A TAOLK is a targeted act of loving kindness, similar to a ROAK, a random act of kindness.  I have expanded on the concept of the ROAK, because I felt a desire to see people pursue courage in the face of their fears in a way that hits four key demographics:

1. Self love act that requires bravery to face a fear.
2. Close personal relationship act that also requires bravery to face a fear.
3. An act of kindness toward someone that you don’t know personally that requires bravery to face a fear.
4. An act of love that grounds and connects you with the earth.

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By practicing these TAOLKs, I believe that we can bring about massive positive change in our personal lives and on our planet.

The TAOLKs:

TAOLK 1: Loving ourselves is the one of the greatest acts of bravery we can commit because it allows us to live truthful lives, and to love other people more deeply. Your capacity for honesty with yourself will allow you to love others in an extraordinary way.

I call upon you to love yourself enough to face something you are afraid of.  We all have the capacity to help each other face the most dark and difficult parts of our existence; to help each other find the light of the sleeping stars. If you can see yourself clearly, and love your flaws as well as your virtues, you will begin to see how beautiful you are. That capacity to see beauty in imperfection is the secret to cherishing yourself and other people.

Please pick an act of self love that requires bravery. Whether that is respecting your own boundaries more, speaking out against something that feels wrong to you, letting yourself do something that calls to you or something else entirely.  Do this act, and tell us about it.

TAOLK 2: This second TAOLK follows on from the first, in that it also requires bravery and kindness to yourself.

If you had to spend a day speaking only white hot truth, how differently would you interact with some of the people who matter in your life?

What words, bold or lovely, would you be able to finally let yourself say?

One of the greatest gifts you can offer to us is your white hot truths. The ones that sing into the space they’re left in, and make you realize something important either about yourself or this world. In order for people to really know you, it is important to be able to sometimes say exactly what it is you need to. Rather than hiding yourself away like a secret. There are also actions we don’t let ourselves do, that could either empower us or tell someone else where it is we stand.

Commit an act of bravery in a close relationship. Allow yourself the absolute honesty to say or do something that feels right to you.

Your life is so precious and so worth fighting for.  I invite you to join me in sharing your truths.

TAOLK 3: The kindness of strangers is a powerfully important thing. It can make us feel less alone to receive that kindness and giving it can make us understand just how much of an impact we have on everyone we encounter.

We can create a wave of love, a wave that each of us can ride in order to reach someone else. Love is like a tide. We give it out, it comes rolling back in. When it comes back in, we want to give it back out again and so on, until the whole sea surrounding us is only love.

Your third TAOLK is to be kind to a stranger, and to face a fear and be brave in order to do so.  Please let your imagination guide your tide and let me know how it went!

TAOLK 4: Love is almost a physical thing. It expands and it grows and the more it does this, the more it can do this. No one ever ran out of room in their heart for love.

This Earth deserves our love as well. For its constantness and its beauty. For its strength and its fragility, and mainly for the life that it gives us.

So much of what I paint is about the magic of this universe. It is an invitation for us to become part of everything again.  Recognizing we need to maintain our connection with nature is an important step.  In a busy world, disconnecting is easy and often inevitable.

We need to stay connected with our sacred planet and to plant our roots regularly.  Your fourth TAOLK is an act of love that will ground and connect you with the earth. Do something beautiful that reminds the grass and the sky who you are.