Upbeat Living: Lighten Up With Forgiveness

Tags

Feeling energized, Forgiveness, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, The life you want, UpBeat Living

© 2016 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

In Upbeat Living^sm, we take the heaviness out of life and accentuate ways to move forward with a light heart.  That gives us the most energy, optimism, and vitality, for living the life we want.  The secret?  The top tool for lightening up is forgiveness.

Why forgive?  Think of the people who deliberately hurt you.  Feel your body tighten up?  Now think of the people who ripped you off or treated you unfairly, from whatever period of your life.  Feel yourself becoming tight and dense, even heavy?  Now think of your ex or of people you dated who behaved outrageously.  Perhaps they embarrassed you, were mean or unfair.  Got the picture?  Holding onto hurt feels bad!  And the more committed you are to holding onto hurt and resentment, the more deeply that will embody and turn into illness and other physical ills.

So the reason to forgive is to release those feelings—for yourself!  Yes, YOU are the reason to forgive.   An old expression says, “Forgive and forget!”  But that’s half the picture.  It’s important not to forget that some people are dedicated takers and some are dedicated to hurting whoever they can.   However, while forgiveness doesn’t change the past, it changes the future!

Do your best now to remember the facts but release the feelings. You deserve to live the best life you can.  Lighten up with forgiveness! And now you’re in Upbeat Living.

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• If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column! You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma! Due to a recent FB change, our “likes” look low.  Thanks for your help!

Energy – Peace – Meditation

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office.  Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com. 
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: calendar@kebba.com .

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Forgiveness Stress: When to Forgive Yourself

Tags

Forgiveness, forgiveness stress, Kebba Buckley Button, living in the now, releasing the past, stress, UpBeat Living

©2015  Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Do you have Forgiveness Stress? That’s when you feel a lot of internal pressure because of resentment of things that happened in the past. Even yesterday. Even this morning. Someone did something wrong to you. You didn’t get that raise but a jerk did. A job didn’t work out. A driver was rude and cut you off in traffic. A friend, or someone you thought was a friend, betrayed you. Mom always loved your brother better. The big box store stopped carrying your favorite snack the last 6 months; maybe they’ll have it again, depending on the supplier. You asked a simple question in the produce department and the clerk snapped at you like you did something wrong. Someone attacked you.

 

A lot of unfair things happen in life.  A lot of us get dealt unfair hands, or it seems so. A major key to dealing with all these things is to forgive them: both the individuals and the situations. I have written columns and chapters in my books about the importance of forgiveness and how to work that process. Forgiving will lighten your heart and leave you free to live right now. After all, we can only live in the immediate present moment! Think about it: can you even go back to this morning and handle a situation better? No. Can you go a couple of days ahead and handle something better? No. You can only live in the NOW with an eye to the future you are creating, or cocreating with the Divine, if you are a person of faith.

 

Holding onto sadness or resentment for unfair things and hurtful things only keeps you firmly gripping stress, living in a soup of negativity. We all need to learn to forgive—but not to forget how we got into negative situations. Sometimes, for example, we think a person humiliated us in public. We are still hurt and angry 20 years later. However, looking back from the perspective of twenty years, we may realize that if we had made different choices, that person could not have embarrassed us. Our own behavior made it possible. If we had been better prepared for that meeting, the sequence would have been completely different. In this example, the core of this memory is actually shame.

 

This can be hard to face: sometimes we behaved in an inadequate way, bad stuff happened, and we need to forgive ourselves for our part in it. If you’re thinking of an example from your own life, then start working on forgiving yourself right now. Consider journaling about it. You will never let go of that bad memory and end its power over you until you deal with your Forgiveness Stress! Bless and release the You of the past, and just do your best now. Your life is waiting.

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Energy – Peace – Meditation

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition. Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine. Both that book and Peace Within are available through her office. Just email books@kebba.com.
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: calendar@kebba.com.

 

Forgiving Makes You Powerful

Tags

Amish, Anger, Forgiveness, Grudges, Kebba, peace within, Resentment, stress

©2015  Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 

© Yuri Zap – Fotolia

Think, for a minute, of someone you resent, because they did something hurtful to you. Notice how angry, tight, tired, and toxic you feel when you think of them? What about when you think of violence, like recent U.S. shootings between police and Black urbanites?

 

One of the highest and best things we can do, for ourselves and our loved ones, is to forgive. A bad divorce, a child who died young, a random shooting at a market, a loud neighbor—the list is endless. Some of us are carrying huge emotional burdens, due to past bad memories or perhaps current situations. Many hurts go on between relatives, friends, and communities. However, sometimes people manage to forgive, and the whole community is empowered. Allow yourself to be touched by the courageous forgiveness in this powerful true story.

 

On October 2, 2006, a pickup truck backed up to the front door of an Amish school. It was the West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania. A man who was angry at God went into the school, shot 10 girls and then himself. Five of the girls died. This small Amish community could have been devastated and could have shouted about discrimination, invasion, and revenge. They could have been consumed by resentment and hatred. They could have written books about their pain and sold the movie rights. They could have sued their way around the court system. They did no such thing.

 

 

“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison, hoping the other person will die.”

~ The Dalai Lama

 

Instead, they forgave Charles Roberts, the gunman, who had been their milk delivery man. One of Roberts’ children had died the day she was born, and he could not forgive God for that loss. Amish leaders went to Roberts’ widow’s home, told her they had forgiven Roberts, and offered comfort for her and her children. Later, they took the widow toys for her children. Citing their faith, the Amish gave up any burden of hatred or resentment, embodied compassion, acted out their forgiveness, and fulfilled reconciliation. They went to Roberts’ funeral and stood with his bereaved family. They leveled the school and built a new one on a different site, calling it “The New Hope School”.

© teracreonte – Fotolia

 

“One of the secrets of a long and happy life is to forgive everybody everything before you go to bed each night.”

~ Bernard Baruch

 

 

Roberts’ widow came to the school dedication celebration, only 6 months after the shootings. The community had clearly declared a healing. A movie version of the story, Amish Grace, ran on the Lifetime Network, and Lifetime reported it was the most watched movie ever broadcast by their network. The movie is still available. Clearly, people are interested in forgiveness, unburdening of grudges, and the grace of reconciliation.

 

How would you have reacted if someone shot your child at his/her school? The Amish story raises afresh the question of what forgiveness is. A great definition is “giving up resentment or any claim for recompense for the wrong that has occurred.”

 

“Forgive us our wrongs as we forgive those who have wronged us.”

~ Jesus, on how to pray, Matthew 6:12

 

And research suggests resentment causes major stress for your mind and your cardiovascular system. Forgiveness can bring you peace within. If we can forgive personally and locally, can we forgive globally as well?

 

Are you holding any grudges? Would you like to feel better? Think of Amish grace. Try forgiving someone today, and notice how well you sleep tonight.

 

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Energy – Peace – Meditation

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office. Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com.
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: bookings@kebba.com .

UpBeat Living: Forgiveness Part 2: Forgiveness for Empowerment

Tags

allergy relief, Amish, at choice, Dr. Eileen Borris, forgive, Forgiveness, Grudges, moving on, peace, peace within, Peacemaking, personal peace, stress, The Dalai Lama, UpBeat Living

© 2014  Kebba Buckley Button,  MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 

Dr. Eileen Borris

In Forgiveness Part 1  (http://wp.me/pw4HM-jI), we talked about how important it is to your own health and wellbeing, to forgive.  The extraordinary forgiveness of an Amish community showed how humans can choose to follow their faith, forgive murders, extend compassion to the family of the murderer, and move on in constructive ways.  This time, we consider the work of an international reconciliation expert and how we can choose to be affected by her work.

 

Dr. Eileen Borris (www.globalpeaceinitiatives.com) can teach you what you need to know about finding forgiveness.  She has been teaching forgiveness and reconciliation around the world for the Institute for Multi-Track  Diplomacy (Washington, DC), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).  The last time I saw her she had just returned from giving workshops in Kuwait.  She was about to go to Rwanda, for the Healing Wounds of History Conference.  Wherever she goes, Dr. Borris transforms.

 

It is possible to realize that the past is past, that continuing to feel anger and hatred serves no purpose.

~ The Dalai Lama

 

In her book, Finding Forgiveness, the Foreword is offered by none other than His Holiness, The Dalai Lama.  His Holiness points out that: “When we become angry, we stop being compassionate, loving, generous, forgiving, tolerant, and patient altogether.  We deprive ourselves of the very things that happiness consists of…it is possible to realize that the past is past, that continuing to feel anger and hatred serves no purpose.”

 

Dr. Borris’s core methodology involves 7 steps:  becoming clear, telling your story, working with anger, working with guilt, reframing the situation, absorbing pain, and gaining inner peace.  She does not ask you to deny the wrong that occurred.  She does not ask you to forget it.  She does not ask you to not-seek appropriate justice where a crime has occurred.  What she does do is expose the complexities of forgiveness and invite you to work this process, ultimately setting yourself free.

© 2014 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM

 

Why do we need to forgive?  The final purpose for the individual is empowerment.  You  are at choice at all times.  When you forgive, you get back your power over whoever made you their victim.  Dr. Borris makes the point that animals do not hate.  Hatred requires conceptual thought.  But humans are able to hold thoughts of hate and vengeance lifelong.  How much energy does this steal from a person’s upbeat living lifestyle, joy, health, and productivity?

 

Try this for a moment:  bring to mind some terrible personal injustice that was done to you, which you have had trouble forgetting.  Perhaps someone attacked you.  Perhaps a boss treated you badly or even fired you unfairly.  Perhaps Mom always loved your sibling better.  Perhaps someone badmouthed you, telling tales that were totally unfounded.  Bring this injustice to mind and feel vividly the stress and emotions that come with it.  Did your heart hurt or your back tighten up between the shoulder blades?  Did your shoulder tops tighten painfully?  How about your neck, your head, or your stomach?  Do these sensations feel like they are blessing or enhancing your beingness in any way?  Of course not.  So what has the toll on your mind, heart, body, and spirit been, in the months or years since the injustice occurred?  Is that toll enriching your life in any way?  Of course not.

 

 Whatever your faith basis, does it make sense to hang onto any burden you do not need to hang onto?

~ Rev. Kebba Buckley Button

 

If you would like to challenge yourself, try the following exercise.  Get a pen and paper, and make notes of your thoughts and experiences as you do this.  Imagine your life if the injustice had never occurred.  What hours would you have spent enjoying life and your loved ones?  Would your marriage be better?  What friendships might you have developed, based on sharing happiness and companionship, that you did not because of the injustice?  How well would you have slept?  What excellent health would you have had all this time?  How much better would your concentration have been, on the job or in fulfilling recreation or charity work?  Would you have earned more money?  So what if you could have forgiven this injustice early in the game, and not spent any of this time on distraction, negativity, complaining, and generally experiencing a burden?  These may be tough questions for many of us.

 

Whatever your faith basis, does it make sense to hang onto any burden you do not need to hang onto?  You are always at choice.  What is your willingness to possibly hang up self-burdening beliefs about the importance of an injustice to you?  If these questions are provocative for you, why not pursue them further?  Your journey can be very freeing.

 

Now imagine living in a community where everyone is compassionate, everyone forgives and there is no impulse for revenge.  Now imagine that in the World community.  Countries would be waging peace, not war.  Imagine.

 

Some resources for further reading and techniques include:  Bruderhof Forgiveness Guide (www.foregivenessguide.org), A Course In Miracles (acim.org), Forgiveness Foundation (forgivenessfoundation.org), and the Forgiveness Project (forgivenessproject.com).

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Liked this article?  You can buy Kebba’s books:  just click the links!

• Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). 
• Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition) (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc)             

● Enjoyed this post?  Please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column!  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Please comment!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UpBeat Living: Forgiveness Part 1: Grudges and Amish Grace

Tags

Amish, Amish community, Charles Roberts, Colin Tipping, forgive, Forgiveness, grudge, Kebba Buckley Button, Resentment, stress, Stress Management, UpBeat Living, West Nickel Mines School

© 2014 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 

© Delmas Lehman – Fotolia

This is the first of two articles on forgiveness:  how important it is and how we can get there.

 

One of the highest and best things we can do, for ourselves and our loved ones, is to forgive.  “Forgive what?” you may be thinking.  Most of us are carrying resentments that weigh on us to some degree.  A bad divorce, a child who died young, a random shooting at a market, a loud neighbor—the list is endless.  Some of us are carrying huge emotional burdens, due to past bad memories or perhaps current situations.  Many hurts go on between relatives, friends, and communities.  Allow yourself to be touched by the courageous forgiveness in this powerful true story.

 

On October 2, 2006, a pickup truck backed up to the front door of an Amish school.  It was the West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania.  A man who was angry at God went into the school, shot 10 girls and then himself.  Five of the girls died.  This small Amish community could have been devastated and could have shouted about discrimination, invasion, and revenge.  They could have been consumed by resentment and hatred. They could have written books about their pain and sold the movie rights.  They could have sued their way around the court system.  They did no such thing.

 

 Holding a grudge is like drinking poison, hoping the other person will die.

~ The Dalai Lama

 

Instead, they forgave Charles Roberts, the gunman, who had been their milk delivery man.  One of Roberts’ children had died the day she was born, and he could not forgive God for that loss.  Amish leaders went to Roberts’ widow’s home, told her they had forgiven Roberts, and offered comfort for her and her children.  Later, they took the widow toys for her children.  Citing their faith, the Amish gave up any burden of hatred or resentment, embodied compassion, acted out their forgiveness, and fulfilled reconciliation.  They went to Roberts’ funeral and stood with his bereaved family.  They leveled the school and built a new one on a different site, calling it “The New Hope School”.

 

One of the secrets of a long and happy life is to forgive everybody everything before you go to bed each night.

~  Bernard Baruch

 

Roberts’ widow came to the dedication celebration, only 6 months after the shootings.  The community had clearly declared a healing.  A movie version of the story, Amish Grace, ran on the Lifetime Network, and Lifetime reported it was the most watched movie ever broadcast by their network.  The movie is still available.  Clearly, people are interested in forgiveness, unburdening of grudges, and the grace of reconciliation.

 

The Amish story raises afresh the question of what forgiveness is.  A great definition is “giving up resentment or any claim for recompense for the wrong that has occurred.”  This doesn’t mean one has to forget the wrong ever happened.  In the Christian faith, Jesus taught that no limit should be set on the extent of forgiveness (Luke 17:4).  Also, an unforgiving spirit is regarded as a sin (Matt 18:34-35 and Luke 15:28-30).  In teaching The Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4), Jesus instructed the Disciples to pray,  “…and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  So in this view, one will be forgiven by God only to the extent one is forgiving to those who have wronged oneself.

 

Forgive us our wrongs as we forgive those who have wronged us.

~ Jesus, on how to pray, Matthew 6:12

 

In a modern program, Radical Forgiveness, author Colin Tipping says that ordinary forgiveness means, “You did that to me, but I’ll let you off the hook and forgive you.”

Tipping wants people to go a large step further.  He believes in a loving God who has plans for all of us, and that God makes things happen that are good for us.  So nothing is “bad”.  No wrong has occurred.  The Divine Plan has been unfolding for our spiritual growth.  For those who make the perspective shift that no wrong actually occurred, Tipping says, their emotional release can be virtually instant.

 

Whatever your belief system, realize that forgiveness commonly takes years.  And  research suggests it takes a toll on your mind and cardiovascular system.  The field of psychology is not yet in total agreement on the exact definition of “forgiveness”.  But many are promoting the practice for individual, community, and world benefits.  If we can forgive personally and locally, can we forgive globally as well?

 

Are you holding any grudges?  Would you like to feel better?  Think of Amish grace. Try forgiving someone today, and notice how well you sleep tonight.

_____________________________________________________________

 

● Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Liked this article?  You can buy Kebba’s books:  just click the links!

• Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). 
• Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition) (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc)             

● Enjoyed this post?  Please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column!  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Please comment!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

 

 

 

 

UpBeat Living: Getting Past the Past

Tags

Forgiveness, get past the past, NOW moment

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Photo by Fotolia

Whatever your belief system, UpBeat Living stands for your greatest health, fulfillment, happiness and success.  UpBeat Living advocates doing what you can to support yourself in living your best possible life, starting now.  One element of that best possible life is understanding that you can only live in the one moment—the “now” moment.

Go ahead—try to live yesterday.  I’ll wait.

Over it?  Great!  Or are you?  How many times this week have you thought of a terrible thing that was done to you in a past job?  How often do you think of past relationships and wish someone had treated you differently, or that you had treated someone differently?  Today alone, what mistakes have you made in your job performance, that you thought of today and winced over?  How many times this month have you thought of not having the childhood you wanted or the parents you wanted?  All these things are actually living in the past.  When you keep playing the mental videos from the past, you do two things that limit you:  (1) you rehearse and relive the past, thus reinforcing your sense of wrong and unworth, and (2) you keep yourself from living in your NOW moment, thus moving on.  Make sense?

Especially if you need a new direction, how will you choose that and move into it, if you are stuck in the past and not even actively living your present?  You must let go of the past!  Resolve to practice catching yourself and gently turning your attention back to the present, with an eye to the future you are creating.

If you are a person of faith, practice turning your attention back to the future you are co-creating with the Divine.  Consider this line from Paul in Phillipians 3:13 (NIV)

 “…One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”

Practice forgiving, blessing and releasing, and even finding gifts in the lessons of the past.  Try praying for those who have wronged you, wishing them all the best—and God knows what the best is.  And practice letting go, so you can get into your NOW.  God has plans for you!  Will you be there to participate in those plans?  Or will you be stuck in your past?

Step toward your future now, by pulling yourself into your NOW moment, and truly living there.  Get past your past to have the life you were meant to have.

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● If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column.  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

 

● Kebba Buckley Button is a Master’s Degree scientist, a minister, and the award-winning author of  the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (http://tinyurl.com/abd47jr), and also Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br).  She also has a natural healing and stress management practice and is a celebrated public speaker.

 

● Your comments are welcome!

 

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

 

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

UpBeat Living: The Oscar-Nominated Film You Must See—Five Broken Cameras

Tags

nonviolence, Palestinian, Peacemaking

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Today I saw an extraordinary film and met the brother of the filmmaker.  Today I saw first-hand footage of farmers whose land was seized by encroaching development, approved by a ruling government.  Today I saw Israeli soldiers arrest a youth, handcuff him, blindfold him, then shoot him in the leg, then take him to prison.  Today I got to sit with a Palestinian man and ask him questions about his and his family’s experience.

Today I saw a film on life in Bil’im, Palestine.  The film is called Five Broken Cameras. The film won the World Cinema Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.  It also won the Special Broadcaster IDFA Audience Award and the Special Jury Award at the 2011 International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.  Now it is nominated for Best Documentary Feature, in the 2013 Academy Awards.

The title refers to the series of 5 cameras that the filmmaker, Emad Burnat, used over the course of 6 years.  Each camera, in turn, was either shattered by Israeli military gas grenades or shot directly by Israeli fire.  He still has all five cameras.  Emad is a softspoken man who shares his narrative in an even tone.  This makes the action he films all the more shocking.  We are shown a world in which ultraorthodox Jews have decided to settle further into the West Bank, building high concrete buildings and a boundary structure that cuts right across Palestinian lands.  We see the orthodox arrive to move into the high buildings, wearing identical outfits with white shirts and dark pants, the women in white dresses.  We see and hear many angry, indignant, arrogant remarks from this group, including, “if he keeps filming, I’ll break his bones.”

A number of farmers are cut off from their property on the Israeli side of the barrier, a double fence separated by the width of a military Jeep.  The villagers develop a system of nonviolent protest, and they demonstrate peacefully every week.  The Israeli soldiers respond to the unarmed villagers, holding only flags, with teargas canisters and bullets.  At one point we see people shouting in warning tones, and the soldiers have a moment of remorse:  they have shot an Israeli girl.  They are horrified.

Armored Jeep-type Army vehicles roar through the village at night. The villagers are told, at the doors of  their homes, that “the military has declared this area a Closed Military Zone”, and therefore the Army can break into the homes in the middle of the night and arrest people at will, even children.  Children are often arrested and held as long as 18 months, with payments of often 6000 shekels ($1500-2000) required before they can be released.  The children of Bil’im have a march one day, chanting “we want to sleep”.  The 30 children are met again with gas grenades and gunfire.  People are wounded and people are killed all the time here.

Most astonishing is the peaceful manner adopted by the people of Bil’im.  Asked how they deal with the Israeli military occupation, Emad Burnat says, “it takes strength to turn anger into something positive”.  He says further, “[B]y healing, you resist oppression.  Forgotten wounds can’t be healed, so I film to heal.”

Today I talked with Iyad Burnat, the filmmaker’s brother.  He spoke with the same even tone his brother uses in narrating the film.  Today, that made the story even more shocking.  Today I was outraged.  Today I knew I must share this story.

Today you can see the trailer:  http://vimeo.com/15843191 .  Today you can buy the DVD on Amazon.

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● If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column.  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

 

● Kebba Buckley Button is a Master’s Degree scientist, a minister, and the award-winning author of  the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (http://tinyurl.com/abd47jr), and also Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br).  She also has a natural healing and stress management practice and is a celebrated public speaker.

 

● Your comments are welcome!

 

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

 

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

 

UpBeat Living: Who Started It, Anyway?

Tags

Arguing, at choice, choices, Kebba, Negativity, Relationships, stress, Stress Management

© 2012 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Have you ever had a disagreement with someone that escalated really fast and felt crazy?   And then you wondered what the disagreement was about?  Or it seemed you were both arguing on the same side?  How did that turn into anything unpleasant, anyway?  Unpleasantness hurts, and we would all like to avoid that.  Hey, who started it, anyway?

Communication is a complex art, and misunderstandings do happen.  To save a relationship despite one of these crazy misunderstandings, we need to be patient. We need to be understanding, philosophical, lighthearted, and ready to forgive and forget.

A friend, “Janet” tells this story:  She was at Friday happy hour, at a popular restaurant, with a dozen friendly colleagues.  Of course, it was not possible to hear everything everyone said.  Each person was hearing snatches and phrases.  Janet heard one colleague, “Sonia”, cheerfully say “[mmpht mmpht] because I’m Mexican!”  Sonia had an Anglo surname.  Thinking Sonia might have a Mexican parent or grandparent, Janet leaned toward Sonia and asked pleasantly something like, “Sonia, did you just say you were ‘Mexican’?”  Uh oh.

Sonia cocked her head to the side and appeared to stiffen.  Several colleagues leaned forward and queried Janet, in variously stern and accusatory tones, “Are you calling Sonia ‘Mexican’?”  My friend was in Deep Trouble, accused of being openly racist.  My friend kept saying, “Sonia called herself ‘Mexican’—I’m just asking her about it.”  Fortunately for Janet, the group had already been drinking for awhile, and they shortly tired of accusing her and simply let it drop.  Janet will never know how much social damage was done by the mistaken impression that she was somehow accusing a woman of being “Mexican”.  The whole conversation was so fluid that it would be virtually impossible to follow up later.  Sonia clearly felt attacked or confronted.  Janet certainly felt attacked or confronted.  But who started this altercation?  Who was responsible for the damage being done to Janet?  Sonia was cool to Janet for the next couple of years they worked together.

A client, “Bev”, tells of working as a high-ranking administrative assistant in a structured department at a State agency. One morning, a food vendor for an adjacent agency saw Bev in a hallway and announced she would soon be providing hot breakfast options within the building.  Bev said something like, “Oh, how nice.”  She wondered if the vendor had obtained the right approvals, which would have to have been from managers higher than Bev.  Within 2 hours, an angry administrator came to Bev and demanded to know if Bev had given the vendor approval to provide hot breakfasts within this agency’s building.  Astonished, Bev said, “no, I don’t have the authority to approve anything like that!”  And the angry administrator asked again.  And Bev repeated her answer.  And the angry administrator asked again, a bit differently.  At this point, Bev was wondering if someone had set her up, telling the angry administrator that she, Bev, had definitely approved the new hot breakfasts.  Bev was baffled, because anyone would know that she had no authority to even consider the question.  As the conversation loops went on, Bev began to feel attacked.  Who started this conflict?  Could it have been resolved?  Did this situation contribute to her wrongful termination a few weeks later?  We will never know.

Sometimes a social/communication dynamic gets rolling, and it is difficult to tell who started it, who is right, and who is wrong.  Perhaps the most important thing is to give up trying to figure out who started it or how it developed.  Rather, it is crucial to maintain your poise and your smile, and make the best of the conversation.  Remain pleasant and, above all, keep your energy neutral and light.  Keep your replies simple and speak them in a light tone.  Try to steer this illogical conversation in the direction of a solution.  Or take the opposite approach and make a light comment to divert the conversation.  Be a generous listener.  If you can stay light and easygoing, people will sometimes simply forget an accusatory or unpleasant conversation.

Do you want to have the least conflict possible?  Then bypass Paralysis By Analysis, stay light and even.  Forgive misunderstandings whenever possible.  Smile pleasantly.  Don’t worry about who started it.  With focus on the light and the positive, you may be able to be the one who ends it

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● Your comments are welcome!

 

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

UpBeat Living: Life Bats You… in a Different Direction

Tags

adjusting to change, energy, Feeling energized, friendships, fulfilled, grateful, healing, Kebba, living beyond, making changes, moving on, Relationships, stress tips

Photo by http://www.livelifehappy.com

© 2012 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Think of the top 3 disappointing events you’ve had in life.  Maybe you were in a relationship you believed in, and suddenly it was over.  How about the time you had your heart set on a job, you knew you were the prime candidate, and you didn’t get it?  Then there was that friend who suddenly cut you off, with a weird reason or no reason.  Remember how much that hurt?

Enter, the Pinball Machine Theory of Life.

Sometimes, it’s like you are the ball on a pinball game board.  After the token goes into the machine, and the spring launcher is pulled and released, the ball zips up the slope of the game board.  Sometimes, like the pinball, you are racing up the board of life thinking you are definitely headed in a certain direction.  The right direction, surely.  Then you get hit with a flipper.  Ow!  For a moment, you don’t even know what your new direction is, right?  You’re just reverberating with the impact of the flipper (ow!), feeling the pain, and trying to get your bearings again.  Then you begin collecting yourself, look up, and see what unintended direction you are now headed in.  Yikes!  This is a new direction!  Not what the plan was!

Now let’s talk about that major relationship change.  Grammy-Award winning musician Garth Brooks has a powerful song called, “Thank God for Unanswered Prayers.”  In the song, he tells of being at a football game with his wife and seeing the woman he dated in high school.  Back then, he used to pray for that relationship every night.  By the time he saw his old flame again, he realized he would not be in the amazing relationship he was in with his wife, had the relationship with his old flame worked out.  So now he is massively grateful for the passing of that old relationship.  He was redirected on the Pinball Machine of Life, and now he is deeply glad.

Now, that perfect job you didn’t get—what changes would that have created in your life?  Changes that would have prevented something great that then did happen?  Here’s an example from this writer’s life:  20 years ago, she flew to Denver for a pre-hiring interview with an international company.  Having done projects with the CEO of the Colorado Division, she knew it was only a matter of negotiating the position and salary.  In Denver, she scoped out where to rent an apartment and what moving arrangements would be involved.  But when she called the man who was to interview her, he said he would call back in 20 minutes and never did. He never managed to meet with her during the 5 days she was there.  When the CEO asked how her conversations with the interviewer went, she told him they never even met.  The CEO said, “but I thought it was a pre-hiring interview?’  She said, “yes, I thought so, too.”  She never heard from the company again.  It was a bitter disappointment that hurt for many months.  Now, however, she sees that she would never have met and married her husband, had she been given the job in Denver.  She was redirected for a powerful reason.

As to a friend who suddenly cut you off, let’s put it in perspective and then give thanks.  Recently, a client was suddenly dropped as a friend because she declined a vacuum cleaner demonstration.  That’s right.  She politely declined an emailed request, due to an extreme work schedule.  Also, she did not know the friend-of-a-friend-of a friend that she would be helping by giving 2 hours for a demonstration of a product she could not afford.  The inviter then sent an attack email, assaulting the client’s integrity and spirituality.  The client called the inviter’s wife to ask if she felt the same way.  The wife said she would call back.  Immediately the inviter emailed the client again, nastily saying she must not go behind his back to talk to his wife, and best she not contact either of them again.  Did the client really want to be friends with people who would go ballistic over small matters?  Reconsidering a number of past hints of the nature of these “friends”, the client sadly let these friendships go.  Since, she has come to be glad they are no longer in her life.  Now she has more time for more compatible friends.  She was redirected for powerful reasons.

If you are a person of faith, remember this timeless truth [Romans 8:28]:  “We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him…”  When the flippers hit you, you are being directed for powerful purposes, by a wisdom greater than our own.  Do your best to deal with the hurt.  Then embrace the new opportunities that are arriving.  Be the happy and grateful pinball.

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● Your comments are welcome!

 

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

UpBeat Living: Forgive to be Powerful

Tags

Anger, choices, exhausted, fatigue, Fear, Feeling energized, Forgiveness, Forgiving, fulfilled, healing, overcoming fear

© 2012 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Dr. Eileen Borris

Dr. Eileen Borris can teach you what you need to know about finding forgiveness.  She has been teaching forgiveness and reconciliation around the world for the Institute for Multi-Track  Diplomacy (Washington, DC), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).  The last time I saw her she had just returned from giving workshops in Kuwait.  Shortly, she is off to Rwanda, for the Healing Wounds of History Conference.  Wherever she goes, Dr. Borris transforms.

In her book, Finding Forgiveness, the Foreword is offered by none other than His Holiness, The Dalai Lama.  His Holiness points out that: “When we become angry, we stop being compassionate, loving, generous, forgiving, tolerant, and patient altogether.  We deprive ourselves of the very things that happiness consists of…it is possible to realize that the past is past, that continuing to feel anger and hatred serves no purpose.”

Dr. Borris’s core methodology involves 7 steps:  becoming clear, telling your story, working with anger, working with guilt, reframing the situation, absorbing pain, and gaining inner peace.  She does not ask you to deny the wrong that occurred.  She does not ask you to forget it.  She does not ask you to not-seek appropriate justice where a crime has occurred.  What she does do is expose the complexities of forgiveness and invite you to work this process, ultimately setting yourself free.

Why do we need to forgive?  The final purpose for the individual is empowerment.  You  are at choice at all times.  When you forgive, you get back your power over whoever made you their victim.  Dr. Borris makes the point that animals do not hate.  Hatred requires conceptual thought.  But humans are able to hold thoughts of hate and vengeance lifelong.  How much energy does this steal from a person’s general lifestyle, joy, health, and productivity?

Try this for a moment:  bring to mind some terrible personal injustice that was done to you, which you have had trouble forgetting.  Perhaps someone attacked you.  Perhaps a boss treated you badly or even fired you unfairly.  Perhaps Mom always loved your sibling better.  Perhaps someone badmouthed you, telling tales that were totally unfounded.  Bring this injustice to mind and feel vividly the emotions that come with it.  Did your heart hurt or your back tighten up between the shoulder blades?  Did your shoulder tops tighten painfully?  How about your neck, your head, or your stomach?  Do these sensations feel like they are blessing or enhancing your beingness in any way?  Of course not.  So what has the toll on your mind, heart, body, and spirit been, in the months or years since the injustice occurred?  Is that toll enriching your life in any way?  Of course not.

If you would like to challenge yourself, try the following  exercise.  Get a pen and paper, and make notes of your thoughts and experiences as you do this.  Imagine your life if the injustice had never occurred.  What hours would you have spent enjoying life and your loved ones?  Would your marriage be better?  What friendships might you have developed, based on sharing happiness and companionship, that you did not because of the injustice?  How well would you have slept?  What excellent health would you have had all this time?  How much better would your concentration have been, on the job or in fulfilling recreation or charity work?  Would you have earned more money?  So what if you could have forgiven this injustice early in the game, and not spent any of this time on distraction, negativity, complaining, and generally experiencing a burden?  These may be tough questions for many of us.

Whatever your faith basis, does it make sense to hang onto any burden you do not need to hang onto?  You are always at choice.  What is your willingness to possibly hang up self-burdening beliefs about the importance of an injustice to you?  If these questions are provocative for you, why not pursue them further?  Your journey can be very freeing.

Now imagine living in a community where everyone is compassionate, everyone forgives and there is no impulse for revenge.  Now imagine that in the World community.  Countries would be waging peace, not war.  Imagine.

Some resources for further reading and techniques include:  Bruderhof Forgiveness Guide (www.foregivenessguide.org), A Course In Miracles (acim.org), Forgiveness Foundation (forgivenessfoundation.org), and the Forgiveness Project (forgivenessproject.com).

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● Your comments welcome!

 ● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .