Archive for the ‘Behavior’ Category

>    As a writer, I am taken with words. Always have been. As a mystic, I never miss an opportunity to find meaning in the many synchronicities of life. So it’s no wonder that when I passed a storefront on my way home last evening and the neon sign had some of it’s lights out, I had all at once my wordplay, my mystical occurrence, and my blog for today.
    The store I passed sells products and furniture for people with back aliments. It’s called “Healthy Back”…but the last three letters of the first word had the lights blown out so it read Heal *** Back. As I stared at it, what I realized immediately was how the word “healthy” is really two words…”heal” and “thy” so with just a little spacing and punctuation it would read “Heal Thy Back” store.
    There it was. Healthy is all about heal(ing) thy(self)…or yourself. But you get the point, whichever way you read it. Now this makes perfect sense in light of everything else I believe in and write about routinely in my blog.
    We are all responsible for our thoughts. Our thoughts are the foundation we lay for the things we create both within our minds and by our actions. As sentient beings, we feel everything we think whether or not we are aware that we do. So, when we have thoughts that are negative about ourselves, others or the world…those thoughts generate feelings within our physical bodies. Both the thoughts, and the feelings they generate, vibrate at a certain frequency. When the thoughts are negative, they vibrate at a frequency that is incompatible with the basic life force frequency, which is positive energy that fosters wellness and growth. An incompatible vibratory rate interferes with and has a negative impact upon the optimal functioning of the physical body that houses and transmits that energy. The physical body, unable to integrate the incompatible energy, manifests a less than optimal state of being…commonly known as illness or dis-ease.
    Want to feel better? Think better thoughts.
    In most cases, what ALL disease needs at it’s inception is a quick dose of positive thought with a little joy and gratitude thrown in to ward off the harmful effects of negative thinking (which is usually followed by, and reinforced with, negative acts).
    Most of the drugs that are touted by the pharmaceutical companies making obscene amounts of money off of our fears and our refusal to take responsibility for our own states of health are unnecessary. At best, they address only the symptom, not the root cause.  Without changing the pattern inherent in the root cause, the symptom may be relieved but the negativity, the illness, the dis-ease cannot be affected. To treat the root cause, it is necessary to understand and have faith in the connection of our minds to our physical, emotional and spiritual bodies. (I’d throw in etheric bodies as well, but I’d likely lose all of the readers I haven’t lost up until now so I’ll save that one for another day).
    We humans are so much more than what we see and are capable of so much more than we are given credit for by either the marketers of all those things and products we “have to have”in order to be happy and healthy…or by ourselves.
    I told you at the outset how much I love words. I can always find a hidden meaning in them to widen the vista of what life is about.  If you take the word humans (as in “we humans” in the above paragraph) and move the letters around…humans becomes “shuman.” Now shuman is not a word that has meaning…but if YOU take out the letter “U” and double the “A” you get “shaman.” 
    Now there’s a word with a whole lot of meaning.
    A shaman was (and is) the healer, the medicine man or woman found within many cultures past and present, who healed through innate knowledge, using the gifts of nature.
    So, it’s just a matter of “U” getting out of your own way…putting the ego and the logical mind aside…to access the deeper knowledge of how disease originates and what we as individual shamans can do about it. We are all physicians of the highest order and more than capable of healing ourselves.
    Sorry, Merck.
    
        

>     There are probably almost as many jokes about California as there are about lawyers. As a former practicing attorney, I can tell you that many of the one’s about my profession are earned, or at least warranted.
    As for California…we may have to reassess.
    The devastating wildfires ravaging the State this week bring to light a new perspective on what is characteristically seen as the “flakiness” and “Kumbaya” spirit of people who are born or choose to move there. And while it may be true that personal relationships are typically not of the same depth as those formed elsewhere in the country, it is also true that there is something rather remarkable to be learned from Californians as well.
    Qaulcomm Stadium in Southern California has been turned into a refuge for individuals and families displaced by the danger and destruction of the wildfires. It has also, apparently, become a shining example of what compassion and caring look like. It is vintage California and deserves a second look.
    I had my own experience with compassion California style many years ago and the memory has never left me. I had moved to Los Angeles to start law school. The week of my move was also the week of my birthday. I literally knew no one in the city. On the third day, which also happened to be my birthday, I went shopping for some things I needed for my apartment. While in a furniture store, I happened to mention to the person I was speaking with that I had just arrived and it was my birthday. What occurred next defies the imagination, but it happened to me…so I can tell you that it’s true.
    Within minutes, the owners of the store closed the store, ordered pizza, went out a bought a cake, and threw me a birthday party! Now it may not have been sound business practice, but I can tell you in their single act of caring those strangers made a transplanted, lonely young woman feel important, and yes, loved.
    When Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, the world watched as civil services and public officials failed to fulfill their intended purpose, chaos and looting broke out, and the stadium where people were housed was both unsanitary and unsafe.
    In California, civil services and civil servants alike have been visible and hard at their jobs since the fires began. At Qualcomm Stadium, there are stilt walkers and massage therapists and cooks and suppliers and every possible category of volunteerism imaginable. There is compassion…California style…on display for all to see.
    There is also a woman at Qualcomm who lost her home to bank foreclosure a month ago who is greeting every new arrival at the stadium with a hug. She says she knows the trauma of losing everything you have and she just wants to give back what she can.   
    I recently read that human beings need 8-12 hugs a day for emotional and physical health. I don’ know where you live or if you’ll get your requisite 8-12 hugs today. But just in case your short, I know where you can get one.
    Perhaps we need a few less jokes about Californians and a few more lessons learned.
    
 

>    On Monday, as Californians struggled with the horror of their State in flames, talk radio show host Glenn Beck made light of the tragedy expressing less-than-compassionate Conservatism for the plight of “Hollywood Liberals” and the acting community in general.  As I listened to his rant, I was momentarily taken aback by his apparent insensitivity…until I remembered his show’s motto: “The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment.” Clearly, Mr. Beck was “performing” and bringing his brand of humor to a group of people, and a State, that he regularly pans.
    I got it. However, many bloggers did not.
    On Tuesday, Mr. Beck felt the need to clear up the many attempts by “liberal bloggers” to paint him as both villainous and callous for mocking Californians in the throes of a nightmare and taking joy in the loss of their homes. He clearly and adamantly denied any such thoughts and feelings and explained what I had figured out…that he was joking.
    On Wednesday (today), I would like to comment on both Mr. Beck’s original statements and the subsequent and retaliatory statements by liberal bloggers.
    Actually, I want to comment on what unites us, rather than what divides us.
    Glenn Beck has very specific political, religious and social views. I admire him for his courage in standing up, and by, those people and things he believes in. I didn’t say I agree with him. I said I admire his courage. And while some of his views appear to me to be fear-based, I have heard enough to know that in his heart he would suffer for anyone else’s suffering. He is a compassionate man.
    He is also, in his words, “a rodeo clown” who, despite his efforts at humility, has an ego that sometimes gets in his way. He’s human, like all of us. When he “joked” about the California wildfires as they were burning down homes, causing death and destruction, he was over the line. Mass suffering is not a funny subject.
    The bloggers who retaliated and sought to castigate Mr. Beck for his insensitivity had really been laying in wait to jump on him for any reason. They are his political and philosophical enemies. If they had the slightest intention of mirroring the truth, they would have had to admit that he had just gone over the “enlightenment” line and entered the “entertainment” zone. Tasteless, yes…but malevolent, no. But had they done that, they would not have been able to attack him personally on their blogs.
     Both Mr. Beck and the bloggers could have used their “bully pulpits” more wisely. 
     On Monday, Mr. Beck could have dropped his radio persona momentarily and asked his audience, the “third most listened to talk radio show in America”, to stop what they were doing and literally pray for the inhabitants of California. He is, after all, a devout Mormon who “gets on his knees every day” seeking guidance from God.
    I think it’s a safe guess to say God would not tell him to mock a tragedy in the making wherein His children were suffering.
    The bloggers need to use their space and time to uplift others, not to daily troll the media for opportunities to attack individuals who are politically or philosophically different than they.
    We all must learn two vital lessons of this century:

    1.  United we stand, divided we fall.  This does not mean we agree on everything. It means we honor the diversity and differences among us toward the common end of Oneness.
    
    2.  When one of us suffers, we all suffer.  This does not mean that we need to take on the suffering of others. But it does mean that we must open our hearts, and use our minds, to support them in the way out of their suffering.
      
    Personally, I’d like to thank both Glenn Beck and the liberal bloggers for this opportunity to give voice to something we can all rally behind.

>    Yesterday I read a short “tip” in a magazine which advised that while journal writing can be cathartic, blog writing is less helpful in that regard. Blog writing, it said, was really a method of social networking and not conducive to “truth telling.”
    What?
    The article went on to say that when we are writing privately, as in a journal, we are more likely to plumb the depths of our Soul and be honest with ourselves than when we are writing for others. When writing for others, it continued, we are more inclined to say what we think we ought to say and what is socially acceptable.
    Now I’ll agree if we’re talking about writing fiction…but in all other matters, what is the purpose of writing anything other than the truth?
    I write to my blog 5 days a week with one unwavering goal. The goal is to use the gift of words to inspire, enlighten or educate whenever possible. I don’t believe I can do that if I am less than honest with myself or the reader. It’s in the willingness to see and share the world as we perceive it that we have the greatest opportunity for helping one another grow…both by experience and by example.  If there is no greater teacher than experience…how about the experience of watching someone else step up and stand behind their truth?
    Notice I’ve said “their” truth.
    I am an advocate of the position that what is true for me may or may not be true for you. Reality is as each of us perceives it. However, because my truth may differ from yours is not a reason for me to alter or obscure it in order that it be more “socially acceptable” to you. You are always free to accept or reject my version of reality and pursue your own…all the while allowing me the pursuit of mine. But we will be of little value to ourselves, or one another, if what we do is present a false front for whatever reason.
    Whatever way you cut it deception, in any of it’s forms, is a bar to healthy, productive, and life-affirming relationships. Deception, like everything else, exists in a state of potentiality, awaiting it’s manifestation. And when you think about it, that potentiality doesn’t really exist anywhere else in Nature except in we humans. It’s sort of an “extra option” that comes with the model…to be optioned or not.
    Like everything else, the choice is ours.
    I remember being a freshman at Villanova University at the age of 23. I took an elective titled “Deviant Social Behavior” (because the professor was really cute). I was the oldest person in my class. Midway through the first semester he taught a unit about suicide. On the last day of the unit, he opened the last class up for discussion and a young man about age 19 raised his hand and said, “I don’t know why they just don’t let people die who try to commit suicide…it’s obviously what they want.”
    I hesitated for a moment pondering whether or not to speak, then raised my hand and when called on said, “I tried to commit suicide last year and you’re wrong. People who try to commit suicide don’t want to die. They have simply misplaced their capacity to hope and cannot see how whatever is going on in their life will change. They are in pain and they think the pain will never stop. All they really want is a little love and a little encouragement.”  There were about 10 more minutes left in the class but when I finished speaking, the professor said, “I can’t top that. Class dismissed.”
    I could have kept that information to myself and avoided the “social stigma” that can accompany the revelation of such behavior. But who could I have helped with my silence? 
    The truth is the most powerful teacher. We are not here to mislead one another…we’re here to light the way for one another. In so doing, we must care less about being socially acceptable and more about being personally responsible to what is true for us while having the courage and determination to share it.
    My “tip” is quite different than the one I read yesterday.
    It happens to be my truth.
    

>  Lately I’ve been very stressed out. It’s been one of those times when Life just hands you a bit more than you’d prefer to deal with…which is where the expression comes from “It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you deal with it.”
    I’ve been dealing with it poorly. Which is what has me thinking about joy. It’s been sorely missing from my life during all this stress, which is where that other expression comes from, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
    So, this is my Ode to Joy.
    A long time ago I dated a man who laughed so infrequently I can still recall, after 30 years, the few times he really laughed. I mean that kind of deep from the belly laugh that goes on so long you think you’ll run out of breath. I was always trying to get him to be more playful, but to no avail. I think that’s why I left him.
    It’s no fun living without joy so lately, if you ask my family, they’d probably tell you it’s been no fun living with me. They’d be right. It’s been no fun living with me, either…and I’m Me.
    We live in challenging times…but Life is challenging no matter what “time” you live in. No one has ever been born that wasn’t forced to face difficulties and challenges they’d have preferred to skip. But that’s why we’re born to begin with, isn’t it? We’re born to overcome the darkness and become the Light.
    The dark is dense, hard to maneuver around in and easy to get lost in as well. It’s just plain heavy.
    Light is…well…light! It’s airy and weightless and easy to see through and clears the way for exactly where it is you want to go.
    I’ve noticed that when I’m sad or angry or depressed (yes, I get depressed) Life takes on a heaviness and time seems to slow to a near crawl. This leads me to conclude that those emotions…and the energy, or frequency, that sustains them…is heavy…like darkness.
    To the contrary, when I’m happy or joyful or excited (yes, I get excited) Life is open and filled with wonder and time flies.
    So, then, it’s really about choice.
    We live in a “free-will zone” where we get to choose our thoughts and where we want to place our attention. It’s like the radio in your car. If the station you’re listening to isn’t playing music you like…or talking about something you want to hear…you change the station.  Well, if you’re mind is repeatedly telling you all that’s wrong with your life, change “the station.”
    Change frequencies.
    Literally…lighten up.
    Tune out that which isn’t uplifting or joyful and tune in that which is. It’s done by changing the frequency of your thought waves from those that are dense to those that are light. It’s done by thinking about all that is good or possible or joyful in your life, instead of what’s wrong.
    This is really good advice. I think I’ll take it.
    Knock,Knock.
    Who’s there?
    Orange.
    Orange who?
    Orange you even gonna try it?
              
    

>    Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of an event that captured the world’s attention and it’s heart. A 3-year-old toddler, Jessica McClure, fell into and remained wedged in an 8 inch hole in the back yard of her home for two and a half days while the world held it’s breath and sent it’s prayers awaiting her rescue. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that only coverage of the Princess of Wales’ death exceeded the worldwide coverage Baby Jessica’s ordeal received.
    As a matter of course, the media tries to engage and captivate us by daily marketing negative or frightening news. It’s not that they don’t also provide some good news…but if I had to guess I’d say the proportion is 90/10, at best.
    In 2001, I had a talk-radio show in Pennsylvania called “Higher Ground” on which I looked at news, current events, and personal stories from the perspective of the highest and most inspiring meaning that could be found in them.  No matter how awful the facts of any story, it is always possible to take from it a message and meaning that can uplift and teach us something important about ourselves and others.  
    One of the reasons I alway hear as to why the coverage is so negative is that it sells. It’s what people want to hear. And while that may have been true at a point in time, it’s no longer true. Just talk with people and they will tell you that they are daily tuning out and turning off negative news and talk shows because they just can’t stand it anymore. The challenge is where else to go? What are the alternatives and how to do we make the shift to seeing the world more positively?
    Some people might say that the worldwide coverage of Diana’s accident and funeral was an example of how the viewing and listening public really do like bad news and morbidity.
    They would be missing the point.
    What both Diana and Baby Jessica had in common is that their “stories” tugged at the human heart. Both were forced to publicly struggle with extraordinary circumstances and both fought to survive those circumstances. It is what each of us goes through daily in our lives, in the microcosm, and something with which each of us must contend.  Diana’s resilience in coming back from rejection and embarrassment time and time again…Baby Jessica’s holding onto life in defiance of the odds…these are stories that touch and inspire us to be the best we can be.
    I still believe in the premise of “Higher Ground.” I believe that until we change the way we look at the world, we will not succeed in actually changing the world. The change must begin with each of us as individuals before it can spread to us as a society. We must see the good…the possibility for growth…in everything that happens to us and around us. We must speak to those observations and share the positive message. We must demand of those who market to us that they too, step up and change the way they present to us…or we will turn off and tune out in far greater numbers.
    We do not vote every 4 years. We vote daily with the remote control, with subscriptions, with cable and internet providers, and we vote each time we purchase a ticket to a movie or buy a magazine.
    Cast your votes wisely. Your life depends on it.
    And thank you Jessica and Diana.
    You inspire me.
   
   
        

>     Turkey is mobilizing to invade northern Iraq to attack the Kurds. The United States House of Representatives, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is about to pass a formerly introduced resolution condemning the ethnic cleansing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire (read as “former Turks”) that occurred hundreds of years ago. Several former U.S. Secretaries of State see the resolution’s passage as untimely, antagonistic to Turkey, the probable reason for the mobilization of Turkish troops on Iraq’s northern border, and an ill portent for the likelihood that the U.S. military will be able to continue to use Turkish air space and passageways to move troops into Iraq.
    On it’s face, and at first glance, I’d have to agree. But we live in challenging times that demand we think beyond the surface of things as well as for ourselves. So, upon further glance, I see a different reality.
    Ethnic cleansing is reprehensible whenever and wherever it occurs. As a Jew, I am gratified that the world, albeit late in coming, acknowledged Hitler’s and the German peoples’ efforts to exterminate certain ethnic and religious groups, mine included. To this day, Holocaust deniers and those who give them a platform, raise my ire. I can imagine that Armenians, who were the object of just such an effort by the ancestors of today’s Turks, have waited long and painfully for acknowledgment of the horror their ancestors experienced.
    I am proud to be part of the nation that is willing to step up and publicly make such an acknowledgment and condemnation. We must never be silent about an attempt to exterminate a people because they are different from us…primarily because they are us. We, the people of the world, are simply variations of a common theme called Humanity. To deny or injure one part of us is to inflict, inevitably, pain upon all parts of us.
    As for the fear-based propaganda being touted that such a resolution will “anger Turkey” and thereby cause it to retaliate against both us and the Kurds…a step they obviously took today by passage of a resolution to invade Northern Iraq…well, let me digress to something I heard today on the radio.  
    Rush Limbaugh was speaking about Hilary Clinton’s recent statement that she thinks a woman in politics needs to have “skin as tough as a rhinoceros” then likened herself to Eleanor Roosevelt in terms of criticism endured. Mr. Limbaugh, in an attempt to mock both Hilary Clinton and Eleanor Roosevelt by reference to the rhino comment, said that “there were likely no two First Ladies in history more frequently cheated on by their husbands” than the two of them. Somehow, Mr. Limbaugh blames the moral failures of Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt on the women they were married to rather than on the egocentric, immature and misguided choices made by the men themselves.
    Which leads me to Turkey and it’s reaction to the pending U.S. resolution. If Turkey chooses to respond with military aggression against the Kurds and closure of it’s air and ground space to U.S. troops, that will be the responsibility of the Turkish government and it’s people, not the fault of the U.S. resolution.
    Remember the old saying, “It’s not what happens to you it’s how you handle it?” Well, that’s it. That’s how it works.
    I think the U.S. Resolution is a good thing but only halfway to being a great thing. It needs to condemn the action against the Armenians and it needs to also forgive the Ottomans for having behaved poorly at the time.
    Acknowledgment + forgiveness. It’s the motto of the State of Israel and the Jewish people towards the Holocaust. “Forgive but never forget.”
    There are a few lessons to be gleaned form this most current dilemma.

    1.  Harm done to one is harm done to all.
    2.  Behavior is personal and responsibility for choice remains with the one doing the choosing.
    3.  Official acknowledgment of reprehensible behavior by a government is a reasonable act.
    4.  Without forgiveness, pain and hatred fester.
    5.  With forgiveness, all parties are liberated to move past the moment.

     Infighting within the U.S. over the resolution, U.S. condemnation of Turkey absent forgiveness, a reactive, aggressive response by the Turks, a cycle of blame, anger and aggression…these are all part of an old paradigm that has repeatedly failed to create a better world, or a better way.
    Let us take this opportunity to take responsibility for how and why we act, and react, as we do and step into the light of a new paradigm where compassion for our diversity and forgiveness for our humanity are the principles that guides us and the foundation upon which we build a better future.
    Oh yes, and one further lesson, Mr. Limbaugh.
    Men who blame women for the poor choices they themselves make need to grow up.

>    When a child is a toddler wanting to do something the adults don’t want him to do, it’s a pretty common behavioral technique to pose a distraction to get the child’s attention off of what he’d rather do.
    This is the historical purpose of war.
    While it is true that individuals can and will have differences that lead to conflict, it’s the conscious organization and management by others of small, unresolved conflicts that has been the foundation for large scale violence and destruction throughout history. The manipulation of the many by the few, for the purpose of distracting the many from pursuit of more life enhancing goals, is how people who crave power obtain and maintain it.
    Allow me to share a personal example of how managing conflict at it’s source preempts the possibility of larger scaled conflict that is  later manipulated by others.
    Last year I went to Santa Fe to visit a friend, Katharine, who lives there. She and I met a few years earlier at a Buddhist lecture in New York City. We felt an instant bond and although living in different cities (I in New Jersey and she in Maryland at the time) we developed a rich friendship based mostly upon telephone communication and 2 or 3 in-person visits. So, when I flew to Santa Fe last year to spend 4 days with her at a resort in Taos, it was new territory for us both. We did well for the first two days, but by the third tensions were rising over our apparent differences and preferences. By the fourth day, we had checked out of the resort and were headed back to Santa Fe, hardly speaking. The drive back was long and silent. When we reached Santa Fe, we went to have lunch at an outdoor cafe where the tension could no longer be contained.
    Both Katharine and I are strong-willed women on lifelong spiritual paths. We each know Who We Are and our direction comes from within. The power of our respective energies fully engaged in mental, verbal and emotional “battle” at that cafe was palpable, and held the potential for much destruction.  Although we were each firmly rooted in our “positions,” we were also acutely aware of the potential for loss…the loss being both the harm we would inflict as well as the end of the friendship.               
    Recognizing the possible outcomes, we each chose to honor the bond between us by allowing the other sufficient space to hold her personal integrity while simultaneously each relinquishing the need to win. 
    Put simply, Love prevailed over Fear.
    Both Katharine and I believe in reincarnation. In since talking about what happened in Santa Fe, we each feel that we had many such encounters in prior lives that ended poorly, with one or both of us harmed. Whether or not you believe in such things, one thing is certain.
     We all establish patterns of behavior personally and collectively that, unless altered, produce the same outcomes over and over.
    Such is the case with aggression born of difference.
    If Katharine and I had not been able to respond to one another as we did, but instead walked away harboring anger or hatred for the other, those feelings, captured within ourselves, would have become a breeding ground for even more anger and hatred.
    When one is holding anger and hatred, it is not possible to be inner-directed. It is only possible to be manipulated by those feelings, and others, who know how to play upon them and fan the flames of destruction.
    War is the natural outgrowth of millions of personal patterns of ineffective conflict resolution enlarged to collective behavior. Those patterns, small and large, are based upon the inability to allow another their rightful place in the world and the mis-perception that so allowing would somehow diminish the allower.
    Nothing could be further from the truth.
    When we use our personal power and creative energies to pursue and explore our own path rather than depleting ourselves by trying to influence or power over the path of another, we are enhanced not diminished. As importantly, we eliminate the possibility that anyone or anything will have the opportunity to play upon those misdirected feelings and distract us from the true purpose of our lives.
    We are not children, although we may act like them at times. Let us stay focused upon changing our own personal patterns. When we are able to do that, there will be no further need for parental or politically induced distractions.
    No further need for war.
  
   

>    In Crandon, Wisconsin a young man, recently out of high school…a boy, really…holding the position of Deputy Police Officer, went on a rampage shooting, killing 6 children ranging in age from 14-18. He ran following the murders and, hours later, was killed by local police when negotiations for his surrender collapsed.
    Is it a gun control issue or a background check issue? I think not.
    We live in a world where violence, in all it’s ugly forms, has become so commonplace and so widely available for viewing, that it’s really an issue of “When are we going to take responsibility for the society we have allowed to grow up around us?”
    I say “allowed” because without our consent, condoning and economic support as consumers of the news, movies, video games, television shows, magazines, books and whatever other means by which violence is marketed, it would not have the standing and be the lucrative income generator it is. But more than that, we would not have become hardened, slowly over time, to the adverse effects of so much exposure to maiming, killing, and destruction.
    We live in a society (and a world) where a famous sports figure can murder his wife in a fit of jealously and, with abandon, continue to seek the spotlight…and receive it. A world where the head of state of a terrorist nation is granted the status of honored guest and invited to speak to our youth at an accredited and acclaimed institution of higher learning. A society where “reality tv” is comprised of death-defying acts of survival and “winners” are the ones left standing after destroying the competition without regard to ethics or consideration for compassion.
    Are we shocked when a teenager then murders 6 of his peers in a display of unbridled rage? Perhaps still somewhat shocked..just not surprised.
    Our lack of surprise should be the real shock. It should shock us out of the self-imposed dream state we live in and shock us into an awareness of how we have institutionalized violence. It should make us ponder the question “If what we give our thoughts, attention and energy to creates our reality, is it a surprise that violence, in the form of terrorism, has found it’s way to us?”  Whether it’s the terror of one boy murdering 6 of his friends or 19 terrorists murdering 3000 of our citizens…it all begs the question, “What is my personal responsibility for the perpetuation of violence?”
    We are not powerless nor are we helpless in this matter. We have choices, every day, around that which we chose to read, watch, speak, and give our attention. Remedies start small and local but eventually  spread large and wide.
    What can you do?
    Remove the word “hate” from speech. Do not watch or purchase violent video games. Do not watch violent television shows. Do not read about violent acts of crime. Do not allow anger to drive your behavior in ways small and large. Do not watch or patronize violent sports. Do not purchase violent toys for children. Do not seek revenge. Look for the ways violence crops up in your immediate life and make efforts to eliminate it.
    Slow down. When we are burdened with more than we can do it’s a common reaction to express the stress we experience with anger. Model a more “civilized” and “natural” lifestyle for the children…for they are watching and learning from us.
    In this highly technological and rapidly paced world in which we find ourselves, we spend too much time interfacing with technology and too little time interfacing with Nature. Go for a walk, daily. Spend more time outdoors. Breath deeply. Hug and be hugged. It’s not some cute, New Age philosophy. We are human, social beings and need the warmth and interaction of other human, social beings. Without it, we lose our way.
    So, perhaps the important questions to come out of the murders in Crandon, Wisconsin are “How isolated did the murderer feel? How much time was spent cultivating his values. How often did he have the love and affection of those close to him? How much time did he spend watching television/video games/internet violence? Were his parents involved and knowledgeable about who he was and what he was struggling with, feeling and doing.”
    Sooner or later, each one of us is going to have to come to grips with the world we have co-created and responsibility for the one we continue to co-create. In order to change that which we do not like and find unacceptable, we are going to have to change ourselves and how we do the things we do in order to co-crate new and more acceptable ways of co-existing.
    Until we take responsibility, and make those changes, there will be more O. J. Simpsons, more Crandons, and more Ahmadinejads.
    That’s how it works.
   
   

>    Our house is sick. Yes, a house can get sick the same way a person can…by being out of balance and holding on to old energy. Sound a bit “out there?” Not really. Allow me to explain.
    We bought our house 6 years ago from two elderly people who had raised their family in it and were going to retire to Florida. We gave them their asking price without any counteroffer. They seemed lovely and honest people. On the disclosure form, they stated that the house never had any water leakage. The morning after settlement, we awakened up to a thunderstorm and an inch of water in the sun room. We contacted the sellers but they refused to address their obvious lie, so we sued them and settled for the cost of building a new room.
    We then hired a contractor to do some major renovations elsewhere in the house and, it turned out, he was a fraud who did half the total job at half the competency level and refused to make good on anything. So we sued him and got a judgment against him for the actual damages plus fraud.
    A few months ago we had flooding in our basement and the damage required gutting the room and re-finishing it. We had an insurance claim for part of the renovation.
    Then, as we were about to tear down and rebuild the leaking sun room, lightening hit it and bent the metal frame and cracked the glass. It’s not repairable so it’s being torn down and rebuilt. The replacement cost is totally covered by our homeowners insurance.
    Finally, (I hope) we refinished the hardwood floors in the house last week and the contractor used a toxic polyurethane to seal the stain and I became ill with labored breathing. We had to move out of the house for 4 days into a hotel and get another contractor to come in an re-sand all the toxic material off and re-do the floors. The first contractor is returning our deposit and paying for our hotel and food expenses.
    See, I told you. Our house is sick.
    Now there are two ways to look at all of this.
    Door number 1 is that we are under some sort of curse, bought what is essentially a “money pit” and are the innocent victims of insurmountable bad luck.
    I prefer door number 2. All matter is composed of energy. Energy can be positive or negative, in or out of balance. When there is too much negativity, the energetic balance must be re-established for optimum performance.
    The people who lived in this house before us were not honest people. At the very least, we know they set out to intentionally lie to us, so I think it’s safe to assume that after 28 years of living in this house, it took on an excess build-up of negative energy. Behind door number 2, that negative energy is being released through the experiences our family has been having since we bought it.
    I’ve “owned” several properties in my life thus far. Philosophically, I have always taken the position that I’m just a steward of the land for the time I live on it…meant to turn it over to the next person, improved and more enriched than when I received it. So I see this series of events, this purging of negativity, as the improvement and enrichment that is my chosen path.
    While it’s all been challenging, to say the least, the Sellers eventually paid what they should have reduced the selling price by, the contractor who did the renovations is about to have a Sheriff’s sale of his property to meet the judgment amount, the insurance company will pay for the new sun room, and the flooring contractor will refund our deposit and pay for the hotel and food expenses. So I think the outcomes speak to my underlying belief. I will leave the property improved and more enriched that when I received it, and while that can be a daunting task, you always get the help you need to do the job your meant to do.
    Oh, and one other point.
    While the house has been clearing itself of old energies, so have the inhabitants. My husband, daughter and I also have a lot of negative energy stored up (as most of us do) and over these 6 years we’ve been clearing that as well.
    I guess that’s what they mean when they say that when you’re house shopping, you always know the one your “meant to buy” the minute you find it.
    This has been the prefect house.