Of What Are You Absolutely Certain?

There is a section in the Art of Spiritual Peacemaking book that really gets me every time I read it.  Well, a lot of this book speaks to my heart, but this one ... is super significant.  It is a question.  "If you could only be certain of one thing in this world, one thing only, what would it be?"  I know the answer that comes to the forefront of my being, the thing that makes my heart leap to claim it as THE one thing ... it is that Love Exists ... that love, at least, is real.  When put to it, nothing else matters as much to me as this.   

The book actually states that "I am confident that the first thing that came to your mind was Love."  It goes so far as to say that this is every person's answer.

I decided to do a test.  I sat in a coffee shop and asked a number of people what their answer would be to this question.  The answers varied a little in their content, but when you took each answer and boiled it down to what was truly being said, the book was right!  Everyone's answer was banking on Love existing in some fashion.

Good to know ...  and I am banking on that!

Loving you,

CJ

The Quiet Voice of Peace

Two quotes I have encountered along my journey came back to me this week:

"Wars brazen tongues loudly advertise while the voice of peace is silent."

Newell L. Sims, A.M., PhD.

"Our only job is to bring peace to everyone, and when necessary, to use words."

St. Francis of Assisi

In the past, I would think about these two statements and it seemed a formidable task then to turn a warring planet into a peaceful one.  I mean, if the warring factions throw their voices and their proverbial weight about freely "advertising" or promoting their agendas while the peace promoters and lovers quietly go about their work, then you would naturally assume that the warring factions would make more progress.

Yet, as I contemplated what I've actually been experiencing I am amazed and delighted to see that the peace movement is growing ... and, in fact, is making great strides!  The shift as I see it  occurring on the planet at this time is rapid, effective and complete.  Every aspect of life is being affected by the quiet movement that is calling forth the best in humankind and saying there is a better way.   More people than ever before seem to be searching for peace, or seeking more spirituality in their lives, looking for integrity to rise to the surface and win the day, or simply seeking personal enlightenment.  For those who feel vibrations, there seems to be an overall agreement that there is a tangible lightness occurring everywhere that is poignant ... and refreshing.  

This would then indicate that it does not matter how loud your voice is, but rather, how powerfully you send out your passion, feelings and intentions about a thing.  The Law of Attraction at its best!  

Keep the faith, my friend.  Join the silent workforce for peace.  Make it a personal priority to find one thing every day that you can do that creates a vibration of peace on the planet.  Keep doing this, every day, compounding the peaceful acts, and thus the vibration of peace on the planet.  You DO count.  Everyone does!

If you can't believe that peace will win in the end, at least find a way to stay in a state of hopefulness, for from Hope ... anything is possible.

What an amazing time to be alive!  I am so grateful to be sharing this journey with you, my friend.

Peace,

CJ

What Did You Do Today?

As you look back over your day, where can you find that you radiated peace as a spiritual being? As you review your day, can you see how much time you spend in a vibrational frequency of peacefulness versus other vibrational resonances?  Are you happy with the percentage of your day that you find yourself radiating peace?  If not, what can you change tomorrow so that your results are different and your satisfaction regarding your vibrational resonance increases?

Are you ready to vibrate peace more powerfully and profoundly throughout your being and out into the world?

Please say YES!

Peace,

CJ

Sleeping Like a Baby

Did you ever stop to consider why it is that some babies can sleep through a noisy party, chaos around them, a vacuum cleaner running, or other loud situations?  Their peace muscle is alive and well and working for them!  They haven't fallen into other knee-jerk reactions yet that most of us start learning from a very young age.  They are resonating the peace they were born knowing.  Studying the trust of these little ones is often a good clue to unraveling how we got ourselves so out-of-sync with our innate inner peace.  

May you sleep like a baby tonight,

CJ

Another Tool: Joy Spewing

What have you been vibrating this week?  Just wanted to check and see if you've been consciously thinking about the vibrational resonance you've been emitting lately.  Doing your check-ins helps you to become consciously aware of the kinds of energy you are putting out into the world, especially to those in your immediate presence.  

Did you smile at the check-out clerk when you went through the line yesterday?  How did you answer when someone asked you how your day was going?  Did you join in the gossip, or complaining session that was going on in the group of people you sat with at work?  Did you send love to the other drivers with whom you shared the roadway on your daily commutes?  

I usually have a number of bumper stickers on my car for other driver's to read.  I notice so many out there that are meant to rile up, or to just be silly or funny.  My favorite bumper stickers are those that brighten, or enlighten, someone else's day.  I used to have one that said "Co-exist."  Others I have had said: "Enlighten Up!", "There is no way to peace, peace IS the way", "Namaste'," and "Follow Your Bliss."  I like to feel I've brought some form of joy to a fellow human being.

Today I read a terrific story about Spewing Joy.  I thought I would share this story in its entirety so that you can feel the joy gurgling up inside of you as I did.  You just can't help it!

Spewing Joy:  The Supermarket Shuffle

by Dr. Cara Barker

Spewing Joy Today.

As I set out before dawn today, wondering where I might find an opening for this project, opportunity presented itself in an unexpected place.  Joy is funny, that way.  Perhaps 'joy' is a sort of pixie, sprinkling joy moments all around, if we've got 'eyes to see,' and 'ears to hear.'  Odds are increased if we are willing to step out of the bad news pandemic, these days.  Today's unexpected joy Spewing began while standing in the check-out line at Safeway on 85th.

Scene of the Spewing.

Kim, a 28-year-old young woman was standing behind me, looking down at her shoes.  Four folks stood in front of me, as we waited for our turn with the checker.  no one was talking.  One guy was glancing at the National Enquirer.  "It beats the news," he mumbles.  Kim looks at me, with this expression of doom and gloom.  I ask whether there's anything I can do?  Right away, she tells me that she's having a bad hair day.  (As my family will attest, people tell me their stories no matter where I am.)  Apparently, Kim's application for nursing school's been turned down.  Clearly in fear, she's interpreting this news to mean she's somehow fatally flawed. "Perhaps this is not the program for you," I suggest.  Having been a Nurse Practitioner myself, I am well aware that every program has its own bent.  "But, if they won't take me, probably nobody will."  Dejected, she rejected any hope of finding a human being at the college who might steer her in a productive direction.  You and I know it's a short downward spiral, with this attitude.

Kim, like many of us during times of disappointment, is living out her dance of fear.  In Fear Dance mode, we contract, pull in, and miss the present opportunity.  I ask Kim whether she'd like to hear a true story about a student like herself.  She nods.  Now, this particular young lady was a student in Professor George Crane's social psychology course at Chicago's Northwestern University.  It became clear to Crane that his student was feeling disheartened.  Using this as a teachable moment, Professor Crane designed what he called the Compliment Club.  Students were assigned a 30-day project of giving 3 compliments/day and asked to track the results.  Not surprisingly, his students found the practice not only valuable to their recipients, but it had an even greater positive effect on them!  Today, we know from increasing research that positive, generous acts create a healing effect for receiver, giver, and witness, a fact, I'm sure, that George Crane would love, because his 'club' was started nearly 100 years ago!

Giving Feels Good

Its great medicine for what heals, and it goes down well  By now, Kim is in full-blown grin-mode. 

"Oh, now that's something I can do!"

"Great," says I, "Let's see if you can help us out.  I shared our "Spewing Joy" project.  By now she's laughing.  "So what kind of dance fits our project right now?" I asked Kim.

"I took tap-dancing when I was little.  How about this 'shuffle double step?" 

On the spot, my new friend puts her arm on my shoulder, ala the Rockettes, and does a little kicking action.  I join her, right in front of God and the Express Line.  

The woman in front of me, probably in her early 70's, turns around and says with a smile from beneath her crimson red crochet hat:  "Oh, I used to love to dance, but I'm too old!"

I couldn't resist:  "How old is too old to dance?"

With furrowed brows she looks at me, pauses, and puts her arm on my other shoulder.  "No one ever told me," she says.  "Let's roll!"

By now the guy in a Mariner's baseball hat in back of Kim, somewhere in his 20's, joins in our chorus line community.  Yes, some people look at us like we're nuts.  Others smile, and one man whistles.  There was even a little round of applause.  That, however, did not matter.  In 63 years, I've never had so much fun buying veggies.  I'm tell you, 'Spewing Joy' is where it's at!

The fact is that Kim's willingness to step out of her self-imposed spell of fear and negativity, dancing her way back to life, was contagious.  No matter how much we might be worried about being on the global economy's good ship Titanic, no matter  how much we might prefer to rearrange the deck chairs, rather than take  a risk in the moment, we are still at choice.  We can seize the moment and dance, like Kim and troupe, or we can wallow away as curmudgeons.  The latter choice is not likely to attract what our hearts' desire.

Naturally, before we parted ways, I gave Kim three compliments.  Okay, truth be told ... six.

1. She's courageous, willing to tell the truth to a complete stranger
   
2. She's open
   
3. She's willing to join into something new, risking disapproval
   
4. She's patient
   
5. She's great at welcoming others into spontaneous community
   
6. She's got a fabulous, magical smile

I'd say this young woman's got good odds for an engaging future on the road that's right for her.  It may not be nursing, but hey ... who says that there's only one way to help advance well-being?  By the way, she tole me she's forming her own chapter of the Compliments Club.

How about you?  I'd love to hear any of your 'spewing joy' experiences, wishes, stories, and anything else besides.  Come by again.  You are priceless, my dear.

A Tool For You: The "Check-In"

One of the things I do every day without fail is a "Check In."  In truth, I do many, but think small at first so that you don't feel like you are taking on too much and end up creating resistance regarding this tool. 

A Check-In is a super simple way to begin to build your peace muscle -- and a few other things, like your intuition -- but let's just take it simple today and focus on the peace part.  The Check-In I do is simply a pause in the momentum of the moment.  I am choosing these words specifically to emphasize that it is not just a pause in the moment, but a pause in the momentum, so that perhaps you will take that deeper peek into that deeper level of yourself, even though it is a very brief exercise I am suggesting.  If we just pause for a moment, we are only looking at the surface; but if we stop the momentum and then look, we get a deeper read on things.  

When I do a Check-In, I am not just assessing what is happening around me at that moment.  My Check-Ins are about checking how I am feeling about what is happening at that moment, whether I want the momentum of the moment to continue on the energetic path it is on or whether it is desirable for me to pivot, if there is a desire within me to elevate the resonance of the moment and why I would like to do that (which sets and affirms personal intentions).

As I said, these Check-Ins are meant to be simple, brief, only taking about 3-5 seconds, so that they are a minimal change (and not a disruption) one can take to start manifesting change. Now think about this.  Ironically, we humans are designed to strive for something we do not have, yet we love to feel comfortable.  What a paradox!   We cannot get something different if we stay in our comfort zones.  So, making a bridge between these two desires goes a long way in accomplishing both goals.  This little Check-In is a bridge you can insert that your comfort zone will not balk at and your striving soul will also appreciate.  It is a tool that honors both of these seemingly contradictory aspects of your Self.

Try to do at least one Check-In each day for a week.  If you miss a day, start counting again until you get 7 consecutive days, but try not to reprimand or guilt yourself in any way if you do have to start again.  Think of this as a game.  When you reach 7 consecutive days, add a second Check-In, perhaps by doing one in the morning and one at night.  Do 2 per day for 30 days.  By Day 30, you will probably be doing more than 2 per day!  Keep me posted.

Look for more tools in future posts.

Peace,

CJ  

Resilient Peace

It is so easy for us to get side-tracked by the moment-to-moment activities of our day.  It is not so bad when these events are neutral and harmless.  It is tempting to float away with them and to forget anything having to do with peace, or the work of peace, and to just enjoy our happy moment because, at that moment, we are at peace.  While it is great to be present to the present moment, if we are not prepared for when stressful things emerge to challenge us, it is not as easy to get back to feeling peaceful.

Making it a practice to build your resilience and your alignment with peace paves the way for less turmoil when those happy moments bump into less enjoyable ones.  It takes dedicated work to build the inner muscle of peace so that when situations and times arise that challenge us, we can flex that peace muscle and not take a dive in our emotions and away from a resonance of peace.  It is only when we can maintain our peaceful center that we can effectively serve the world and spread peace beyond ourselves.

Like any other behavior, building the foundations of peace takes habit-forming effort.  Daily exercising peacefulness and collecting evidence that proves that fear is futile and simply an illusion builds strong beliefs, knowings and habits.  Practicing peace will buoy you up and allow you to remain in the higher, more peaceful, resonance fields in difficult times than without having built a strong peace muscle.

What can you begin to do today to move towards a stronger center of inner peace?  How can you make peacefulness a part of every day?

Peace,

CJ