Have  you ever looked back at your life and thought you missed a critical opportunity? Have you ever second-guessed your decisions and wondered what your life would have been like if you had made a different choice?  We have all at some time concluded that we made "the wrong" or a less than perfect decision, and we no doubt think of these as missed opportunities for other directions in which we could have gone. 

 

We waste our energy in beating up on ourselves for "bad" decisions, and we would be better advised to learn from our choices and adjust the decisions we make in the future because of them. When we look back and review our situations from the standpoint of regret we are not harvesting the lessons they have to teach us. Moving along in the belief that we did,in fact, makethe right decisions given our knowledge and instincts at the time allows us to acknowledge our humanity and come to terms with it. We have more than enough time to let go of regrets from the past. The more we let go of them, the better the opportunity for achieving peace in the present and in the process of making new decisions.  Trust your process, and don't second-guess your choices. You have more to learn about bringing peace into your life than you no doubt realize.  Peace to you this day. Peace.

With the national pastime coming front and center this Sunday it always becomes a question of why football has become so central to the American psyche.  Is the Super Bowl ritual a national exercise in displacement of aggressive tendencies, frustrations in one's personal or professional life or merely a temporary cathartic escape from them? More important and significant than the kinds of hyped commercials which others tune in to watch on this day is the notion of taking time out oneself.

 

Our lives are so structured that they have become nearly robotic in the lack of creativity and insight they make time for.  How do we make time in such busy schedules for something as basic and life renewing as creativity? Is our own creativity important enough for us to take some time out to allow our own inner resources and spirit express its wishes?  Taking time out from the life we have been defined by in order to define our life by our own creativity may be the best time we can spend. Taking time out for creativity may transform your life if you can risk it. Take some time out. It may also lead to a deeper sense of personal peace. Peace to you this day. Peace.

The season of Spring Cleaning is nearing. Cleaning and sorting through the objects which have cluttered our homes, our cars, and offices during the Winter releases and removes stagnanation from our space and from our lives. Letting go of things which no longer have a use can be liberating and lightening. There is something about moving along with the flow of life that keeps us better attuned to fresh and vibrant energy. Someone I know discards or sets aside five things a day to donate or give away. They don't have to be big objects, they just have to be things which no longer contribute any "good energy" to her life. Someone else may be able to use these to enrich their lives, she believes, and so she lets them go with a good deal of satisfaction on both counts.  She has gained space.

 

Taking account of our outlooks and attitudes, as well as noting our customary reactions and responses to certain people, places or situations invites another kind of cleaning house. Every once in awhile we can consider how we are responding to others and reevaluate or ask ourselves why we are having that response. Is our response truly because of the  person or situation or is the response an opportunity to review our own internal priorities and places in which we need to do some emotional work?  Making peace with our internal environment can be every bit as important and just as great a contribution to the external world as demonstrating at a march. It may require more courage to look within and make some adjustments, in fact.  But cleaning house  within is also a positive and ultimately liberating way to work toward peace. Peace to you this day. Peace.

We have so many things to do. We makes lists and check each item off when we have completed it. Then we make new lists of the things we didn't do. When will we make being, just being, noticing the life within us, something to do? Too often we dismiss the really important things we could be doing/being for the insignificant ones. Why is it so difficult to just be...to just attune ourselves to to beat of life energy within and around us? Why do we focus on the dilemmas of daily life rather than the delights? Do we have a choice in where we put our energy? There are so many things to worry about and we have so many things that remain unfinished. What are we to do? 

 

Today you may consider not making a list of things to do. Make that the first item on your non-list today. Consider just taking a day to be...to return to your senses, so to speak, and to open your awareness to the sound of the breezes moving along the shore, to the feeling of the sunlight, or the apparent lack of it; to the feel of the earth beneath your feet as you stroll along a quiet path in a woods, to the smell of baking bread or the sight of a flock of geese in formation high above you. Consider just being today. Consider being one with what is. Consider being one with yourself. Consider being a practitioner of peace. Peace to you this day.Peace.