Tag Archives: Peace

21-Day Meditation Challenge: UPDATE and Research!

So — we’re into day 8 of Deepak Chopra‘s 21-day meditation challenge. How’s it going? Are you finding it easy to stick to meditating? Are you finding it hard? Are you noticing any benefits? Are you noticing any strange thoughts coming up? I’d love to hear about any/all of it! Let me know in the comments. If you’re finding it somewhat difficult to stick to the meditation, you might want to read about the importance of stillness and unplugging. This may (or may not) help to motivate you to stick with the meditations.

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I came across some research this past week that I thought you might find interesting, especially in the context of meditations. From the Daily Stat:

After just 5 weeks of daily 5-to-16-minute training sessions in focused-attention meditation (“Relax with your eyes closed, and focus on the flow of your breath…”), research subjects showed strong brain-wave changes associated with positive emotions, says a team led by Christopher A. Moyer of the University of Wisconsin. The findings suggest that the benefits of meditation may be more accessible than was previously believed, the researchers say.

Pretty cool, eh? Of course, the Daily Stat is a secondary source, so if you’re interested in reading the journal article, you can find it here: Frontal Electroencephalographic Asymmetry Associated With Positive Emotion Is Produced by Very Brief Meditation Training.

So, maybe this is more motivation for you to get back to (or start!) meditating.

 

21-Day Meditation Challenge: Join Me!

I just finished listening to Day 1 of Deepak Chopra‘s 21-day meditation challenge. Boy, did it feel good to meditate again! When was the last time you sat (and didn’t fiddle with technology or thoughts) for an extended period of time? I’ve written about the importance of stillness and unplugging before, but now I’m offering you an opportunity to follow-through on it.

Why don’t you join me and thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of other people and follow along with Deepak’s meditations for the next 21 days.

I really like being part of something bigger than “me” and this is certainly an opportunity to feel connected to an infinite number of people. As I’m listening to the meditation, I can be sure that there will be countless people who will also be listening to the same track as me (at some point during the day).

So, whaddaya say — let’s meditate together over the next 21 days.

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I will say that the meditations are couched in abundance. That is, the theme of the meditations have to do with abundance. Most folks think of abundance as an abundance of cash, but there are many other kinds of abundance. One can have an abundance of peace, joy, comfort, love, and the list goes on.

So — head on over to the landing page and listen to the first meditation because it started today. You can do it!

Finding a Moment for Stillness, Peace, Quiet, Calm, or Silence

How often do you find yourself (or maybe your colleague) moving quickly from obligation to obligation without regard for a second to sit still? In our fast-paced lives, rarely do you see someone take the time for themselves. That is, rarely do people take time out of their lives for themselves.

While I think this is important to recognize, I also realize that the way that life is structured, it’s not easy to take time for yourself. There are always those 4 or 5 things at the bottom of the to-do list. Usually, things you’d like to do, like: play my guitar; hit the links; start writing my book; etc. I realize that it’s not easy. There’s so much going on in our lives that we often go from task to task, just trying to get it all done. I’ve already written about the importance of , but I think it’s equally important to take time between tasks.

What do I mean by that?

Take, for example, the person who just gets out of an important meeting at work and realizes that they are a few minutes late to pick-up their kid from daycare. They race from the elevator to their car and fly out of the parking garage, anxiously looking at the clock. They get to the daycare center and end up being a few minutes late (as predicted). However, this lateness isn’t an issue as there are other children who are awaiting rides. More importantly, our main character’s child, the one who needed to be picked up at “just the right time,” is busy engaged with one of their schoolmates.

There are a few things we could glean from this example, but I’m aiming for one: think about the time that our main character was “rushing” and thinking about “being late” to pick up their child. During this time, our main character’s physiology was reacting. The adrenal glands were pumping adrenaline into the veins (as the body does when it encounters stress). This increased stressful state, however, was completely unnecessary. There was no imminent danger on the way from work to the daycare center for our main character. Our main character would have arrived (at the same time) and without the added adrenaline coursing through their veins. Most notably, our main character would have arrived much more relaxed had they taken even a few seconds to sit still.

There are millions of examples of this happening everyday around the world. I would hazard a guess that they are on the decline. With the growing prevalence of meditation in the western world (), people are learning how to be relaxed. They are learning to take things a little slower and set aside some time in the day for themselves. I think this bodes well for those people who do so, but also for the rest of the people in the world. As we lower our , we are better equipped to deal with the stressors of our daily lives (without overreaction).

So, do yourself a favor and before you engage in your next activity/task, take a minute (or a few seconds) to clear your thoughts and clear your head. You’ll be surprised how useful you may find this.

The “Secret” to a Happy Life: Psst, It’s not really a Secret at All

I’m still fairly young by most standards, but I’ve had quite a (both formal and informal). In that time, I have learned (at least I’d like to think so) a thing or two about myself and other humans (by way of my time in psychology). Sometimes, I like to sit in a coffee shop on a busy street corner and just watch “us” interact with “us.” It can be quite entertaining — I recommend doing it at least once.

As I watch these people about, I’m struck by the constant string of perplexed faces. More than that, there are a number of folks who don’t look happy. There could be any number of reasons for that, so I won’t speculate, but I will group them together. Meaning, the expression on their face, I would gather, has to do with something they are thinking. This thing that they are thinking causing this uncomfortable expression, more than likely, is unpleasant. Some would even say that .

So we’ve got the group of folks thinking things that are causing unpleasant feelings. I pan to the right and I see a couple arguing on the street. Relationships can be fickle, so who knows what the surface argument is about. The underlying argument, more than likely, has to do with something that one person is thinking. It’s a similar situation to those who are walking down the street with strange looks on their faces, only in this instance, we have the people expressing themselves (outwardly) in an intentional (or sometimes, not-so-intentional) manner.

There’s the folks thinking and walking and then there’s the arguing folks. There are other examples I could bring up, but let’s stick with these two for now.

I’d like you to imagine these interactions, these people walking and thinking or the couple arguing, if both parties (or the singular party) didn’t assume anything. How would the interaction look different if the rule was to “assume nothing.” Seriously now, take a second to imagine the scenario in your head — (I’ll wait). Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Hey, welcome back. What did you notice? Did the interaction take place differently? I bet it did. Let’s take a closer look.

With the people who are walking and thinking, the looks on their faces are evidence of the thoughts they are having. These thoughts are likely about someone (or something) that isn’t going the way they hoped it would. What’s the underlying cause: assumptions. These people are assuming that what has happened wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) happen. If we eliminate this preliminary step of assumption, the reality that exists is no longer at odds. It just is. There’s nothing to be disdainful about. (It’s pretty hard to be angry with reality.)

Let’s move on over to the couple. Let’s say the are arguing about the cost of parking. One person wants to park on the street, while the other wants to look for more inexpensive parking. The one who wants to look for more inexpensive parking may be operating under the assumption that a) there will be less expensive parking somewhere else, and/or b) we don’t have the money to afford this much for parking. Part b) of that sentence assumes that there won’t be more money coming in from (anywhere or more specifically, an unexpected source). Maybe, when they are hanging their coats up at home, a $20 bill falls out of the pocket — boom! Paid for parking.

Or how about another example that I bet most of us can relate to. You’re driving down the highway in the “fast lane” when all of a sudden, you start to come up really fast on someone causing you to slam on your brakes. How dare they make you have to slam on your brakes. Who do they think they are? You may begin to tailgate (I hope not!) or you may slow down or you may try to pass them on the right (again, I hope not!) But what’s the underlying cause for your anger? You may say that it’s because that person shouldn’t be driving slow in the fast lane or maybe you think (as part of the first half of this sentence), they should move over if someone quickly approaches from behind. I went to driving school when I was a teenager and I don’t remember hearing those “laws.” So, what are they? These are assumptions we carry about driving on the highway and we think that people are supposed to abide by our assumptions.

My purpose in writing this is not to make you feel bad about yourself (or your assumptions), but simply to shed light on the idea that there may be some assumptions that are contributing (maybe even causing) you to feel the things you think you are justified in feeling. And in the moment, you probably feel infinitely justified. However, once the emotion has passed, I would encourage you to look back and see if you can identify an “assumption” that you may have been operating under during that time of distress.

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before…

spaceship, space shuttle, discovery, hubble telescope, outer space, planet, satellite, Every so often, there will be an old episode of Star Trek (The Next Generation) on and I can’t help, but sit and watch. The show, in my opinion, was one of the better shows of its time and even to this day, lives on. There’s something about the show that isn’t really dated. Well, if you ignore the “graphics,” the show could just have easily run in the mid-2000’s (while it actually ran from the late-80’s through the early-90’s.

Let’s take a step back into history (but not so far back as to invoke a debate of evolution and creationism). Humans on the planet started somewhere. Let’s call this somewhere land F. From land F, these humans began to explore outward. They began to explore the lands of neighboring E and G. So, where there were humans in only land F, now there were humans in E, F, and G. This continued until humans had explored all the land that they could by foot. Then, being an infinitely curious species by nature, humans built vessels by which to explore the seas. Soon, humans had explored every piece of land and every inch of sea on the planet.

Cave man, cave men, scientific american, rhino, hunter, gatherer, forage, food, earth, walk, What was next? Well, obviously, the sky. Humans sent probes out into the sky. Once they figured out a way to get a human up into the sky, they did that, too. Humans have been exploring the limits of their existence for as long as there have been humans. Something I find a little strange — how come we haven’t “conquered” space, yet? Or do we think that we already have?

It would seem that we have grown, exponentially, in our ability to explore. With the whole walking across the land-thing, that took awhile. Then, the boats. Then, the planes. If you look at the dates for which these sorts of things have been discovered/invented, it would seem that we’d be due to figure out how to pilot a plane across the galaxy. And then I take a step back and read some of the headlines…

And then it makes sense.

Instead of using our abilities to create, instead of peacefully cooperating with each other, we, where we is us as a species, would rather get into various brouhahas. This is troubling. Open any newspaper and I challenge you to not find something about political unrest somewhere in the world. How the heck are we supposed to come together as a species, come together and represent the Earth, when we can’t get a long?

Some people believe (and some people don’t believe) that there are other species on other planets. Forget for a second which side of this debate you fall on and just consider that there are. astral connections: In the year 2424 man has no need for bodies nor gasoline stations but energy will still be needed for travel amongst the stars. Here the energy nozzles at an astral enery station await the space orbs to energize them.Consider that there are a species of intelligent beings out there who can look in on what’s happening in our world and see what we’re doing. Given that they are able to see what we are doing, there’s a good chance that their technology is far superior to ours. Do you think… as they watch us fight with each other constantly… do you think that they would want to help us out? Meaning, do you think that that they would willingly give us superior technology to help us send our people out beyond the galaxy? The answer is no. No, they wouldn’t. Because if they did, they know that our planet, or at least the majority of our species, would disappear in about 3 days. Humans with superior technology is not safe. Humans need to learn compassion. Humans need to learn empathy. Humans need to learn that killing each other is not a sanctionable act.

I hope that in my lifetime, if there are intelligent beings on other planets, we get to meet them.

Is An Eye For An Eye Ever Justified?

As I’m sure you’ve heard/read/seen, the United States conducted a mission in which Osama bin Laden “passed away.” At first, I was quite shocked. Everything we’d been told about bin Laden was that he was . Moreover, he hadn’t been in the news in ages, and all of a sudden — boom. Then, I felt empathy. Yes, I understand that this person was seen as a security threat to the United States and in some cases, the world, but it is my belief that no matter the crime, taking life is never the solution, nor is it justifiable.

Some of the archived footage of President Obama talking about bin Laden ( and ) and just my general feelings about President Obama make me think that Obama’s original intention in this mission was not to take an eye for an eye. President Obama doesn’t seem like the kind of president who is out for ‘revenge.’ Rather, I think the initial intent was to capture. Some have already , and others think . Others still, think that for the United States (and the world). Other than some of the footage I’ve seen of Obama talking about bin Laden, and my own intuition, I have no hard evidence. There may be some out there, but I haven’t come across it. Mind you, I haven’t looked very hard, either.

The “An-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye… ends in making everybody blind,” is often to Mahatma Gandhi. In looking at the wiki article for “,” Jesus Christ is also quoted as saying: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” However, there is no reference to a specific passage from the Bible (or other book), so I don’t know if that’s accurate.

Byron Katie often says, “.” When I first heard that, it took me a some time to wrap my head around what that is really saying. Defense is the first act of war. So, not the aggressor, but the defender. Sounds a bit strange, yes? She’s so eloquent that instead of trying to paraphrase her ‘thoughts’ on the topic, I decided just to include a YouTube video of her talking about the concept:

While Katie is referring to defense in a communication-sense, I think that her ideas on this topic can be extrapolated to other areas of interaction. As an example: think about a school-yard bully. On the playground, the bully pushes another kid down. In one scenario, the kid gets up, retaliates, is seen by one of the people “on-duty” for lunch and is subsequently sent to the principal’s office. Another way this first scenario could play out is the two get into some sort of brawl whereby both are left injured. In the second scenario, the kid gets up and walks away. The kid does not allow the antagonism of the bully to get to her/him. The kid just ‘brushes it off’ and leaves the situation. More times than not, the bully, who is actually seeking some sort of reaction from someone, will not follow the kid as s/he walks away, but instead, will seek out another person to bully.

Now, the two scenarios I’ve presented leave little to be desired. Many people would want the kid to retaliate or have someone reprimand the bully for what they have done — and I can understand this. But looking at this scenario systemically, the problem is much deeper. The questions that need to be asked are less about the kid and the bully, and more about the environment’s in which these two roles have grown up in. That is, what kind of things are happening in the bully’s environment such that would make the bully more likely to be a bully and what kinds of things are happening in the kid’s environment such that would make the kid more likely to be bullied? If we begin looking into the roots of the problem, we see through the veil, so to speak, and gain a better understanding of the world around us, especially as it relates to ‘unrest.’

Mass Collaboration Will Change the World

One of the benefits to being a , is that you’re able to subscribe to other users. If there is a particular user that publishes videos that you’ve liked in the past, say maybe (you may have seen one of their videos — they’re the ones who write on a whiteboard depicting the ideas from the presenter’s presentation), then when you login to YouTube, if this user has published any new videos, you’ll see it right on your homepage. Additionally, you can also get notifications of new videos via email, but who likes a cluttered inbox, right?

I recently logged into YouTube to find that one of users I’ve subscribed to, [the same user that has uploaded such popular videos as: ] had uploaded a new video called: . I like music, but I like collaboration even more, and most importantly, I was intrigued by the idea of a ‘virtual choir.’ I clicked on the video and watched the presentation by Eric Whitacre. Wow! Wow! Wow! I’ve embedded the video into this post to the right of this paragraph and strongly suggest spending the 15 minutes to watch it [Be sure to watch it in full screen mode, too!].

What struck me most about watching Eric’s presentation is the element of collaboration. In the first video [embedded in the next paragraph], , there were 185 voices in over 12 countries. In the second video [embedded at the end of this post], (which debuted quite recently, April 6th of this year to be exact), , there were 2052 voices in over 58 countries. Can you imagine singing with over 2000 people in person much less, virtually and across the world? This project reminds me a bit of , where they had people in over 156 countries join together and sing at the exact same time. Projects like these get me really excited!

Projects like these give me hope for the future of the world. It is absolutely moving that there are causes that motivate people to gather together across obscure places. The first (Lux Aurumque) of Eric’s videos was moving, but the second, was even more moving! More than two-thousand people decided that this was something that they wanted to be part of. This project was something that they wanted to contribute a piece of their creativity and flare to. This project was something that they thought was inspiring. And can you really disagree with that?

This bit of collaboration demonstrated by the people who spent hours perfecting a video to send to Eric Whitacre makes me think of the possibilities… What if we could get 10,000 people singing together? What if we could get 100,000 people singing together? What if we could get a whole country to sing together? I wonder what kind of positive emotion and inspiration we could invoke from the people of a nation, if they were all singing a song (like the ones in these videos) at the same time. I wonder what that could do for “world peace.”