Principles for Peace

Have you ever had your head spinning because you had so much going on, so many things to do? Chances are you have. Why is that? Why is life so cluttered with so much? Well, it doesn’t have to be. It wasn’t designed to be that way? So why is it? Let’s discuss….

The topic of simplicity has been prominent in my mind lately. I’ve been thinking about how we will have so much peace in our lives if we simply simplify.

How much time do we spend chasing after things that aren’t even important? How much time and energy do we spend chasing after money and material possessions? It seems that often that is what makes our lives so complex (not always, but often). “So you mean to tell me that we actually have control over the chaos and craziness in our lives? - that it doesn’t have to be so crazy and complex?” Absolutely. You always have the power to control how you live your life and to fill it with peace. But…. I know, there’s so much you have to do. I know… I know… I really do understand.

My husband and I were shopping for a clothes dryers a week or two ago. The one I wanted was a Fisher & Paykel. Ever heard of them? I hadn’t until about a year ago. They are the best on the market. They are a New Zealand company? What makes them so great? What does this have to do with anything? Fisher & Paykel are the best, yet they are the most simple machines out there. They have seven moving parts? Why? “The less moving parts, the less parts to tear up” is their moto. Well, I didn’t quiet want to pay the price tag on that dryer, so we bought a good ole American made dryer with lots of very cheap moving parts that will only last a few years. Maybe in about 5 years when my dryer breaks down, I’ll break down and shell out the dough for something that will last for more than five years.

So what can we learn from Fisher & Paykel? Simplicity - They have simplicity mastered. They have eliminated the unnecessary parts and only kept the absolute necessary ones for the dryer to work. So how can we eliminate the unnecessary things from our lives so that there is less to tear up or break down?

1. It is first of all important to understand why we make our lives complex. People are looking for peace. They are looking for happiness. They are looking for contentment. They are looking for approval. Because they don’t have these things on the inside, they look for it in outside - in things like possessions and activities. Working on making ourselves beautiful on the inside will eliminate the need for so many possessions and things to do on the outside.

2. Reducing our lives to the absolute necessary things by laying out what is most important to us is crucial if we want to have any semblance of sanity. Knowing what is most important is key to eliminating what is least importanat. This is such a liberating thing to do as it will free up so much time - time that we didn’t know we had because we were spending it on things that were’t even important to us to begin with.

3. Remember that the more things we have and buy the more responsibility we have and the more we have to worry about and be concerned with. The more things we have the more of our time and energy is required to tend to them. I know that when I was child I didn’t have a lot of toys - I had some, but not a ton of them, and I loved life as a kid. I didn’t need a lot of “things” to make me happy. I was content to go outside and play in the dirt or the woods beside my house. These days, kids have so many toys they could never possibly play with all of them and they never do. They can’t even fit them in their room or garage.

4.. Here are some questions we can ask ourselves to help simplify life:

• “Which of the things I have and am doing now are the least important to me? Which are the most important to me?”
• “If I were only given one month to live what would I spend my time doing?” What about one week? What about one day?
• Before buying something, ask yourself, “Is this going to make my life more complicated? Will this free up my time to do what is really important or will this take time away from the things that are most important to me?”
• “Will this thing or activity add value to me or to those that I love or will it take away value?”
• “What did I enjoy as a child?” Chances are those are still the simple things that will still bring joy to you.
• “How can I accomplish my goals and be the most effective with the least amount of time, resources and money?”
• “Is this important or just urgent?”
• And to sum it all up: “What can I do or elimate today to make my life less complex and enjoy it more?”

For more information on simplification I recommend these posts:

7 Ways to Eliminate Emotional Clutter

5 Axioms of Life: A Pathway to Happiness

5 Qualities I Find in Successful Entrepreneurs -  especially quality number 3.

Well, for some reason I can’t get this last link to work.  Simply go to http://yes-to-me.com/ and scroll down on the far right hand side to “Best of Yes to Me” and click on the first link there.  Point number 3 is the one I was drawn to on this post. 

Since Mother’s Day is around the corner, my original thought for this post was to find a great poem about mothers and to post it here and to talk a little bit about the poem. Well, the problem came when I couldn’t find a poem that I liked, so another thought came to my mind. I thought that I would instead write about characteristics of mothers that promote peace in her children. This partly came about because I am not yet a mother and I am constantly asking myself, “If I have children what are the things that I want to instill in them?” And more specifically lately, I have been thinking about how I will work to bring about inner peace or peace of mind in their lives.

So what are some characteristics, some qualities that a mother can possess or exhibit to bring about peace in her children?

1.  Listening and understanding.  I’m not just talking about surface listening.  I want to be the kind of mother that truly seeks to understand what my children are saying beneath their actual words.  What is their body language saying?  What are their feelings?  What are the thoughts behind those feelings?  What are their deepest strongest desires and wishes in life?  What are their interests?

2.  Since peace is the absence of conflict, I want to be a mother who encourages my children to reach their full potential.  If I listen to their interests and what they want to do and encouarge them to go for it with all their being, then what I will be doing is removing any inner conflict they have that could possibly tell them that they can’t really do what they want to do.  In other words I want to eliminate any self limiting beliefs that could possibly arise within them.  I don’t even want it to ever enter their minds that they can’t do something.

3.  When a conflict arises, I want to be a mother that focuses on the solution, not the problem - whether that be a conflict between me and the children or between the children themselves.   Focusing on any problem only brings about more problems and more conflict; therefore the absense peace.

4.  Also, as a mother who promotes peace,  I think it is necessary to raise my children with a purpose.  I see the need to lay out the values and principles that I want to instill in my children and focus on them every day.  I think the biggest mistake that parents make (and it’s one I would have made if I had raised children before this time in my life) is to not raise them with a purpose.  By focusing on these values and principles I see that the most important thing for me to do to eliminate conflict in this area and to promote peace is to:

5.  Walk the talk, as many people call it.  In other words, I need to exemplify these values and principles since children always do what you do, not what you say.  Many people say what they think is important and talk about others who do not do what is important, but few actually do it themselves.  Clearly laying out these values and priorities will eliminate any doubts or conflicts in the child of what is important to me and they will likely follow suit.

6.  One of these values that I believe is crucial for me to promote and teach peace to my children is humility and selflessness.  I believe with humility that about all conflict in the world will be nonexistent.  That is what I have seen in my life.  When I am being selfish and self centered then I have lots of conflict in my life.  When, on the other hand, I forget about myself and focus on the needs of others then I get my needs met also and everyone is happy and full of peace and happiness.  There is no doubt that with a mother’s selfless giving and humility that her children will not only have peace, but that she will find it also.  That is not at all to say they she should ignore her needs, for that is a sure recipe for inner conflict.

7.  One more ingredient I see necessary for me to raise my children to have inner peace is to teach them to see things in perspective or to see the big picture.  In other words, I want to teach them to look at long term consequences or results of their actions or thoughts.  Will what they are doing now effect things for the good or the bad?  Will the current situation matter tomorrow, next week, next decade?  Will it matter 20 or 30 years from now.  I believe teaching them to think this way will help them to not focus on instant gratification, but to think through things.  It will help them not to get too wrapped up in their problems, thus eliminating conflict.

Well, I certainly haven’t covered everything here that I want to teach my children, but this is a good start and I know these are absolutely necessary for me to instill in them…. 

For those of you who are not yet parents:  What are some things you want to do to promote inner peace in your children?

For those of you who are parents:  What are some things you do to promote peace in your children?

 Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World

This blog post is a guest post  on the Positivity Blog:  (You may read the full post there.)

Lori Jewett of Between Us Girls wrote an excellent guest post on the Positivity Blog titled 5 Compelling Reasons to be More Assertive. I thought I would follow up with that post on some specific steps, ways to become more assertive.

 What is assertiveness?

First of all, I wanted to clear up any misconceptions about this word assertiveness and what it is. Often when people hear the word assertiveness they think of aggressiveness, being mean, pushy or bossy. While some people are that way, that is actually not assertiveness. Assertiveness is healthy, good for everyone involved. Assertiveness is a way to (read more…..)

Peace is not something you wish for: It’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.

- Robert Fulghum

Welcome!  Come on in and relax.  Take a deep breath.  Deep breathes help release that pent up energy and stress we store in our bodies and minds.

Since we will mostly be discussing peace or inner peace or peace of mind at the new place here I thought it would be appropriate to first give some definitions of peace so we know what we are talking about. 

I took the ole’ Webster’s off the shelf and dusted it off and looked up the word “peace” to see what it had to say.  The definition we will be interested in here is “an undisturbed state of mind; absence of mental conflict; serenity: in full peace of mind.”

But, what I find most interesting is that many of the definitions talked about an “absence of” or “freedom from” something.  That will be mostly what we focus on - the things or mindsets or attitudes that we need to get rid of in order to have peace of mind.  And to go deeper we will discuss how to get rid of these things.  I beleive it’s the Latin form of the word peace that means “to confirm an agreement.”  That was particularly fascinating to me as it brought me to think about how peace is when all our thoughts and all of our actions are in agreement with one another or in congruity with each other.

I decided to make a list of some things that will help us to define peace.  Here are some of these things (in no particualar order  - mostly just a stream of consciousness of what I have been thinking of over the last few days):

absense of or freedom from:

harmony - what we think and believe and what we do is in harmony

living out our priorities

listening to our needs and taking care of them.

satisfied with all aspects of our lives.

calmness on the inside, no matter what is happening on the outside

tranquility

consciousness - living purposefully and happily in the now

feeling free to state your opinion or needs

simplicity

It’s really interesting, as I wrote out this list and over the last few days as I was pondering over these, it really struck me that it’s about opposites.  On the other side of the “absences of” or “freedoms from” is the answer to what peace is.  Just an interesting thought.  So if we can define the absence does that mean that we can define the answer…… ? Just something to think about. 

I asked my husband what peace was to him.  His response was “flying in an airplane.”  That certainly did not surprise me as everything is about airplanes to him.  He’s just like a little boy when it come to planes.

So now my questions for you are: 

What is your definition of peace or what is it to you? 

What makes you feel peaceful?

Your answers may help me write some future posts…..

Wait…. Wait…..Wait.…. Go back up, Go ahead – scroll back up, pause for a moment, take a look at that picture a little longer and take a deep breath. Enjoy the scenery.

Welcome!!!! We’re finally here. It took me a little longer than anticipated, but… we’re finally here.  Simply click here to keep your subscription in your reader or Subscribe to Principles for Peace by Email by clicking here. This switch has been in the making for a long time (well, in my head anyway) and in the actual works for several weeks.

Someone told me to start a blog several months back. I asked what to blog about. She said, “Anything. It doesn’t matter.” Keep in mind she was saying this to someone who had never been to a blog. Yeah, I know I was behind. I just had never been exposed to any of it before. So well, you can imagine it has been a real journey trying to figure out what in the world I am doing. It has been great figuring some things out though. I’m glad I’ve arrived at where I’m at now. Growing is good. I have learned a lot about myself.

A little more background here: When I was first starting my online bookstore and coffee shop I had this vision in my head and on paper of what I wanted it to be. Well, the company I used to start the website had templates to choose from, but none fit the image I had in my head. While I love my website and think it is great, I was unable to produce the feel that I wanted to create. And blogger was great for my blog – SOOO easy to use, but I felt so limited once again. I just could not find the feel for my blog that I wanted.

So now, here I am, still keeping my online bookstore and coffee shop at Empowered Reader, but with Word Press I can create the feel – the environment I was going for initially for everything. So what feel was I going for? What did I want to create? I thought you would never ask….

• The relaxing warm welcoming feel that a local bookstore and coffee shop gives you or the feeling you get from a relaxing walk in nature.
• An inviting comfortable place to come and hang out and feel safe and be heard – listened to nonjudgementally, while also learning something new.
• A place where you can relax, listen to some free music if you choose (coming soon) , drink a cup of coffee or maybe tea (coming soon) if you want, all while reading, learning and giving your two cents (no spamming of course). ….Who knows….. an art gallery may even show up here.
  
• A no pressure place. Occasionally, I will recommend products, especially books. That’s just because it’s my passion and because they help me so much, and its my hope they can help you also. No pressure though, it’s all your choice and all for your benefit.

Please say hi and introduce yourself in the comment section. You are very welcome here. If you are just too shy, send me an email. Let me know you exist and tell me a little about yourself. I do love to listen and make friends.

At Principles for Peace, our focus will be on the principles necessary for inner peace – i.e. concepts whose natural results end in peace. It will also tell of my continual journey of mastering inner peace. I still have so much growing to do and I look forward to the roads ahead and sharing it with you. I have been so fortunate to learn so much about achieving inner peace, especially from my friend Ron who recently passed away. I was sooooo fortunate to have known him and I look forward to passing along to you the principles he taught me. This now leads me to the dedication of this blog:

This blog will be dedicated to my friend, Ron Wilkins, who completely mastered the art of inner peace and passed it along to others. To learn more about him please click here to read my tribute to him or visit this website. I am deeply indebted to him and all he taught me. I believe he was the wisest, most peaceful, caring man I have ever known. What a blessing to have known him!!

We’ll be adding more pages and things here along the way, so keep your eyes open. We’ll keep you informed also so you won’t miss out. If you wish to check those out that’s great. If you choose to simply hang out here that’s great too. Come on in and relax.

Don’t forget to subscribe via a reader or Subscribe to Principles for Peace by Email !  Also, don’t forget to tell a friend or two about your new hangout.

As promised in an earlier post, here’s my feeble attempt to pay tribute to my friend and teacher that changed my life and the lives of thousands of others forever:

I never will forget the first time I noticed this man. It was in Bible class at church. He sat as a student in class, but when he opened his mouth to make a comment all I noticed was an emblem of peace and wisdom and a man of God. His presence of peace almost made me melt. I remember thinking, “Who is this man? I have to meet him.” Each comment he made thereafter, each prayer he prayed, each time he spoke, each time I …… (read more…….)

Here is my friend Ron talking about some of the work he did. What a man!

I would like to thank my readers for their loyalty and their comments. You are what keeps me going, keeps me writing. You make it all worth while!! My apologies for dropping off the face of the earth for the last week….

I got word last Wednesday, that a good friend, teacher, and mentor was in the hospital. We were so fortunate to be able to see him Wednesday night before he passed from this earth on Thursday morning. It has been a time of much grieving and a time of rejoicing as he has now gone home.

I really cannot stand to think about where I would be now without him. He taught me more about life in the short time I knew him than probably I have learned in all the rest of my life. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to God that He gave me the opportunity to know him and learn under him. Much of what I write about I learned from Ron, either directly or from one of his students who is following in his footsteps. Now, I will begin focusing more specifically in the future on the things he taught.

I have written a tribute to Ron that will be posted sometime in the near future. I have submitted it to be posted on the website of the program that Ron started. As soon as my friend Gary posts it there I will provide the link for you to read about this great man of men.

So for now, I thought I would focus on the topic of wisdom, since my friend Ron was one of the wisest men I have ever known….

Have you ever wanted to just be really wise and know all the answers, but thought wisdom was just too far away? I sure have…. Before my friend’s death, but especially after his death, I began to think about what wisdom is. Ron had it down perfectly it seems… Often it seems so far away from me, but the question is, “Is it attainable by anyone? If so, how?”

As I looked at Ron’s life I asked myself, “what made Ron so wise?” What is wisdom? My husband and I discussed this topic over dinner the other night.

Here was my husbands response:

He said that “wisdom is the ability to see the big picture.” As I thought about that it made perfect sense. Ron could always see the big picture. Well, at least once he was taught to see it and focus on it. As I looked at what I knew about the first part of Ron’s life I realized that no, he didn’t always see the big picture. I realized that he had learned it. That was comforting to me because I pondered the thought that it could be a natural talent and not necessarily attainable.

Yes, wisdom can be learned. It is a skill that can be learned. However I believe it takes much effort and practice and concentration. It’s not for the half hearted. It probably takes a lot more practice for some than others. Some seem to pick it up easier than others.

Ron taught that seeing the big picture is part of a positive attitude. You can’t have a positive attitude if you’re caught up in the details of problems. Seeing the big picture requires you to step back and see things in perspective, in the whole scheme of things. When you do that you are able to be more positive about steps you take to find a solution to the problem.

So how do I learn wisdom? How do I learn to see things in perspective? These were the next questions I asked myself.

1. Being wise and seeing the big picture requires you to first define what is important, your values and priorities as I talked about in my previous article. You must define them clearly and specifically and then you will be able to make wise choices based upon what you have said was important to you. If you don’t know what is important then you really don’t have a big picture. Your life will be filled with meaningless overwhelming problems that you can’t solve.
(I know from previous experience.)

However, when you have your priorities in order, you will be able to see how everything fits into your priorities. Is the problem you are facing really that big? Is a good question to ask. If God and family are very important to you and the microwave blows up, sure it will be disappointing. But, in the whole scheme of things how important is it really?

2. Next in line, in order to see the big picture, is to set some goals. (As we continue our discussion next time you will see why this step is so crucial in obtaining wisdom.) My favorite book, Time Power: The Revolutionary Time Management System That Can Change Your Professional and Personal is by far the best information I have ever seen on goal setting. It’s system is the only one that has ever made sense to me. Make your goals in line with your priorities and not in conflict with them. Goals should include every aspect of your life and be numbered in order just as you did with your priorites. They should match up and not conflict with your priorities. Goals should include every aspect of your life - spiritual, mental, family, social, health, recreation, professional, etc. What is most important?

It is easy for me to look at my friend Ron’s life and see what was most important to him and what his goals were. He lived it every day of his life. God was most important to him, people were next. Going to Heaven, representing Jesus, and helping as many people as he could to find peace in their lives, remove emotional pain and come to know who God really is (both in his lifetime and afterward) and help them go to Heaven were his obvious goals.

Next time, we will take a look at how and why these steps bring about wisdom as we bring in some more steps. It’s so hard for me to stop writing…. I am so excited about these posts. It is eye opening to me to reflect and write on these things as I know it will be for you to read and learn….

For today, make a list of your values and goals and prioritize them.

To my friend Ron, your life lives on….

What have you learned about wisdom in your expereince?

It is only when you align all your actions with your priorities that you will experience peace and success in all endeavors and be all that you can be.