Stressful Day

June 20, 2007

Today was a stressful day for me. Forget world peace…. it’s enough of a challenge right now to have a peaceful home. I live with two other people, and we started the day at each other’s throats and we’re still recovering now, in the evening. At least things calmed down by the afternoon, but we’re all exhausted from it.

Everything’s fine now, of course, but it reminded me once again of how important it is to develop peaceful habits as part of your everyday life. It is so easy in the heat of the moment to say hurtful things, which only escalates what usually started out as a minor disagreement. I am willing to admit that I played a part in doing just that this morning, letting my fears overrun my reason. Instead of calming the situation down, as I would have liked to have been able to do, I made it worse.

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong,
which is but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

(Alexander Pope, English poet, 1688-1744)

More Joy

My friend Aanya has put together a website More Joy. It's a continuation of her book Joy-Makers, which she has made available for free to subscribers to her newsletter. This isn't a quick throw-together ebook, it's 100 pages of wisdom she's put her heart and soul into. I highly recommend it. Look for the link at the bottom of the home page.

The Path of Transformation

I recently decided to re-read The Path of Transformation by Shakti Gawain. It was one of the first books I read last year when I started thinking about how to work towards world peace. It provided me with the inspiration that lead to the creation of this blog (and will eventually further lead to a website, when I get off my butt and build it). I highly recommend it to anyone interested in peace on any level.

From her introduction:

"Today's challenges can only be met powerfully and effectively through a shift in consciousness, which in fact is already well under way worldwide. We need to recognize, to the depths of our souls, that we are all part of one whole, that what each of us does individually has a powerful impact on us all. Our global crises relate to and mirror our individual processes. Only through healing ourselves on all levels - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual - can we heal our families, our communities, and our planet."