Living in peace

Wow--feeling an intense urge to continue to clear out and let go of lots of clutter and things we don't use.  (In keeping with the environmental blog action day happening all over the world of blog, we sent tons of things to GoodWill, and hope that they all find another happy home!). Interestingly, I felt much more of a natural desire to eat light, raw foods all day, too.

To be honest, it was easy to get a little carried away with wanting to get there already, and forget gentleness and flowing with it and my sweet husband, so I felt drawn to practice these three things today, and made them like a mantra:
Patience
Enthusiasm
Mindfulness

A friend also passed on this lovely email on Peaceful communication today, from Jinjee at TheGardenDiet.com:

10 things we can do to contribute to internal, interpersonal, and organizational peace
1 Spend some time each day quietly reflecting on how we would like to relate to ourselves and others.

2 Remember that all human beings have the same needs.

3 Check our intention to see if we are as interested in others getting their needs met as our own.

4 When asking someone to do something, check first to see if we are making a request or a demand.

5 Instead of saying what we DON'T want someone to do, say what we DO want the person to do.

6 Instead of saying what we want someone to BE, say what action we'd like the person to take that we hope will help the person be that way.

7 Before agreeing or disagreeing with anyone's opinions, try to tune in to what the person is feeling and needing.

8 Instead of saying “No,” say what need of ours prevents us from saying “Yes.”

9 If we are feeling upset, think about what need of ours is not being met, and what we could do to meet it, instead of thinking about what's wrong with others or ourselves.

10 Instead of praising someone who did something we like, express our gratitude by telling the person what need of ours that action met.

The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) would like there to be a critical mass of people using Nonviolent Communication language so all people will get their needs met and resolve their conflicts peacefully.

For more info on nonviolent communication see www.cnvc.org

(I feel so happy to experience the sweetness of human beings acting in such loving ways and with these intentions! Blessings and peace to you, for all that you contribute to the world! Love, Marykaye)