Governmental Failing

The Thailand Navy abandoned hundreds of Rohingya refugees in the middle of the sea leaving them to die or wash ashore somewhere else…….In Malaysia rather that turn them out to the sea they turn them over to human traffickers at the border of Thailand. …….As the rebel FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) are brutalizing and savagely killing civilians, members of the Rwandan Army are sent to protect the innocent civilians, but instead they have also been raping and terrorizing the civilians…...Although the Indonesian government is quick to condemn other nations about their lack of child labor laws, it does nothing to protect is own children, many of whom work 16 hour days, 7 days a week, for very little if any pay.

These are just a few examples pulled from recent news stories of where and how governments are falling short in valuing human life. Where does this leave us?

How have we continued to evolve, to learn, to discover, to invent…. to so drastically change the world, in areas of technology, medicine, the arts…yet we have failed to grasp the most basic humanistic understanding? How have failed to recognize that the destiny of man supersedes the destiny of any individual nation?

This leaves us at a time where we must strive to come together, to break down cultural, religious and lifestyle barriers…to see the differences in our daily trappings as nothing more that window dressings…and to know that we are bound together by the blood that pumps through our hearts.

We must speak out…act out…reach out and teach at every opportunity...because one by one, we can, we must and we will universally create a radical change in how we see each other.

Happy Valentines Day xoxo

In the spirit of Valentines Day, let today be all about LOVE...open your hearts and allow LOVE to freely flow …from others and to others. There is nothing that can alter our mood or our outlook quite like LOVE…both when we share it and when we receive it.
I wish you LOVE in abundance ..today and everyday.

Suzi
xox

HOPE

"Hope is the physician of each misery"
Irish Proverb



HOPE..
Is there a more powerful motivator? A more potent prescription? A stronger life line? Hope creates the roadmap to a better situation. Hope is the springboard to action. If we can see it...dream it…or imagine a better outcome then we have the option of achieving it….then we have hope.
That hope will nurture and guide us thru our challenges…but we must protect it ..like the last flame on a burning ember...for when that flame of hope goes out...so goes the warmth and light giving us the ability to see our way…leaving us again in the cold darkness of despair.

It is our duty to embrace hope, protect and cultivate hope… not just our personal hope but also to foster hope in all those who touch out lives. A better day, a better life, a better world are all with in our grasp…but the power to bring that to fruition will depend upon hope.

As we go through our day let us allow our hearts the freedom to envision peace in our hearts, a brighter tomorrow and a right and just world. Let us also be mindful of bringing hope to the lives of others…

Embracing the inevitable…when a change occurs that we fear, finding the strength and skill to exercise our power over the effect of the change.

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights. ~Pauline R. Kezer

We cry out for change…yet what do we resist more? How is it that innately we are such creatures of conformity yet our instinct is to be agents of change…how do we manage the two…how do we empower ourselves to make the needed and desired changes. There are many kinds of changes...but for the most part they fall into two categories…the ones we desire and implement and the ones that affect our external life yet we have no control over. For now we will focus on change that we desire…change that we hope will enrich our lives.What are the changes we want to see...in our own lives…our relationships…our communities? What are we willing to do in order to enact that change? Do we believe that the identified change will warrant the time/energies taken to achieve the change? How will we go about it? What are the tools needed to support the endeavor? What is our game plan? When at first of blush of things not working out as we had planned will we have the will to persevere? It is in the answers to these questions that we will find the basis for implementing our changes.As daunting as a plan of change can be…it is also most invigorating…it is reminder that we hold the keys to our destiny...that we can achieve our desires.They say Spring is the time of renewal, a time of new growth, of change…I however believe that fall is the true season of new beginnings…of fresh starts. Perhaps as the air thins and the light sharpens, vistas previously blurred by the summer sun’s haze, are now easily with in our view and with such clarity, contrast and brilliance. For many of us fall brings that same precision and depth of sight inward…to how we see ourselves, to see how far we can go, to see the plans and projects we previously abandoned and neglected as we embraced the allure of summer and life outside, we see again with renewed energy and zest.If we take that clarity of vision and like a child on the first day of a new school year, think mainly of the new opportunities, yes, last year was important, its lessons provided the foundation on which we continue to build,…it is from here that we begin anew.As a child September was a time of fresh new notebooks, razor sharp pencils and books that still hold the smell of the ink. It still is …our lives are like those new notebooks…the notebook itself, it’s cover and binding ... is the current structure or framework of our life, but the blank pages …our future…ours to create and enhance. The pencils…the tools we will need to ensure success. The books are our access to knowledge, self knowledge, acquired knowledge and yet to be acquired knowledge, and our willingness to open them.Like a new student full of hope and energy, look at the situation you are choosing to change, look with clarity and honesty and form the list of the changes you wish to make, then arm yourself with the proper tools… a road map, clearly highlighting both your starting point as well as your desire destination… your itinerary, when and how you will be implementing the needed steps…a clear understanding of the importance of the change, a firm belief that you are capable of achieving it, a vision of your life when the change has taken place, and access to any and all knowledge you have that will aid you in your success.So as fall arrives, and the stores are stocked with shiny bright new school supplies…shinny new hope, hope that this will be the year…the year I get all my homework done...the year I make the A team….the year I pay attention in class…that this will be a great year….LET THIS BE YOUR YEAR…your season of CHANGE…Change that YOU design!!!Good Luck…Suzi

The Power of our Assumptions

My friend Robyn sent me this story this morning...

A Violinist in the Metro
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work. The one who paid the most attention was a 3-year-old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on. In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats averaged $100. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Peace..we long for it..in our hearts and in our world...why does it allude us?

Is our longing for it, that what keeps it at bay?

Is the absents of peace the multiplier that allows our experiences to be transformed into negative thoughts and feelings thus pushing us deeper and deeper into the dark abyss of our minds as we replay the events of such, on our inner screen...over and over again.

What if peace were in our grasps…this very moment? Would we commit to it? Or have we become so accustom to dancing on the rim of despair that the thought of achieving inner peace itself frightens us. The thought of change, transformation…commitment even when we have glimpsed the abundance of rewards can paralyze us.

So how do we shake off our self imposed shackles and succeed in filling our hearts and lives with peace? By conscious choice, with practice and by trusting ourselves that we are not only capable of obtaining and sustaining peace, but that we are worthy of that peace.

Daily Exercise: Starting with three (3) minutes…Sitting in quiet, acknowledge that you alone have control of your thoughts, your mind and your heart…then for the time allotted allow only thoughts of love and acceptance (for self and others) to circulate in your mind…when thoughts of fear or anger appear just redirect your mind. This takes practice but as we continue to practice it will become easier to transcend the negatives and access the bliss and peace in our hearts.

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.

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!!

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!

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!

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.

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???

Proof

Innately I have always know that there was more to the world than witnessed by our five senses. I have always believed that we all posses a soul that shares a connection.. a connection to all other souls but with differing degrees. I have always believed that this life is just one chapter in the book of our souls existence. Shall we call this knowing, a spiritual connection.. a core belief..faith? The label ..irrelevant, this knowing I have acceped without question…never expecting nor seeking proof ..but proof has revealed its self.

The proof revealed itself upon the meeting of a stranger..it was as palpable as a hurricane, in a moment I knew this stranger was no stranger to my soul.
How else would you explain the jolt when your soul catapults itself from its elevated place of passive awareness into your head and heart to reveal and reconnect its self to a kindred soul. Like twins torn apart at young ages or loves lost young, that find each other decades later, that connection, that bond of the heart, transcends any feelings of awkwardness or insecurities one may initially feel.
How else would you explain the magnetic connection to another...another human being who’s life mirrors yours only in the facts that you both breath air, need food to survive and have a heart the beats in your chest. Your life experiences differ like the mountains to the oceans, yet you know that all that is immaterial…the packaging of current life holds no stock here. It is heart to heart, soul to soul, our conscious selves are merely the facilitators for the encounter.
Such an encounter is my proof that I have a soul with experiences independent of my current existence.

Just Today….

If we have just today…just today to make a difference…what would we do…what could we do …what do we want to do?
What is it that pulls at our heart strings…that gnaws on our consciences? Is it global or local …or perhaps is it quite personal?
What stops us from taking the action that our heart dictates? Does its enormity overwhelm us to the point of leaving us paralyzed…or is it seemingly so small and inconsequential that we feel it warrants no action?
Or is it merely a matter of personal economics….lack of time, energy, financial resources?

Have we ever celebrated our inaction?…How about our action?

If we knew that today was our only chance to act…tomorrow…to late…would we act?

Blog Action Day 2008 POVERTY

As globalization begins to blur our borders, we find our international bonds are being forged more by interdependence and convenience than by true humanitarian goals. The unfortunate result is often seen in in our governments reluctance to engage in areas of the world where the need may be great, yet we perceive no economic value.
What we must come to understand is that the greatest value is not purely economic it is in protecting all mankind, and the responsibility is for all of us to bear…individually and collectively. Individually??

For many of us the daunting enormity of the situation is cause enough for us to humility retreat when faced with tales of starving pregnant mothers who must choose between her children who will eat today, or photo’s of a five year old in India who’s skin is blacken from trying to clean out batteries in windowless rooms so they may have a meal. How can we, with our own mailboxes full of bills, our demanding schedules and our own challenging lives…how can we possibly make a difference?

Actually by helping one person we are changing the life course for their future generations to come. Ok, but how can I …I who is barely keeping the wolf away from my door possible change someone else life??
I recently met a women from Kenya who’s life and life of her family was transformed for the cost of a sewing machine, for less that $100.00 she has created a way to support her family, she is now working to expand her business and help other women in the village support their families by employing them.

So..OK perhaps I can afford to help someone…finding a vehicle to assist in helping can be equally as daunting…we sure don’t want to sent $100.00 and find that $80.00 went to administrative funds…or give to an unscrupulous organization…and who has the time to vett out the good ones? Luckily there are some excellent websites that have done due diligence on many international as well as national programs. Also don’t overlook your own community, is there a local food bank or soup kitchen that accepts donations of food or funds and lastly…and perhaps the most overlooked…someone in you life that could use a little help, unfortunately all too often the responsibility of “helping thy neighbor” has been left to government agencies. It is time here also where we must step up and reach out to one another in need.

We all have the ability to make a difference, and for all of us that do nothing because we lack the ability to do everything… a great deal is lost. Tomorrow what will you do to help?

Small steps can bring great CHANGE...

This music video by Nickelback lauds several examples of individuals who have stood up to injustice, and won. The examples range from Bob Geldof's Live Aid concerts in 1984 to Nelson Mandela's triumphant release from prison in 1989 and election as South Africa's first democratically elected president.

http://www.karmatube.org/?id=38

Choosing Peace

"First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others."
Thomas A Kempis

Why is that although we, the vast majority of the citizens of the world, desire to live in peace …in our hearts, in our relationships and in our global communities,… that peace continues to elude us?
It eludes us because for many of us after surviving the mundane challenges of our daily day we have little reserves left to allocate towards creating peace. In many incidents, the resources we do have, our tools and weapons are limited to benign chatter…“Kitchen Bitchen” with the focus on those in power and the frustration borne of our presumed inability to affect any change, either personally or globally.
It is here where we fall miserably short, for the greatest power…the power to bring about a paradigm shift is in each of us. BRING PEACE NOT PAIN is dedicated to helping each of us to establish/reestablish peace and to connect and know our personal power.
To engage this power for our quest for peace…personal, interpersonal and global peace, we must alter our current way of thinking and subscribe to the following two statements:
1) We are all personally and collectively responsible for creating peace.
2) We all have the ability to create peace, in our hearts, in our relationships and globally.
If it is global peace we strive for…the end of injustices the world over, we must begin the campaign by first conquering the demons in our own hearts and minds and embracing our own PEACE. Accomplished by?.. How?….We must acknowledge and believe that we are responsible for creating or restoring our own inner peace., no longer can we alleviate our guilt over our own inactions by placing the burden of healing on others.
We must look with clarity and love at our inner workings, while knowing that we alone are responsible for our inner peace as we alone posses the power that dictates our reactions to all exterior forces that challenge and threaten us. We must decide where we need to shore up or boundaries and where to open the gates of our hearts and allow love to freely flow.
We must practice forgiveness, forgiveness with not only those who have harmed us but ourselves as well…many times it is personal forgiveness that is the hardest to grant.

With a heart freed by understanding and forgiveness, self-governed by clarity and love we will know peace, from here we must allow conscious thought and decision-making to dictate our actions towards ourselves and others.
Conscious thought and decision-making, that is paramount to healthy interpersonal relationships as well. To BRING Peace not Pain is a choice we make with every interaction we have, unfortunately all too often it seems as we have forgotten and react with instinct. We must remember that WE have control over how we will CHOOSE to respond in any situation…we have to retrain our brains to give pause and evaluate the current circumstance prior to reacting. What are our desired outcomes? Have our previous behaviors achieved them? What is different this time? How will responding with Love and compassion affect the result? How will responding with fear based actions? These are questions we need to ask ourselves and continue to ask ourselves as we interact with others. It is here in this state of awareness and conscious actions that we will see our relationships evolve.
When our hearts are at peace and our relationships are governed by mutual respect, honesty and love we must individually and collectively foster these same guiding principals in our pursuit of global peace. We must seize every opportunity we have to bring peace and love into the lives of others...We must see each other as we are…we must appreciate our similarities and celebrate our difference…. But beyond our individual characteristic…we must believe, we must know …that we are not only all equal and deserving of the same rights and responsibilities but even more importantly… much more importantly that we are one...one body of life, one race...one interconnected whole. Pain and injustice against one, is pain and injustice to all man and the suffering felt by one is shared by all. We must strive to cure each part to be whole, we must stop using and (allowing to be use) fear and intimidation to motivate the actions of others.
As daunting as it may be…it is thru these actions and beliefs that one by one ..community by community we will begin an accelerating and rippling effect on society at large.

Givers and Takers

ACCEPT the LOVE, SEIZE the GOOD…why is that harder for some than… giving the Love…sharing the good?

There are givers and takers, at first blush one might assume that the more challenging task would be in the giving rather than the receiving. However for many of us taking requires a much greater sacrifice... taking requires a drink of humility and trust that for some is just too bitter.

So we quietly attempt to position ourselves in the seat of benefactor …hoping our acts of generosity will mask our inability to receive, but what we fail to see is that we are denying someone else of that very role. What appears altruistic and selfless is in fact our most selfish act...the giving has become the taking and such the taking the giving.

Is this simply another symptom of a hungry ego, a need to feel grand and powerful? Yes and no, ego feed, no doubt, but for many, much more than the need to feel grand is fear…the fear of losing control…the fear of being let down, first by ourselves that we are not capable of answering our own needs...second by others, by allowing dependency on others we are exposing a vulnerability that is often too great a risk.

Trust and Love …again it spirals back to here…like taking a crowbar to a rusted safe as we slowly pry it open the light begins to enter ...changing nothing inside merely illuminating the space...we must pry open our hearts and allow love and trust to irrigate its chambers. From here we will have the ability (if we choose) to cultivate the seeds of faith...faith in ourselves and faith in others and begin to engage in relationships of mutual dependence and support where we will permit others to share not only the joys of our successes but also the pain of our failures. Enjoying...perhaps for the first time in a long time a truly healthy relationship.

MAJOR POINT…. PLEASE do not allow this to be misconstrued in an way as to judge those who give… most who give do so with no ulterior motives, their actions are fueled only by a desire to improve the lives of others.

This is dedicated to those of us who believed we had constructed a fail-safe system to insure the safety of our hearts without realizing the most detrimental effect on our hearts is a lack of love.

Perseverance…the key to success or...?

“The struggle of the mind to keep itself free from every sort of bondage"
Gardner Murphy

We are taught that perseverance wins the ribbon...and taught rightly so, truly the merits of perseverance are beyond reproach,… but what happens when perseverance becomes the goal….is it possible that we so greatly value perseverance that we turn a blind eye as conditions change and other more viable options appear.

It is said that if a dog spends hours locating and digging for a buried bone and at the very moment his nose discovers its scent and he knows he is minutes away from sinking his teeth into it, someone offers him a different bone… with tail wagging he will happily accept the new bone and walk away from his labors.
Would we...if we have been arduously struggling with a task and as we arrive at the point where we know completion is near …if we are given the option of finishing on our own or being handed the outcome...what would we choose?
For many of us we would choose to finish …in that case have we traded the original goal of a specific outcome for the goal of finishing what we have begun.

That being said ..is perseverance a curse?…a hindrance? ..hardly, the absents of perseverance can guarantee failure at a high rate. Perseverance equates success… isn‘t that the mantra we have practiced, from the beginning we are taught perseverance is a quality found in the most successful, it is the quality we strive to incorporate in all of our challenges. However… is it possible, that cloaked in a cape of perseverance we could be stifling other options…failing to utilize newly acquired information that could positively alter our direction or change our result?

The concern is perseverance for perseverance sake and the self imposed blinders we wear to aid us in keeping our attentions on task, can also prevent us from see other viable options available in achieving our goals... or perhaps even a new ...more suitable goal.

The question to ask is... when a new vision/direction/option comes into play…how do we discern if it is merely a distraction or in fact a truly better alternative?

It is trust …trust, clarity and an open mind …that should guide and govern our productivity and plans. As we, the architect of the plan it is incumbent on us to continuously evaluate the methods and appropriateness of the plan, if we find, thru our diligence, or others, a better way…a different way, we must not be afraid to shift gears…and we certainly should not allow the feeling of failure to dictate our action…for the success of one idea is often borne of the fruits from failure of another.

Embracing the inevitable…when a change occurs that we fear, finding the strength and skill to exercise our power over the effect of the change.

"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

Chinese Proverb

When we fail to embrace inevitable changes we are abandoning all our inner resources … our creativity, our ingenuity, our strength…those that would allow us the power to craft the outcome of the changes on our lives. When we are faced with a change/pending change that we would never have wished for…but ones we have no control over...it can be major ones…natural disaster…economic downturn…death or illness…or minor ones, changes at work…changes in your community...maybe you were in car accident and although you are OK your new car is damaged ….if we expend the majority of our mental energies lamenting why or how did this/ could this happen to us, we are compounding the situation… we are allowing the situation to own us…to leave us stuck in the weeds.

The challenge for us is to refocus our thoughts, accept the inescapable reality of the situation, while still acknowledging our feelings… be them displeasure, disbelief, sadness or regret…then take control of the situation and decide our next step. From a clear vantage point, we need to see with clarity and honesty all the factors involved, how bad is it?…how does this affect our lives daily/long term? … where does it leave us? That information will allow us to decide what are our options are…this can be the true challenge...to look without predetermined judgment at our options …why they won’t/can’t work …to take the blame, the regret and the disappointment out of the equation… to see the possibilities with an open mind and heart, and then with a steady hand and firm grip take the helm and chart your course…

Although we may wield little or no control over exterior changes that challenge us….how we choose to respond both in our inner thoughts and with our actions is entirely our decision…”We are the Masters of our Fate…We are the Captains of our souls”
Suzi

Change..we cry out for change…yet what do we resist more?

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights. ~Pauline R. Kezer

We cry out for change…yet what do we resist more? How is it that innately we are such creatures of conformity yet our instinct is to be agents of change…how do we manage the two…how do we empower ourselves to make the needed and desired changes. There are many kinds of changes...but for the most part they fall into two categories…the ones we desire and implement and the ones that affect our external life yet we have no control over. For now we will focus on change that we desire…change that we hope will enrich our lives.

What are the changes we want to see...in our own lives…our relationships…our communities? What are we willing to do in order to enact that change? Do we believe that the identified change will warrant the time/energies taken to achieve the change? How will we go about it? What are the tools needed to support the endeavor? What is our game plan? When at first of blush of things not working out as we had planned will we have the will to persevere? It is in the answers to these questions that we will find the basis for implementing our changes.

As daunting as a plan of change can be…it is also most invigorating…it is reminder that we hold the keys to our destiny...that we can achieve our desires.
They say Spring is the time of renewal, a time of new growth, of change…I however believe that fall is the true season of new beginnings…of fresh starts. Perhaps as the air thins and the light sharpens, vistas previously blurred by the summer sun’s haze, are now easily with in our view and with such clarity, contrast and brilliance. For many of us fall brings that same precision and depth of sight inward…to how we see ourselves, to see how far we can go, to see the plans and projects we previously abandoned and neglected as we embraced the allure of summer and life outside, we see again with renewed energy and zest.

If we take that clarity of vision and like a child on the first day of a new school year, think mainly of the new opportunities, yes, last year was important, its lessons provided the foundation on which we continue to build,…it is from here that we begin anew.
As a child September was a time of fresh new notebooks, razor sharp pencils and books that still hold the smell of the ink. It still is …our lives are like those new notebooks…the notebook itself, it’s cover and binding ... is the current structure or framework of our life, but the blank pages …our future…ours to create and enhance. The pencils…the tools we will need to ensure success. The books are our access to knowledge, self knowledge, acquired knowledge and yet to be acquired knowledge, and our willingness to open them.

Like a new student full of hope and energy, look at the situation you are choosing to change, look with clarity and honesty and form the list of the changes you wish to make, then arm yourself with the proper tools… a road map, clearly highlighting both your starting point as well as your desire destination… your itinerary, when and how you will be implementing the needed steps…a clear understanding of the importance of the change, a firm belief that you are capable of achieving it, a vision of your life when the change has taken place, and access to any and all knowledge you have that will aid you in your success.

So as fall arrives, and the stores are stocked with shiny bright new school supplies…shinny new hope, hope that this will be the year…the year I get all my homework done...the year I make the A team….the year I pay attention in class…that this will be a great year….LET THIS BE YOUR YEAR…your season of CHANGE…Change that YOU design!!!
Good Luck…Suzi