Rob and Sally's acts of kindness

As the sun streams into their Armathwaite home, the world seems fine as it is. But Rob, 48, and Sally, 42, are looking beyond themselves.

“We were watching TV in December,” says Rob. “There was a programme about a girl with cerebral palsy. A lady had come forward and offered to buy her a wheelchair. The look on this girl’s face was just amazement. We noticed the lady who bought the wheelchair was so thrilled to be doing it. We thought how amazing it would be to change someone’s life. Not just for the recipient but for you as the giver.

“We then started thinking, it doesn’t have to be money. You get the same kind of warm and fuzzy feeling if you help an old person struggling with their shopping.

“We looked into it. Giving is very good for you. It releases endorphins. It lowers blood pressure. Wouldn’t it be great to put together some kind of movement that encouraged people to be a lot kinder to each other?”

The result is the Big Love Challenge. The aim is to enlist as many people as possible to spread "extreme kindness".

Participants pledge to bring more compassion into their lives and their communities. For a week they receive a range of daily suggestions for good deeds. Rob and Sally hope kindness will become a habit, and that the good deeds will breed.

“It’s also good for anyone who witnesses it,” says Rob. “It grows and grows. In the States a man donated his kidney to a stranger. That inspired other donors to come forward across the US. There are a lot of things in the States based around suggesting good deeds people can go off and do.”

People can sign up now for the Big Love Challenge. There is no fee. The previous one ran several weeks ago. People contacted Rob and Sally with details of how they had spread some sunshine. Examples included talking to homeless people and letting someone go in front of them in the supermarket queue.

Rob says: “A woman taped a couple of quid to a parking meter at a hospital. She put a note on there saying ‘Have a nice day.’ She was getting in her car when she heard an elderly couple saying ‘There’s still nice people in the world.’ She couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day. The message we’re getting back is, people are making a difference to their own lives and other people’s lives.”

Where does Donald Trump fit into this? Rob was worried about the world. “You see this guy who’s got his finger on the button. He has the potential to blow us all to smithereens. Everybody is spreading fear, anger and hate. The only antidote is to accept the situation and be kind.

“Instead of being kind to people you normally would, Big Love is about stretching to those you wouldn’t normally consider. Until we can start extending kindness to those we think don’t deserve kindness, we’re never going to change. You only have to look at Donald Trump’s family to see they adore him. He can’t be all bad. If we exclude him from this country that makes him feel bitter.”

So they wish Donald Trump well, in the hope that kindness will encourage kindness.

Daily life offers rich potential along these lines, such as not giving hand signals to the driver who cuts you up.

“When you hold a grudge, the only person who really suffers is you,” says Rob. “It’s a massive step. But that’s where the really huge benefits are. We start with someone we don’t get on with too well. Show them we’re thinking about them.

“When someone is doing something that’s obviously annoying, try and remember that they’re not doing it for any other reason than they’re unhappy or hurt inside. They might have had a really bad day, or a really bad life.”

“That’s what we feel about Matt,” says Sally.

Matt is the man who tried to kill them. On May 23, 2010, Rob and Sally had hosted a housewarming party in Brampton. They’d gone to bed. Matt Lucas was one of several guests staying overnight. At 4am he entered their bedroom and attacked them with a carving knife from their kitchen.

Rob was stabbed twice in the neck, one blow cutting an artery in his neck. Sally was stabbed 18 times around the head and suffered a punctured lung. Neither was expected to survive. Lucas offered no explanation. He was jailed indefinitely for attempted murder.

Rob and Sally are leading by example in their quest to spread kindness. They are trying to contact Lucas, to tell him he is forgiven.

“We carried a lot of hurt and pain for a long time,” says Rob. “Everybody has setbacks and stresses. You can’t change what happens to you. The only thing you can change is how you respond to it.”

Sally says: “For a short time we thought ‘Why us?’ Then it became a catalyst for change. It was so extreme, we had to do something major to combat it. We realised the importance of forgiveness. We need to forgive Matt. It has to be right for him. We don’t want to make it worse for him. We want to make him aware that he’s forgiven, if that’s needed by him.”

“When we started learning to forgive and be compassionate and see the person who hurt us is himself incredibly hurt, that changes things,” adds Rob.

“I phoned up the prison recently to try and get in touch with him. I spoke to the Probation Service. The first question they asked was ‘Why?’ I said I wanted to tell him he’s forgiven. The line went quiet for a while. He said ‘We’ve never had anyone do that before.’ That’s the thing. This is not prevalent in society.”

The attack is something Rob and Sally are understandably reluctant to discuss. They are also concerned that the gory details will steal attention from their message of kindness. “We tell people about what happened and that’s all they think about,” says Sally.

But they found something positive in the worst experience of their lives. Sally had been a police sergeant. Rob ran training courses for teachers. Their recovery was helped by mindfulness. Offering courses in this became their job and their passion.

Life is now less competitive and more open to connecting with people, while taking into account their motivations. The Big Love Challenge puts all this into practice.

Rob is keen to stress the feel-good benefits for those taking part. “There’s a Buddhist saying: ‘All the suffering in the world comes from trying to make ourselves happy. All the happiness comes from trying to make other people happy.’”

And he is grounded enough to see a risk of being regarded as weird for talking about the spiritual aspect. “It’s not just about us going on some crazy crusade. It’s not a whim. We’ve given up our other work to focus on this.”

They hope to take the idea into schools with a version called Kindness Club, and also into businesses.

The first Big Love Challenge saw 1,500 people sign up in multiple countries. The aim is to be kind to oneself as well as others.

Rob says: “People are saying ‘I’m now seeing myself as a good person, which I wasn’t able to do before.’ You can’t hope to love someone else unless you’ve got that feeling inside you first.

“It’s often our hang-ups and fears that are doing all those negative acts around the world. Everything comes from fear and not liking yourself. We recognise kindness has got to start with ourselves. Accept your faults and things you’ve done. Until we change as people, the world’s not going to change.”

Big Love suggestions include not bitching for seven days. Rob and Sally know this can be hard, and point out that they’re not immune from the odd grumble themselves.

Remembering the first time they were taken outside the intensive care unit in their wheelchairs helps to restore perspective. “It was a sunny day,” says Rob. “The sense of gratitude we had for having another shot. For living.”

They moved to Armathwaite last year. Two neighbours brought them cakes. Whenever Rob sees these ladies it reinforces his belief that kindness benefits the kind. “I’ve noticed those two never stop smiling,” he says.

A better world for their three-year-old daughter Poppy is further motivation for Rob and Sally. They recently received a postcard from Patch Adams, the American physician immortalised in film by Robin Williams. The card says ‘I’m happy to hear what you’re doing towards a better world.’

“We cried when we got that,” says Sally.

She and Rob don’t want to be forever known as the couple who were stabbed. They are writing a new headline: ‘Cumbrian couple change the world.’

* Visit http://biglovechallenge.org to sign up for The Big Love Challenge.