Yesterday was “International Peace Day.” Ever since I was a little girl, peace has always been important to me. Maybe, being a young child in the 60’s, when passionate peace marches were happening, or opening my school lunch box everyday with a psychedelic peace sign stamped on the lid, all had the effect of etching the importance of peace into my being.
Or maybe the knowledge that peace is a truth that just resonates with my soul. Now that I’m older, I understand how truly important peace is in the world. It’s so simple and yet so hard for us to achieve. Why do we humans take the harder path in life? Because we want to be right and we want to win. But really, if the world is in a state of peace, then we all WIN. What can be better than that?
It starts with basics like, respect, kindness, compassion, non-judgement.
Here’s a link to an article by Andrew Martin who wrote, “The 6 Traits of People who live Peaceful Lives.”
Here are the highlights and the 6 things you can do to live more peacefully;
1. Let go of Ego and just be yourself.
2. Learn From the Masters
3. Bring Awareness to your Life
4. Realize we all Experience Conditioning of Some Kind
5. Understand you Create your Own Experience
6. How do you live your life, through fear or love?
Often when my young children aren’t sharing, or they are bickering, I will ask them to stop and face each other, asking themselves if the thing they are wanting so badly, or the point they are wanting to make, is more important than the love and relationship they are wanting to experience and create with each other.
Inevitably, they drop the treasured toy, or stop shouting and simply reach for each other, sometimes telling each other they love each other. You can feel the energy shift and the anger dissipate if you are an observer. It’s quite remarkable. Teaching our children when they are young, is a good start towards peace.
Being aware and asking, “what is my intention?” is a HUGE step towards peace.
A little over a year ago, a little 3 year old Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi lay drowned on a beach. He, his mother and older brother died trying to find a more peaceful place to live in the world. Yesterday, I was thinking of him. I was thinking about all the Canadians and others in the world, who want to close off the borders, for fear of terrorism entering their country. And almost like synchronicity, last night before I went to bed I watched a bit of the CBS 11 o’clock news. They did a story on another Syrian refuge family, who has recently come to Canada, and were hitting the ground running after arriving in the country last year. They are growing a successful business making what they know best, chocolate, (who doesn’t LOVE CHOCOLATE!!!) and they are already starting to give back to the country who welcomed them.
This makes me cry with happiness but also with dismay. How many of us are already living in a beautiful part of the world, in a peaceful country, and we take it for granted. We take clean water, food and shelter, ALL for granted. For most of us, there are opportunities for us to become successful and give back to our communities. There are opportunities for us to extend our hand and say, “Welcome, come in peace.” This family inspired me today, and has me thinking about “what I can do in my community RIGHT now?” to make the world a more peaceful place.
Eat chocolate of COURSE!!! but…..
maybe I can do little things, like writing this blog post and the few people who read it, may be inspired, sending ripples of peace out into their part of the world. I can assess some of my other strengths; I love to read and I love children. Maybe I can go in and be a parent helper in my younger children’s classrooms, maybe reading with children, or at least helping out the teacher so she can offer the best education possible for all of our children.
I do believe education is one of the foremost steps we can take to live peacefully.
Hey and don’t you think if someone handed you a piece of chocolate, AND a book, you would feel happier and more peaceful? Works for me.
AnYway, this was just a quick blog post as I wanted to give you the link to the news report about the Hadhad family in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. (click on the hyper-link if you can’t see it below)
I hope it inspires you too.
Thank you for coming.
Until we meet again, “peace out!”
Blessings from Hope