as a mom, as a community member, as a wife, as a friend?

We’re only 10 days into the year but I want to share a lesson I learned today in hopes that it reminds you to not only think about kindness, look for kindness and practice kindness, but also to acknowledge kindness in others.

Yesterday, on my daily coffee run at my neighborhood Starbucks I ran into my good friend Heidi.

Heidi’s beautiful three year old daughter is undergoing brain surgery tomorrow to remove tubers that are causing seizures in her little body. Heidi’s daughter bounced around Starbucks and asked me (as she usually does) if she could have a cookie. I know what cookies can do to three year olds at 10 AM, but this time I didn’t even look at Heidi for permission. I picked her up and asked her to point to the cookie she wanted and as we waited in line to pay for the cookie, I gestured to Gina (the manager at Starbucks) that this little girl was having brain surgery tomorrow.

I mouthed, mother to mother, ‘can you even imagine?’ Gina and I shook our heads at each other and she handed the little girl her cookie.

I left Starbucks, hugged Heidi, waved at Gina and went to work.

An hour later, I received a text from Heidi with a beautiful picture of her daughter, hugging a Starbucks bear. She wrote, “Your baristas are the best.”

Gina had given her a bear to keep her company in the hospital and with that bear, Gina gave Heidi kindness, acknowledgement and recognition of her incredible strength and courage.

I told my husband the story, I shared in Heidi’s joy as she treasured the unexpected but much appreciated act of kindness from a stranger ahead of a difficult, uncertain time. I kept this story of kindness to myself, mostly.

This morning, I stood in line at the same Starbucks to order the same coffee from the same friendly faces. Gina asked me urgently, when would I know about the surgery? Did they need anything else? She had just been talking to her District Manager (who was seated at a corner table in the store) about the little girl and how much it had moved her to meet her. I promised her I would keep her updated and thanked her for the cup of coffee. I got in my car, preoccupied by the Super Bowl or another memo I had to write, and thought about this story that had just unfolded at this store over the past two days.

The strangers who had been kind to me, to my friend, to each other and had done so without the expectation of anything in return. Only I had the full picture of the depth of Heidi’s fear around the surgery, the joy that Gina’s simple action had brought her daughter and the genuine concern Gina had for the child of a stranger. I sat in the driver seat and took out a business card and wrote a note to the District Manager. I went back into the rain, ran into the store and handed her the card without a word and ran back out.

Now, I have a lot of work to do and writing this blog has taken up a chunk of my morning but it was worth it. I had a front row seat to kindness this week, and I want to tell you about it and I hope you’ll look for it and tell me about it.

Kindly Yours,
Maya Enista Smith
Executive Director

Secret Agents of Kindness

Posted on by Katie Mosher

Spreading Kindness in Schools by Making it a Secret

We are excited to share a blog by one of our very own researchers, Katie Mosher. A group of insightful fifth graders inspired Katie to share just how easy it is for young people to spread kindness. As teachers and students around the country wrap up this school year, we encourage you to start thinking about next year. How can you create a kinder, more inclusive classroom next semester? 

Teachers all over the country (maybe now more than ever) are struck by the age-old question, “How do we make our schools kinder?” Many schools attempt to answer this question with celebrating Random Acts of Kindness week or giving students other challenges to be kind.

Well what if I told you that in a Midwestern Elementary School there are 5th grade boys evil-giggling while plotting how to carry out secret missions of kindness? In our school we have implemented a new kindness intervention to spread kindness, reduce bullying, and re-direct energy spent on disruptive behaviors.

The group is called “Secret Kindness Agents,” inspired by the book Secret Kindness Agents by Ferial Pearson. Students were chosen for the group and sworn to secrecy the first day. Each group is a mixture of target students with behavioral concerns and students who can model good behavior. The top secret aspect of this group is highly emphasized with code-words, pinky swears, missions written on confidential paper in code, and the required destruction of their missions after reading them.

Each week during a 15-minute secret agent meeting, the group processes their previous mission and receives a new assignment. Missions have included: writing an anonymous thank-you letter to a past teacher, giving 3 peers they don’t normally interact with a meaningful compliment, and offering a helping hand to someone without being asked or prompted. The students graduate after 8 weeks, receive a certificate, and are given the option of training new incoming students.

I will be honest, at first I was skeptical that a group of 5th grade boys would buy into this and not just laugh in my face or roll their eyes. However, not only do they love the exciting challenge each week of their missions and take the secretive aspect seriously, they also have grasped the importance of the group to a degree I never expected. Some of these students struggle with bullying behaviors, conflicts with teachers, and disruptive behaviors in the classroom, yet we are able to focus some of their energy each week searching for ways to be kind to others.

It may be counter-intuitive to take kindness undercover in schools as a way to increase its presence, but many of the kind acts in our society occur on a small level: paying for another person’s meal in a fast-food line, picking up a piece of trash in the park, opening a door for someone.

We want to teach kids to be on the look-out for opportunities to be kind, and that sometimes the most fun and rewarding kind acts are the ones that are not shouted from a mountain top, but simply change one person’s day. We are trying to teach them that by looking for ways to be kind they can change their school and they can change the world.

When Secret Kindness Agents were asked what they have learned about kindness after being in the group they said:

“This taught me that kindness never takes a day off and how kindness is super important and can turn someone’s day around. I’m very proud to be a member of the kindness agent group”- 4th grader

“When you’re kind, it helps other people be kind to everyone else”- 5th grader

“Kindness brings you closer to others so you can build a better community” -5th grader

“I realized that kindness is something you really just don’t think about, but now we think about our missions every day”- 5th grader

“I learned we have the power to make our school and world kinder and safer”-5th grareseahder

“Being kind isn’t just a 5-second thing and then it goes away. Kindness will always stay with you, it’s a lifetime thing” -4th grader

Know the Five Signs – You Might Save Someone You Love

Posted on by Barbara Van Dahlen

As we wrap up Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re proud to feature a guest blog from Barbara Van Dahlen, founder and president of Give an Hour. Give an Hour is a non-profit that fights the stigma around mental health by providing services to our military service members and veterans. You can find out more about Give an Hour’s mission and their work here.

In 1975, my dad helped me get my first job. I bagged groceries at the local super market in our small town in rural California. It was the summer before my junior year in high school. I was 15 years old. Sunday, June 22nd, was a typical hot summer day. The store was packed with shoppers as I moved from register to register filling bags with cans and cartons.

Sometime that afternoon the store manager walked over to me and said that I was done for the day – my stepmother was picking me up. I was confused and thought I had done something wrong. A few minutes later Joyce appeared – she looked tense and upset. We started walking toward the car and I begin peppering her with questions. She finally turned to me and said, “David drowned – we’re going home now”.

For years, I blamed my stepmother – probably hated her – for delivering the news that shattered my life. My beloved older brother – the cool, hip, vegetarian, hippie who taught me about music, macramé, and incense – was gone. David was 21 and had just graduated from community college – our family didn’t have the money to send him to a four-year university. But David was smart and did very well in school. Just before graduation he was accepted into the University of California on a partial scholarship. He would start classes in the fall to become a veterinarian. David lived with his girlfriend in the mountains near us – they went swimming that day at one of their favorite watering holes. His girlfriend had gone in first and been sucked under by the current. David jumped in, pushed her to safety and was pulled under himself.

Sadly, this wasn’t the first tragedy in my life. My mother had a psychotic break soon after I was born and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. After my father tried to help her for eight difficult years – my parents divorced, my mother disappeared and my dad was left with three boys and a little girl to raise. My dad soon married Audrey – a lovely woman who took good care of me. Tragically – Audrey’s 26 year-old daughter was killed in a car crash two years later. She and my father divorced soon after.

I remember feeling unbearable pain when David died. I was so angry – so afraid and so lost. I remember that I didn’t want to get out of bed – I’m sure I didn’t want to live. David had always been there – looking out for me, his tag-along little sister. And now he was gone.

Fortunately, my father – the World War II veteran – was a very good man who was devoted to us kids. I know that David’s death nearly killed him. I also know that he held himself – and our family – together as best he could because he knew how much I needed him to. I don’t know if I would have survived my brother’s death without him.

David’s death was not the last tragedy I would face. Six months after he drowned – Joyce’s 17-year-old son developed a rare illness and died. And then, when I was 27, I lost my dad to a heart attack.

Clearly, I suffered a great deal of emotional damage as I was growing up – but no one really acknowledged or talked about it. We didn’t have the language to talk about it and everyone in the family was just trying to survive.

But there were definitely signs had anyone been looking. I was angry much of the time and soon after David’s death, I started taking control over my eating and my body in ways that were not healthy. I was trying to get control over something, anything – as the world continued to deliver loss and pain on a regular basis.

Not surprisingly, I lost most of my friends after my brother died as they backed away from me. They were teenagers too – who were dealing with their own challenges and probably had no idea how to help me.

I was also a hard-working, smart and capable kid who got great grades, was a diver on the swim team and the head of our high school drill team. Indeed, it might have appeared to a casual observer that I was functioning well – resilient even – but I was hurting. I would have been so much healthier and happier if someone had recognized the signs and reached out to help me.

Needless to say, the rest of my adolescence and early adult years were challenging – relationships were chaotic and often resembled multi-car train wrecks. I continued to succeed in school – but I was guarded and felt like an outsider.

After finishing college, I moved east for graduate school. It’s not surprising that I wanted to be a psychologist. I wanted to understand mental health, mental illness and the impact of trauma on people who survive it. Fortunately, because of some great therapy I got while I was in grad school, I finally began to understand how my own tragic early life affected me.

I was living just outside of Washington DC on September 11, 2001 when our nation was attacked. It was such a frightening and uncertain time – so many people were suffering. As we moved toward war in Afghanistan and then Iraq, I began to think about harnessing mental health professionals to help service members, veterans and their families. My father suffered from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress after WWII – I wanted to do what I could to prevent others from experiencing the long-term consequences of war.

Building Give an Hour – the national nonprofit organization that I have led since 2005 – has been a privilege and an honor. Our generous volunteer mental health professionals have given over 220,000 hours, valued at over $22M to those who serve and their families. This free care has helped to heal countless families and save numerous lives.

But several years ago it occurred to me that we were overlooking a critical element in our effort. We were expecting service members – some of the bravest men and women in the world – to come home, raise their hand and say, “Excuse me, I’m struggling here. I need some help” when we don’t do that in our culture. We don’t talk about mental health the way we do physical health – we don’t talk about emotional well-being the way we talk about physical well-being. And we still treat people who have mental illness as if they somehow deserve their fate.

In 2015 – with First Lady Michelle Obama as our first champion – we launched the Campaign to Change Direction, a collective impact public health effort focused on changing the culture of mental health. In addition to our former first lady, we have been fortunate to have many other celebrities and influencers add their voices to this critical cause including Dr. Jill Biden, Prince Harry, Brian Wilson, Richard Gere and Chris Stapleton.

The Campaign focuses on creating a common language that helps everyone recognize the Five Signs that tell us someone we love may be suffering emotionally. Just like we know the signs of a heart attack, we can all learn these Five Signs – personality change, agitation, withdrawal, poor self-care and hopelessness – and if we see them, we reach out, connect and offer to help.

Recently, we added another key element to the Campaign – encouraging everyone to Learn the Healthy Habits of Emotional Well-being. We practice habits to keep us physically healthy. Isn’t it time we put at least the same energy into taking care of ourselves and our loved ones emotionally?

I have no way of knowing how my life might have been different if someone had noticed the signs of emotional suffering in me….but I have some ideas. And to be clear, this campaign is not about preventing people from hurting – because emotional pain and mental health challenges are part of the human condition.

I do know, however, that we can reduce emotional suffering, build healthier families and save lives if we learn to recognize and talk openly about what we see when we see it.

I do believe that together, we can Change Direction.

To learn more and to make a pledge to join us, visit www.changedirection.com

Just Love Yourself and You’re Set

Posted on by Kevin Schatell

Last year, we were lucky to meet Kevin Schatell, an NBC page, during our Share Kindness event in New York where he was brave enough to share his story. We are excited for Kevin to share his experiences on the Born Brave Blog. Join Kevin by sharing your own story. 

In 2011, when the Born This Way Foundation was created, I dreamed of working with the BTWF team in their mission to spread kindness. Well, here we are. That dream has finally come true, and now I have the honor to share what’s been stirring in my heart for the past six years.

The year 2011 was a crucial season of my life. I was finishing high school, applying to college, and beneath it all, coming to terms with being gay. My entire life, I could never muster up the courage to share that piece of myself with anyone. It wasn’t necessarily that I was afraid of being harassed or judged; what I was most afraid of was losing relationships with my dearest friends and family. What if the people I loved most just couldn’t find it in themselves to love me back…just for being me?

Around that time, a certain song was released that inspired a level of courage that I desperately needed. When Born This Way premiered and I heard Lady Gaga belt out the words “gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgendered life,” I felt proud. I felt included. I felt—in a way I’d never experienced—truly brave.

There are six words in that song that have had a deep impact on my life. They’re six words that I’ve reflected on for the past six years. And now, I want to dive into them with you because I believe they’re pivotal.

“Just love yourself and you’re set.”

I’ve repeated those words to myself more times than I can count. “Just love yourself and you’re set.” Being kind to other people is sometimes so much easier than being kind to ourselves…right? When someone else makes a mistake or feels insecure, it’s relatively easy to step in and show compassion. But when we ourselves make mistakes or feel insecure, it’s so difficult to show ourselves grace and love.

As I write this, I think about how many minutes of my life I’ve spent looking at myself through a lens of unkindness, wishing things were different. “I wish my body looked like that. If only I weighed this much. If I could just be more this, or less that…” It breaks my heart.

And that’s why Lady Gaga’s words are so important: “just love yourself and you’re set.” Imagine if we could change the tones of our inner dialogues to compassionate self-acceptance. What if we treated ourselves with kindness, even amidst our mistakes and perceived flaws? Then, our outward kindness would shine infinitely brighter.

Think about how much time that would free up to focus on other people. If we can slowly but steadily change our internal dialogues and make peace with ourselves, that would mean less time spent worrying about us and more time spent spreading love, acceptance, and kindness to others.

So how can we find that inner peace? I think the solution is also found in the lyrics of Born This Way:

“I’m beautiful in my way ‘cause God makes no mistakes.”

My faith is at the core of who I am, and I believe that God designed us exactly how we’re meant to be—every physical feature and personality trait crafted intentionally and perfectly. I’m going to continue reflecting on these lyrics and holding onto them as truth. “God makes no mistakes.” No matter what you believe, I hope we can all find peace that our lives have purpose, and we are perfect just the way we are.

I don’t want to spend another minute looking at myself wishing I were different. I want to spend my precious time in this world loving and serving others. And I really believe, if we can first and foremost love ourselves unconditionally, the kindness we share with others will be richer, brighter, and immeasurably more powerful.

5 Moments from Our May #KindnessChat

Posted on by Born This Way Foundation Team

This week, we hosted a #KindnessChat on Twitter to recognize and celebrate May as Mental Health Awareness Month. Dr. Sue Swearer and Cynthia Germanotta discussed the initial results of Phase III of our Born Brave Experiences survey. We also took questions on how to support friends struggling with mental health problems and we talked about why mental health is just as important as physical health.

If you couldn’t join us, here are 5 of our favorite moments. And we hope you’ll join our next #KindnessChat!