Monday, October 26, 2009

Peace and Relief


My friend Brendan is in The Gambia river valley in The Congo in West Africa. He is there with the Peace Corps for the next couple of years. It's great reading his blog. http://www.alittlehungry.blogspot.com/
He's on the move with a couple of friends to a city in Mali that has a very happening music scene. Take a moment and read what it's like to go into service for peace.

We hear so much, some would argue not enough, about war and violence that we can forget that most people are just living their lives the way it is right now. The past is so long for indigenous people that it has a whole different meaning to contemporaries who identify themselves by their grandparents from the "old country".

War has been such a present danger to Africa and for so long. War has been everywhere for eons, it seems. So when do we consider peace? Peacefulness, peace of mind, peace of heart. Even saying the word is like a whispered prayer of relief.

In Esther and Jerry Hicks book "Ask and It Is Given" the concept of relief is highlighted over and over again. When I hear myself grinding something over and over in my mind I can bring myself out of it by taking an action step as I affirm "The Universe loves and approves of me. It is safe to know and grow." I can move myself into relief from fear. It may be take a little more time and thought until I don't feel a charge of anger, fear, upset and can address the thing that is, in fact, instructing me to turn to the Light.

This is the most healing remedy to the weariness of war. If there is to be peace, let it begin with me. Let it begin from within. And let it be a noble thing to travel to far away places and wage peace.


Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Learning a little bit

For the past week or so I've been writing classes for online delivery. Because so many are using the internet for learning I wanted to make the Health Care Class more accessible. What used to happen was a class for all new members to come to with family and friends after business hours.

We spent about 1-1.5 hours learning about the Six Essentials for Life; what we eat, drink, how we exercise and rest, what and how we breathe and what we think.
And how to make good choices in each area that would help our healing and get us to the goals we were setting. This entailed coming to the office after work.

Have you had to carve time out of your schedule lately? It's getting to the point with most of us that we really have schedule "down time". Time when nothing is scheduled.
I was just talking with my dear friend Vicky about this. With blended families and children in different age groups and spouses with lots of outside activities, having some time to do whatever one feels like at the moment is really important. "Downtime" is just as valuable as any "productive" time.

So I've created little classes broken into 2-10 minute segments, you can learn any time you want in manageable chunks. There are handouts with every class that you can download and print out as well.
I hope you enjoy the classes. You will get valuable information that you can use right away.

And as in the past with the Health Care Class, those that take the class get to their goals faster and easier.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Discovering Talents


Ed and I recently received a note from one of Sam's teachers exclaiming his brilliant writing on a memoir about fear. He really captured the feeling well. It was a big surprise because this was his struggle for the last two years.
Writing was the most frustrating thing he could possibly have to do in school. His handwriting was almost illegible. He didn't follow punctuation rules and the most debilitating part was he could get hardly a word on paper during class.
We became concerned that he would not be able to express himself in written form when needed. He went for testing and came up with no real definitive problems but a little bit of this and that.

So you can imagine that when Ed called to tell me the news that he had an email from a teacher, oh brother, what now, was my reaction. When he read the email aloud to me I was blown away. My son had become a great writer! His story of fear had tension and changing of perspective. It was "writerly". So a transformation had taken place. Sam's is in ownership of his talent.

What talents do you have yet to discover? How about talents as a community? Did you hear about the families that adopted Liberian orphans? The whole community let their hearts open to orphans of war and are now being blessed over and over for their willingness to allow others in. It started out as one woman listening to a boys choir and it changed a whole community in two countries!

When we allow ourselves to grow into our passions we can discover amazing talents we never knew we had. Here's to discovery!!