Namaste on Peace Tuesday!

Namaste! If you are new to this blog I encourage you to find my first blog in July at www.peacetuesday.blogspot.com. In that first blog I explain that my purpose for creating the blog was a way, one of many, to provide a Peace focus for myself and others. What I know is that what we focus on expands, so having a weekly Peace focus creates the possibility of expanding Peace in the world and in our lives.

Namaste (why does she keep typing that?)! Well, I keep typing and offering "Namaste" to you because it is a Japanese greeting that point us toward Peace. I have several translations for Namaste. It can mean: "I honor the best and highest in you" or " I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells" or "I honor the place in you which is love, integrity, wisdom and Peace. When you are in that place, I am in that place also. We are one!". How completely awesome is that for a greeting? "Hello" or "How are you" just doesn't begin to measure up does it?

Honoring the highest and best in you, and because we are one, can be access to Peace.
However, like most things, simply saying it doesn't always get us to that place of truly honoring deep in our being. It is possible to simply keep saying it as a practice, say it as if you meant it (even when you don't) and eventually you can own fully the notion that you can honor the other, any other, and honor yourself in the same breath. I highly recommend this practice because it focuses you on Peace.

Often fear and anger are in between us and honoring the best and highest in others, seeing that we are one. So, here is an even more powerful practice to bring Peace into your life, remembering that it becomes a struggle to bring Peace to others when it isn't present for you. In coaching we refer to this practice as getting or being Complete, Present and Responsible or CPR! This is not my own creation, but was one of many practices I learned in the Accomplishment Coaching Coach and Leadership Training Program (yes, this is a shameless plug for an amazing program).

Recently another coach referred a client to me because the client "wanted what I have", which is Peace in my life. I told her the most critical practice I took on was to get complete with everyone in my life who I was not at Peace with. These were people for whom I was holding some anger, resentment or sadness. I began by first writing a letter (one you never send!) to my mother. I started with her because she was clearly the person I was most angry with in my life. In the letter I ranted and raved for a long paragraph about how she had never honored my sensitive nature, but had ridiculed my bookishness, my love of music, my spirituality, my idealism. By the end of the paragraph I was as livid with her as I was when I was 15!

Next, I forgave her, realizing that her upbringing by a sweet and loving mother who "died young of a broken heart", but a brutal and alcoholic father, had her afraid that anyone she loved would be weak and victimized, like her mother. She was so afraid for herself and for us she became determined that she and we would be strong (and safe) in a dangerous world.

I wrote next how I could be responsible for "taking on" my mother's fear for me, making it my own, so that I became wary of my sensitive side, working hard to avoid it, to cover it up, to pretend I was something other than who I was. I wrote how I could be responsible for creating a wall of anger between the two of us, blaming her for my lack of courage in the face of mostly invented fears. Notice please that there is no blame in this letter. I am not blaming her or me, but simply being responsible for what was or for what occurs to me to be so right now.

Lastly, I wrote that I was committed to healing my relationship with her, telling her how much I appreciated all she had done (a ginormous amount) for me and for countless others. I wrote that
I was committed to living a life from love rather than fear, determined to find a way to do that, as determined as she was to keep us safe in a world where safety is really an illusion.

I wrote and rewrote that letter until there was no more anger to express AND, more importantly, I no longer blamed her for anything that had happened in my life. Not only was I able to forgive her, I was able to see that there was NOTHING TO FORGIVE. And at the end of that I noticed that fear began to slip from my life gradually, then faster and faster. And what replaced it was sweet and spacious Peace. I got complete with my mom, and so many others. I got present to what was in the way of me loving more fully, and I got responsible for choosing a life of Peace.

My invitation to you this Peace Tuesday is to practice Peace for some time today. If following the "Angry Letter" format above to get complete, present and responsible works for you that's fabulous. The most powerful access to Peace I know is not merely forgiveness, but seeing that there is nothing to forgive. My mother was not awake to the depth of her desperate need for safety for us, for herself. Quite the contrary, had you asked her if she was afraid, she would have declared, "Not of anyone or anything!" and meant it. Her fear was deeply buried beneath her actions, her anger seeping out when she was tired, scared or frusterated and getting all over her children on regular basis.

So, Peace is possible when there is nothing to forgive. And you have access to that by getting Complete, Present and Responsible. Pema Chodron writes about reaching this Peaceful place of "nothing to forgive" in several of her books. When Things Fall Apart is one of hers that I keep on my bookshelf.

Lastly, I have a recommendation for you as a place to bring Peace to the planet. Go to kiva.org and you will find requests for loans from individuals in third world countries. You can INVEST in any one of hundreds of entrepreneurs, and their track record for paying back the money is 100% because it becomes a community responsibility and the loan requests are "approved" by the requesters community before they are listed on the Kiva site! You will get your investment back with a small amount of interest which you can turn around and reinvest. Kiva is one of thousands of small organizations that Paul Hawken, in his book Blessed Unrest, refers to as part of the planet's immune system, mobilizing with others to combat the viruses of greed, war and pollution that threatens the earth body. Imagine giving kiva investments to everyone on your holiday gift list year. It's like giving twice - once to the third world entrepreneur who receives the gift of business capital and twice for your friend or family member, who receives the gift of making a difference.

Namaste again!

Love,

Darlene