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Friday, November 28, 2008

Paying Attention...


One of the strongest weapons in our arsenal we can employ to create a more peaceful world is often overlooked and undervalued, it is our attention.
Paying attention to each other, those we see in our daily lives as well as those continents away that we may never see, improves our lives… others lives, as well as the climate of the world.
We may not be able to change the frustrations or quell the challenges others face, but by taking the time to listen and trying to understand their plight it can give hope. When someone really takes the time to listens it sends the signal that we matter…that our voice is heard, which gives us strength.
Listening to each others stories also helps to narrow the divide between individuals and cultures, the more we engage with each other the more we begin to recognize our similarities as human beings and citizens of the earth….and discover that at our core we all share the same basic emotional and physical needs for survival.
So as many of us fly through life at warp speed lets try to be mindful of hearing the need for attention and try to allocate a few moments of our day to listening.
Thanks for listening!!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Thank you...

On the eve of the day of thanks, I would like to take a moment and thank you…everyone of you for all the things you do to make this world a better place. Each one of you and your positive actions count and make a difference in our lives…so again thank you and enjoy the day!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Hearing the Call

If we are all one interconnected body of life…if we are responsible to each other and for each other, how can we stand back and watch cruel and injustices inflicted upon our brothers the world over and feel little and do less? Or is it that we do feel the pain …a great pain, but when we believe that we cannot alter the events the feeling of inadequacy and helplessness is so great that as self protection we detach and retreat? Do we foresee any actions that we personally may be capable of as totally insignificant…almost laughable, like a hungry person picking up a dirty penny left on the street thinking it will make a difference. Does that feeling cause us to abandoning our intention all together?
Or do we wait for the call…the call to service…the call to action, pointing the way we can make the world, our world a better place?
Could it be that that call does rings out …every day… softly, but the volumes down and it is easily drowned out by the din of our daily demands? Or perhaps its just not the call we want to hear… because secretly we are waiting for the day that we will be in position to truly help someone...to be a hero, a big screen moment when we will summons all our courage and jump in a frozen river to save a drowning child or step into traffic to pull someone out about to get hit by a car?
How do we shift our thoughts and realize that there is far greater value in the smallest of actions than in the greatest of intentions. When will we understand the power of an action…any action, regardless the size to cause a reaction which causes yet again a reaction and so on? When will we acknowledge that innately we are all Agents of Peace and the power is ours wield in any degree we choose?
Perhaps our first step would be to turn up the volume on our inner voice…listen to our hearts and trust that as minor as a proposed action may be …it will make a difference!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Bring Peace Not Pain

BRING Peace not Pain…..that should be easy…like bring chicken not steak...it’s a choice we make with every interaction we have. We just forget that it is a choice and react with instinct…the Fight or Flight instinct that was so crucial for early man has proven itself a determent in the emotional evolution of Man.
In early days survival was directly related to the strength of ones Flight or Flight instinct as well as the ability to institutively identify threats…and many times threats were simply the unknown. With so much of the world unknown when confronted with something new, time spent in discovery often lead to death or destruction. It was those that could identify potential danger and deal with it accordingly that had the greatest chance for survival.
As both Man and society have evolved those innate instincts have also continued to evolve. In Prehistoric time the fight response originally revealed its self in strictly physical behavior, (man fighting his opponent). Today, that has morphed from physical to verbally aggressive behavior as well, and while early mans flight instinct was simply that...to physically move out of harms way, that to has begun to manifest itself in emotional withdrawal as well.
The fear of the unknown has survived in modern man as well, however that too has evolved, no longer limited to the immediate, exterior world around us, the fear of the unknown now lurks in our abstract future thought. This fear has also been feed and nurtured in recent years by the constant barrage of media alerts. Thus leaving us in a perpetual state of stress, with our Fight or Flight instinct in high gear. The result…a hostile and aggressive society…

So where do we go from here? How do we rewire ourselves to automatically respond with LOVE and compassion, how do we work to BRING Peace not Pain into our relationships and encounters with others?
How do learn to trust ourselves and others? How do we work to see ourselves as interconnected with all human beings? How do we lay down our pain and our fears...let loose our betrayals and our quests for revenge to those who have wronged us? How do we break down our protective walls we have constructed that have left us in self imposed isolation? How do we rid ourselves of the destructive emotions the eat away at our core, our core of HOPE and LOVE. How?
Before we can bring PEACE we must know LOVE ,LOVE...LOVE is the answer to all…if our thoughts, intentions and actions are motivated by LOVE, pure LOVE...LOVE of self, LOVE of all Mankind, LOVE of Nature, LOVE of individuals, LOVE of life...the list is endless, if we cloak all we see in white light of LOVE then reacting with hate and anger becomes very difficult if not impossible.
Is it easy, easy to turn our emotions, like a light switch…LOVE on hate off? Yes and no, and easier for some than others yet not impossible for anyone. When we came into the world with the seeds of LOVE were firmly planted. If they took root and grew or lay dormant has much to do with the environment of our birth, and our early years of life. Like a flower seed in a soil, the better the conditions the stronger the flower will grow. The optimum growing condition for LOVE is a nurturing supportive environment, with LOVE the best fertilizer for LOVE. However even to those born under the most challenging of circumstance the seed remains and can be cultivated at anytime.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Where do we store our memories?

Why do we hold on to possessions whose use is no longer of value but are reminiscent of people or times in our past? Do we feel that the objects connect us to that past…does the solid form of the object allows us to imagine our memories as real and tangible as well? Or are they merely a catalyst to recalling that past event? Is it fear that if we part with these items then we may be parting with the memories as well?

For those of us that struggle with the decision of what to keep and what to save…we place values on our things, financial value, convenience value, aesthetic value and emotional value. But what exactly is the value of emotional value? Do we place that above other values? Should we???