Wishing you a year with an abundance of love and peace, and fulfillment of all your desires.

As a new year approaches many of us will take this new beginning as a time to reflect on the past year…assess our wins and our loses and begin to set our agenda for the coming year. We will compile a list of things we hope to accomplish and habits and behaviors we hope to transform. For many of us this years list will appear remarkably similar to last years list and perhaps the year priors as well….Why is that?

Action expresses priorities.
Mohandas Gandhi

Intentions reveal the best of who we would like to be, or how we would best like to act in a situation…
( little clarity here… by saying BEST, best is meant as level of measure … not, best, as in highest moral fiber…). Be it a lifestyle action…(exercise more, save more money, write more…paint more...eat less …work more…work less), or a relationship action …(do X for someone…stop doing X to someone) we often start out with the greatest of intentions … but somewhere along way…somewhere, they can get a tad diluted or even completely neglected.
Why is that? We know what we want… we know how we want to perform in a certain way...we acknowledge what we are going to do, what our intentions are...and yet??? Our intentions change?? Did we set too high expectations in the first place? Most likely no…most likely our intentions were not supported by our priorities. At first glance, we might say, “no, I really wanted to do….but …..got in the way”. More often than not what prevents us from achieving our intentions is current behavior patterns. By allowing something else to take precedent over our intentions, what we often find is our reluctance for change.
By identifying change, (reluctance of) as the source of the impediment we can begin to rewire the flow of thought, conscious and unconscious to be in line with our intentions.
Take for example, exercise, you have an extremely busy lifestyle, work, social obligations and what time is left you prefer to enjoy quietly with family and friends. However you are often tired but you know that you need exercise to feel your best, so you tell yourself you will begin to exercise everyday after work. Now although your intentions are sound and justified, unless you begin an inner dialogue with yourself identifying the needed change ( time spent with family and friends verses time spent exercising) and can convince yourself that the change will be more beneficial to your overall life…as committed to your intention as you believe you are …most likely it will not come to fruition.
For our intentions to yield results we must employ our inner GPS and clearly identify and acknowledge the obstacles, the current behaviors that may impede our success. Then decide if the compensation is worth changing them.
Think of an intention as a new enthusiastic Chairman of the Board and your inner thoughts and behaviors the reluctant “Old Guard”…they have their comfort zone and are quite happy there. To turn the tides you must have their support...and that will be gained through understanding of how things are currently operating then identifying the advantages of the change and show a solid plan on how to implement the change.
So with your next intention...no matter the level of intensity make a list of what changes you would need to make in order to complete your intention…(thought changes, lifestyle changes, concrete changes..) look at how the changes will affect you…weigh them and if the payoff from the implementing the intention out weights the results from keeping things as they are…you have a strong chance for success!! Good Luck.
Suzi

Peace on earth...Goodwill to Man

How would our lives differ…how would the world differ… if we were hardwired to act in manners that only promoted Peace on earth and goodwill towards Man, if we innately knew that we were all interconnected? If thoughts or visions of fellow sufferings were felt with equal intensity as our personal sufferings….how would that have shaped our world?
Perhaps that is how we were wired, but along the way personal and or maternal/paternal survival instinct trumped it, …as life presented challenges that threatened our personal/ family survival we began to make choices to ensure our continued existence, many times at the cost of another’s life. Is it, as we continue to evolve it is our will to live that is strengthened and dictates our actions towards others, while silencing our hearts when they ache for those trampled in the quest?
Or perhaps as we evolve we begin to shift from a myopic view of the world where the universe is seen only in its relationship to us, to our needs and wants, to where the lens begins to widen, we begin to see what we have really known all along, that the world is one, one interconnected and interdependent body of life. With us being just another integral part, no greater nor lesser than any other part. We begin to listen to our hearts and to truly understand that Peace on earth and goodwill to Man is paramount to global survival, and global survival is vital to our personal survival.
Whether it is evolution or enlightenment it is happening…it is here, in every pocket of the world you can find evidence of this thought/understanding…you can find individuals and groups sacrificing for the greater good. You can see the seeds of hope and compassionate caring as they grow and alter the landscapes of some of the worlds most barren vistas.
You can be a part of this shift…turn up the volume on your heart, take action where and when you can…and remember that even the smallest positive action can cause monumental changes. It will take all of us…. individually and collectively to bring peace on earth….but we have the power to do so!!!!

Tis the season of JOY...

Tis the season of Joy…
For those of us that joy seems to eludes on a daily basis, the pressure is all the greater this time of year…pressure to feel the joy...show the joy…share the joy. That pressure alone is enough to keep joy far at bay. So what if we decided to not buy into the pressure…to just feel how we do feel…stop listening to the media and others telling us how we should feel…and start listening to ourselves?
What would we hear…perhaps our own voices…perhaps we would begin to understand what truly does bring us joy and peace. Perhaps we would be surprised to find that we have achieved many of the goals that give us the inner peace we thought we were striving for in vain. So we must indulge in our own quite…let our minds wonder to the people and places in our lives, past and present…look into our memories…and look at our dreams….what thoughts put an involuntary smile on our face? What memory causes our hearts to skip a beat…and begin our personal journey to finding our joy. For those of us that joy seems to eludes on a daily basis, the pressure is all the greater this time of year…pressure to feel the joy...show the joy…share the joy.
That pressure alone is enough to keep joy far at bay. So what if we decided to not buy into the pressure…to just feel how we do feel…stop listening to the media and others telling us how we should feel…and start listening to ourselves? What would we hear…perhaps our own voices…perhaps we would begin to understand what truly does bring us joy and peace. Perhaps we would be surprised to find that we have achieved many of the goals that give us the inner peace we thought we were striving for in vain.

So we must indulge in our own quite…let our minds wonder to the people and places in our lives, past and present…look into our memories…and look at our dreams….what thoughts put an involuntary smile on our face? What memory causes our hearts to skip a beat…and begin our personal journey to finding our joy.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Borne out of the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the foundation of international human rights law, it was the first universal statement outlining a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations stating the basic principles of inalienable human rights and guaranteeing the political and civic rights of all people, including the right to freedom from torture, slavery, poverty, homelessness and other forms of oppression. The Declaration represents a contract between governments and their peoples, and the people have a right to demand that this document be respected and fulfilled.
Although it has been sixty years since this document was created and great strides have been made due to its existence, its goals are still far from being achieved. Currently, torture is an acceptable practice in at least 81 countries, people face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and in at least 77 countries freedom of speech is punishable.
To ensure that the mission of the Declaration will be not only remembered in history lessons but will be alive and dictate the behavior and conduct of governments and that we will find its commitments woven through international treaties and national constitutions and laws. It will demand action…continued action...monumental action, taken by nations and small actions, taken by individual citizens. Together we must make a commitment to ensure “that recognition of the inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”

Be a part of Amnesty International's Global Write-A-Thon--December 5-14! Your letters can save a life!

"Amnesty International's and its members' strengths have been the realization of the release of prisoners of conscience and the establishment of justice around the world where it is long overdue. The letter writing campaign has been a vital weapon in this regard.
It has kept hope alive for all those unjustly incarcerated and has also kept extra judicial governments in check, including our own." - Serj Tankian, System Of A Down singer and solo artist

Save the Date. Save a Life. Register Today!
Be a part of Amnesty International's Global Write-A-Thon--December 5-14! Your letters can save a life!
Register for the write-a-thon as an individual or as a group. Watch as your pledges help light up the Amnesty candle. Spread the word! Encourage your friends and family to get involved by texting or emailing them the link to register: www.amnestyusa.org/writeathon Check out the write-a-thon resources online. This site will provide you with everything you need to participate, including case sheets, sample letters, a checklist for how to plan an event, and promotional materials. For hard copies, please email writeathon@aiusa.org
Write and mail letters from December 5-14. After the Write-a-thon be sure to report back to let us know how many letters were sent. You can either fill out our online evaluation or send us an email at writeathon@aiusa.org.