UpBeat Living: Peaceful World: Day 14 of Season for NonViolence (SNV): Humility

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choices, Ghandi, nonviolence, Peacemaking, Season for NonViolence, SNV

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© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Who doesn’t love peace?  Who wouldn’t love a world in which all peoples treat each other like, well, people?  Who wouldn’t love a world in which countries are in robust commerce with each other, and everyone is prospering, and everyone has food, shelter, and health care?

Now, think of the most prominent terrorist dictators of the last century: didn’t they seem to feed on the power, rather than opportunities for peace?  Did their egos feel the violence they fomented?  Would humility have changed how these dictators behaved and how many of their own countrymen they killed?  Could they have operated as they did, had they been humble?  Today, the 14^th day of Season for NonViolence, we consider the quality of humility.

Here is AGNT’s meditation for Day 14:

DAY 14 Feb. 12:  The thought for today is HUMILITY.  Making mistakes is a part of learning and growing, simply an error in approach.  Paradoxically, the only way we can begin to escape from the consequences of our actions is to stop running from them and to face them with fortitude and humility.  In this sense, every difficult situation is a precious opportunity for learning.

When we humbly acknowledge our mistakes and reflect on what we have learned, it frees us from the need to be defensive.   Being free from defending our position creates an opportunity for nonviolence.

The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of the truth.

-Gandhi

Today:  As I gaze up at the stars tonight, I am aware of how small I am, how my life is but a fleeting moment in the vast scale of time and distances of the solar system and the universe.  And in that moment of humility, I acknowledge that I DO make a difference.

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com >Books>Button) and the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com >Books>Buckley).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● 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: Peaceful World: Day 13 of Season for NonViolence (SNV): Creativity

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choices, Effective living, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, MLK, nonviolence, Peacemaking, SNV

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Illustration by Microsoft

What if we lived in a world without violence?  How would you feel about that?  What if every person on Earth were focusing their creativity on joyful growth? Now on the 13th day of the Season for NonViolence (SNV), we have been unfolding ways to find and grow nonviolence within ourselves.  What new thing might Martin Luther King, Jr. be thinking about doing today? How would Mahatma Ghandi spend an extra hour today? NonViolence really begins with what is inside each heart.   Are you in?

From the Association for Global New Thought (AGNT), here is the meditation for SNV Day 13:

 

DAY 13 Feb. 11: The thought for today is CREATIVITY.  The human soul’s natural desire is to create.  The best thing you can do to a human soul is to express the natural desire to create.  Your life is your creative expression.  Creativity allows something unpredictable and joyous to express through you.

“Why should we use all our creative power? . . . Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money.”  -Brenda Ueland

Today:  I reflect on what I am creating in my life today by identifying at least five ways in which I can express my creativity joyously.   I will create something that expresses my feelings about nonviolence.

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com >Books>Button) and the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com >Books>Buckley).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● 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: Peaceful World: Day 8 of Season for NonViolence (SNV): Healing

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Ghandi, healing, peace within, Peacemaking, Season for NonViolence, SNV

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© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Does your soul yearn for a peaceful planet?  Would you like to help bring about a sustainable peace for the planet, without waiting for the next peace march?  Good news:  most  peacemaking has nothing whatever to do with making signs and marching through your city.

We now begin the second week of the annual Season for NonViolence (SNV).  During the SNV, we celebrate nonviolent solutions on every level.  In examining strife, we often see there is something in our personal selves that needs love, education, understanding, or healing.  The more we find peace within, the more we express peacefully with others.  In that peaceful relating, we contribute to world peace.  Today’s theme is healing.

Have you ever had a traumatic experience?  Would you like to lighten up the power of those bad memories?  Are you ready for some release and healing?  Today we are invited to experiment with a mantram (yes, a word related to mantra), a holy name or phrase, repeated again and again with calming effects.

Depending on your faith tradition, you may want to try one of the names by which you address your Divine, for example: Jesus; Lord Jesus Christ; Allah; Rama (Ghandi’s mantram: eternal joy within).  A short phrase  may also serve you : Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you [me];  Om Shanti (invocation to eternal peace); om nama shivaya (I bow to the Divine within).  Consider joyfully playing with different mantrams, and experiencing which may take you deeper.  After you have a session or two with your repeated mantram, consider the traumatic experience you wanted to lighten up.  Doesn’t it feel less heavy now?  Or have your feelings about it begun to dissolve?  Is it only a set of facts now?  Or from that pain, was there some kind of turning point or “gift”, some insight that has helped you deal with life differently since the trauma?

Here is AGNT’s meditation for SNV Day 8:

DAY 8 Feb. 6: The thought for today is HEALING.  Poet and activist, Maya Angelou turned a traumatic childhood experience into a catalyst for creativity and achievement.    She used this experience as a reason to bring peace to the world.

We all have had such experiences, sometimes holding on to the experience for a very long time.  A mantram is a wonderful way to resolve conflict we hold in our mind and one of the best times to repeat the mantram is while falling asleep at night.  Tuck yourself in, close your eyes, and start repeating your mantram.  Between the last waking moment and the first sleeping moment, there is an opening into deepest consciousness.  You can send your mantram in through that opening, repeating itself in your sleep, healing old wounds and restoring your peace of mind.

Today:  I will reflect on an incident in my life to find the “gift” it has brought me.  I will write down two ways I can use this memory to become a more creative and peaceful person.  Consciously, I share this gift with others.

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com >Books>Button) and the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com >Books>Buckley).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● 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: Peaceful World: Day 6 of Season for NonViolence (SNV)

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Ghandi, Martin Luther King, MLK, peace within, Peacemaking, Season for NonViolence, SNV

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Photo by iStockPhoto

Would you like to live in a peaceful world?  Would you enjoy living in a world where everyone believes that peace is the Way and the Truth and the Light?  Would you like to see a sustainable peace?

We are now on Day 6 of the Season for NonViolence, the annual celebration of nonviolent ways to achieve a peaceful world.  In multiple ways, sustainable global peace begins with every individual’s inner peace.  Today, we are each invited to get in touch with simplicity, our personal simplicity.  We are also invited to consider ways in which we can simplify our lifestyles and our livingness.  Will you consider how you can simplify your relationship with yourself and your stuff, in building your path to peace?  Are you in?

Here is the AGNT meditation for Day 6:

DAY 6, Feb. 4:  The thought for today is SIMPLICITY.  To simplify is to invite peacefulness into your life.   When we have lots of ‘stuff’ in our lives, it is hard to be peaceful.  Close your eyes and ask “How can I simplify my life, what can I let go of?”

“Live simply, so others can simply live.”

-Traditional Quaker guidance

If we dare let go of our possessions and the will to control and dominate, we will cultivate a deeper spirit of peace within us because we can accept the present moment as a gift.  By simplifying our lives, dropping less important activities and ‘things’, we allow more time for what matters most.

 Today:  I will write down three ways I can simplify my life and put at least one of them into practice today.  I will give away something I have not used in the past year.

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com >Books>Button) and the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com >Books>Buckley).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● 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: Peaceful World: Day 5 of Season for NonViolence (SNV)

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Ghandi, Jr., Martin Luther King, MLK, Season for NonViolence, SNV

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Photo by iStockPhoto

Now, it is Day 5 of the 64-day annual Season for NonViolence.  This is a time to celebrate everything that works to create peaceful interaction in a sustainable peace for the World.  Today’s theme is BELIEVING.  Today we are invited to believe that we can choose to be peaceful all day, internally, and in any interactions with others.  Truly, peace begins within.  Today, we are invited to believe that we can each make a difference with our small steps for nonviolence.

Here is AGNT’s Day 5 meditation:

DAY 5, Feb. 3: The thought for today is BELIEVING. Author, Wayne Dyer writes about the impact that our beliefs have on our daily lives.  Believe that you have all the resources you need to move your life in the direction of peace, happiness and nonviolence.  Believe that you can be peaceful all day.  Say to yourself,

“I am peaceful. I practice nonviolence.”

 

Today:  I will write what I believe about nonviolence.  I will create an “I Believe in Nonviolence” t-shirt, bumper sticker, song, or art, and be aware of the simple demonstrations of peaceful responses.

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com >Books>Button) and the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com >Books>Buckley).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● 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: Peaceful World: Day 3 of Season for NonViolence (SNV)

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Appreciation, Ghandi, King, nonviolence, peace, Season for NonViolence, SNV

Photo by Microsoft

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

What if people expressed how much they appreciated each other, not just at retirement dinners, but every week?  What about every day?  What would the world be like then?  Probably most would experience their work and family life very differently.  And hearing words of appreciation, they might, in turn, think frequently of what they appreciate about others.  And they might express it.  And they might feel thankful.  And thankful people are more cheerful and more fun to be around.  Imagine this effect ricocheting around the globe, throughout every country.

We are now on Day 3 of the Season for NonViolence (SNV), created by the Association for Global New Thought (AGNT) for people who would like to help bring forth a nonviolent world.  And today you can help just by telling someone you appreciate them.  Are you in?

Here is AGNT’s Day 3 meditation:

DAY 3 Feb. 1:  The thought for today is APPRECIATION.  Author Louise Hay says

“Praise yourself as much as you can…The love in our lives begins with us … Loving yourself will help heal this planet.”

Peace in the world begins inside each person.  Appreciating who I am raises my awareness of nonviolence.

Life is filled with opportunities to express appreciation, yet how many times do we pass up the opportunity thinking “oh, I’ll tell them later.”  When we tell someone that we appreciate them, we are promoting nonviolence.

Today:  I will write down ten things that I appreciate about myself and my life.   I will tell at least one other person what I appreciate about them.

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com >Books>Buckley), and the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com >Books>Button).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● 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: Peaceful World: Day 2 of Season for NonViolence (SNV)

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Ghandi, MLK, Peacemaking, Season for NonViolence, SNV, Thich Nhat Hanh

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

Photo by Fotolia

Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where no one shot another person in anger?  Who wouldn’t want a world where everyone got along, and social justice wasn’t even a question?  Here we are at Day 2 of the Season for NonViolence (SNV), the 16^th annual celebration by the Association for Global New Thought (AGNT) for people who would like to bring that nonviolent world into being.

Each day during the SNV, I am posting the thought for the day from AGNT.  I will also be expanding on the meanings of the Season.  Here is AGNT’s Day 2 meditation:

DAY 2, Jan. 31: The thought for today is SMILING.  Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said

 “If, in our daily life, we can smile…not only we, but everyone will profit from it.  This is the most basic kind of peace work.”   

A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in business, and is the countersign of friendship and nonviolence.  A smile not only improves our looks, it improves our outlook, and when our outlook improves, it is much easier to be at peace.

Today:  I will share a sincere smile with everyone I meet, knowing that my smile contributes to peace.

Are you in?

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com >Books>Buckley), and the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com >Books>Button).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● 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: Peaceful World? Day 1 of Season for NonViolence (SNV)

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Ghandi, Jr., Martin Luther King, MLK, Peacemaking, Season for NonViolence, SNV

© 2013 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

If you dream of a peaceful world, but you think there is nothing you can contribute to that vision, here is great news for you.  There are actually simple ways you can contribute your thoughts, your prayers, and even your actions toward the creation of that peaceful world.  Here is a great program to consider.

The Season for NonViolence (SNV) was originated 15 years ago by the Association for Global New Thought (AGNT).  The SNV runs for 64 days each year, from January 30^th, the anniversary of Mahatma Ghandi’s death, to April 4^th, the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The SNV was created as a grassroots education and demonstration program committed to showing and growing  nonviolence as a powerful way to heal, transform, and empower our lives and our communities.

Each day during the SNV, I will be posting the thought for the day from AGNT.  I will also be expanding on the meanings of the Season.  Here is AGNT’s Day 1 meditation:

DAY 1 Jan. 30: The thought for today is COURAGE.

“I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”

-Anne Frank

When you discover that everyone is contained in you and you are contained in everyone, you have realized the unity of life, which is the divine ground of existence.  Then you are not just a person; you have become a beneficial force. Wherever you go, wherever you live, those around you will benefit from your life.  Even one unassuming man or woman in a community has the courage to lead a nonviolent life, she will make her contribution, and she will slowly inspire others to make the same contribution, because human nature responds to such an example.

When we can say, “Whatever comes, we will not be afraid because the divine Self is within us,” then this resoluteness and faith will enable us to work free from tension, agitation, and fear of defeat. The person who works in this way is at peace, because he or she is not anxious about results.
Today:  I will light a candle to symbolize my commitment to accept the courage to practice 64 Ways of living nonviolently.

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com >Books>Buckley), and the 2012 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com >Books>Button).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● 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 .