10 Ideas To Contribute To A Better World Today

The idea of people working together for a better world came to me as guidance from my higher nature. You may have had a similar inspiration. My higher nature is basically the same as yours. This more expanded knowing functions beyond our ordinary thought. If you and I realizing and expressing the potential in us we can encourage the full expression of those around us.  Together we can create a better world.

I found myself wanting to encourage everyone who is interested in co-creating a better world together, so I put together 10 ways you can begin today to make a positive difference:

1.         Be mindful of your thoughts and feelings and encourage those close to you to do the same.  Mindfulness is being tuned inward and self-aware which allows you to be true to who you are and genuine in your interactions with others. Mindfulness is a powerful practice because it helps you be fully present where everything that is possible and everyone who matters awaits you.  A good book to read and share with someone you care about and to encourage mindfulness is Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hahn a Zen monk who writes with great heart.

2.         Explore and express your purpose because expressing your purpose will fill your life with meaning and inspire others. You have a purpose that will make the world a better place if you express this purpose. If you can’t figure out what your purpose is today then try spreading love because that is most likely a purpose we all share. One of the great teachers of our time – Dr. Jean Houston is offering a powerful seminar on purpose. 

3.         As I said in the previous paragraph love is a purpose we all share. If you want to have a big impact on the world all you have to do is explore ways to open your heart, be caring and have compassion for self and others. An open heart is such a positive and powerful force in the world.  There is a wonderful meditation practice called, “loving-kindness” and you can learn more about this practice by studying with great teachers like Sharon Salzberg.

4.         Make kindness a daily practice and your life will be more joyous. Imagine if your job was to be kind to everyone you interact with throughout your day. How would your kindness enhance other people’s lives? How would this practice enhance yours? Make a list of people who could use a dose of kindness, reach out to them and spread a little love with your acts of kindness.  Check out this site about random acts of kindness. 

5.         Happiness is a choice, you can choose to be happy or not. If you choose happiness, you can bring your light out into the world and people will welcome it. Happiness comes easily when you focus on what you appreciate, when you are fully present, when you give to others, and when you connect with your higher nature.   Check out the Happiness Project for inspiration.

6.         Expand your consciousness, because with higher consciousness you bring greater light to everything you do.  The more aware and awake you are the more expand is your capacity to make a positive difference in the world.  If you take the time to tune inward you can access the highest collective consciousness of all intelligent life on the planet. Two excellent awakening books worth reading are: Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

7.         Find your own truth because it will set you free and energize your life. Most of the beliefs and ideas you have came from others. Many of these beliefs and ideas need to be questioned because they are not true. The more you explore your own truth the more you live an authentic life. If you live in truth you can be at peace. No one can tell your what is true for you.  It always helps to tune inward, listen and question.  My own book – Awaken: 100 Questions To Expand Your Mind and Open Your Heart is an excellent resource for exploring your own truth.

8.         Live in the now where everything is happening. Much of the time your mind can be worrying about the future or unable to let go of the past. Today in this moment is all there ever is. In the now is the only place where you make things happen. By living in the now you can connect deeply with yourself and those around you. Joy, love, peace, hope and freedom exist only in the now.  The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle is a great resource for being in the now.

9.         Express your creativity, creativity opens you up to your genius. Creativity is very powerful and it comes in many forms including: writing, painting, poetry, movement, healing, parenting, business, humor, organization, loving, design, architecture, peace making, social activism and many other forms of personal expression. When you express your creativity it enriches those around you.  The Artist Way by Julia Cameron has inspired lots of creativity.

10.         Join together with others and have meaningful conversations. Meaningful conversations make you feel alive because you are a social being. Meaningful conversations come about when your heart is open and your feel compassionate for others. An open mind is also helpful for meaningful conversations because then you have the ability to listen and not judge.  After looking for good reference materials, I decided maybe it is time for a group of people to get together and create a meaningful conversations handbook.

There are many more ways to create a better world together than there are ways to create a better world by yourself. If you can find one other person to join you, your power to be effective multiplies. The world is waiting for you and I to step up and get involved. Are you ready to make a difference?  



A Movement Begins – Better World Together

Two days ago I was doing my morning meditation and a flash of insight came to me. This insight tied together so much of what I have been thinking about lately. A few months before making our move to the Oregon Coast a friend of my wife (Thanks Elizabeth) paid for her to have a reading from an astrologer she really believed had something special to offer. The reading seemed very timely and supportive of the major shift my wife Bobbi and I were making with our move and our stepping into the unknown metaphysically, career wise, and financially.  Along with the valuable information she received for herself, the reading also had a message for me.

Since I am open to guidance from the Universe, I paid close attention to the information my wife shared with me after her reading. That person said I was going to start a movement and it was important that I do so.  My initial reaction was that sounded interesting and hoped there was more information and insight coming. For the past 6 months or so I have been tuning inward in search of greater clarity trusting at some level that this message came to me for some specific purpose. 

Wow, that was a long-winded lead into this movement idea wasn’t it? I felt I wanted to lay some groundwork. In the process of creating a movement it seems that laying some groundwork is essential.

The Better World Together movement is about us coming together for the greater good. This movement is what happens when the power of compassionate hearts and expansive minds work together for a better world.

As I have begun to explore the idea of creating a movement it became very clear I couldn’t do this on my own. The only way any movement can happen is if people come together to make it happen. Coming together for the good of all on the planet is the idea.  When people come together with a shared vision or purpose there is a collective energy that gathers which has much more power than the numbers of people involved.

This Better World Together movement is timely because 2012 is a year of change, a year that seems destined to be part of a shift of significance. By destined, I mean it is the expectation of many that the times we live in are ripe for change and some would argue not a minute too soon.

With this movement in mind, I am going to shift my writing and energetic focus to building this movement. There is much to be done and I will need lots of help. More as this all unfolds.

Here are number of the pressing issues of our time that a Better World Together might address: 

Peace together – it is time to end wars on the planet and learn to peacefully co-exist

Prosperity together – we live in an abundant world and everyone should benefit from this

Compassion together – open hearts making a difference to those hungry, homeless, and in need of support and encouragement

Green together – the planet’s soil, air and water are being compromised and we need to change that

Learn together – our education needs to grow, be more creative and expansive. Life long learning and growth is essential also

Lead together – there is a need for the great compassion and expansive and inspired thinking to lead and govern for the good of all

Live together – it is time we figure out how to live with and enjoy each other and explore what we have in common

Hope together – with us sharing hope the future is bright with possibilities

Stand together – there are number of things that need to change and we can be the ones to make that happen

Love together – the time is now for the power of love to guide us all.

This is a movement we all create. I am just planting the seed and have a good size water bucket to help the process. I very much need your ideas. This movement is free of dogma and doctrine, and lives by the collective truth of all who are involved. 

A website needs to be created. I have a new book (Awaken: 100 Questions To Expand Your Mind And Open Your Heart) ready with questions to help everyone who wants to join me in building a better world together. Soon there will be another short book on a basic idea essential to moving to a higher mindset in creating this movement. Most important -  there will be all of your ideas, your insights, your awareness, you inspiration, you intuitive knowing, your creativity, your energy and your dreams. Then together we can do anything and that anything we do will make a positive difference.

Lastly some inspirational words from one of the greatest of change agents Gandhi:

First they ignore you

Then they laugh at you

Then they fight you

Then you win

Winning is about understanding the deeper truths and living fully with an open heart and an expanded mind. This winning makes everyone a winner.

***Much more to come and please let me know your thoughts, ideas, hopes, interests and passionate purposes.



Time For A Revolution Of Love

How can you make this year exceptional for yourself, those you love and the world? I just watched an incredible TED Talk by a truly inspired teacher, John Hunter. If the world could attend his 4^th grade class all us on the planet be so much better off. This got me thinking that we all have special talents and purposes like this wonderful teacher. I want to propose to all who read this post that together we more fully explore and express who we are for a better world in 2012.

I believe greatly in all human beings if they have the true chance to express who they are. Every person has a purpose that can change the world. In 2012 if we listen inward, we will hear the call to make history by expressing our genius and greatness. We can all be part of a real shift that will truly enrich the world. The following are two ideas whose time has come to expand us all and make the world a better place.

Two Steps For A Better World:

1. First Step is to find, heal and fully occupy our heart.
2. Second Step is to start a revolution of love.

Now The How:

First Step - we feel and honor our heart center, we heal whatever wounds exist there, and we live our lives spreading loving-kindness and compassion. The affirmation for this method is “I totally love and accept myself.”

We all have issues from growing up that limit us today. Feelings of not deserving, not being enough, self-doubt etc. come from very early in life (the first few years). As a child we lived in an imperfect world with mixed messages, struggles of figuring out how to be human, and needs not being met. Some of us even endured trauma and abuse that significantly damaged our sense of self.

These past experiences cause us as children to make decisions about life that shape how we see it today.  Most of us have a need for deeper healing. Since tha t is the case it makes sense to do an inner survey of what from the past needs to be healed, reprogrammed and released so we can live more fully in the now. 

Self-healing suggestion: Over the next week or so (longer if needed) take time each day to ask your intuition and/or the child within, what part of you needs healing. Listen and pay close attention because the messages of needed healing may come as a quiet whisper, as a bodily discomfort, as a piercing emotion, as sadness or tears, or in a number of other ways. Please hold those inner messages in your heart with kindness and explore them until you understand what healing needs to take place.

Once you have a sense of the inner needs, go again inward and ask what would bring about the healing? There is great wisdom inside of you that knows what is needed. Trust that knowing. It may be helpful to write about the parts in you needing healing and about your sense of how to do that in a journal or notebook. Writing often brings more clarity. As the methods of healing are presented to you, continue to ask questions until you have a strong sense for what will work the best. Once you know where you want to go begin the process by breathing into the healing. Breathe and explore until you feel balance and harmony has been restored. Your body, heart, mind and spirit will tell you what is needed and guide you back into wholeness.

If after you explore the healing in the ways you sense are right and there still seems to be unfinished aspects of it, then you can seek professional help. The best is to work with professionals who specialize in trauma, energy psychology or other forms of healing focused work. If you experience the healing professional as supportive and compassionate, you are in the right place for positive changes.  Short-term work combined with you inner focus is what is usually called for most often.

Second Method  - is about bringing our loving self out into the world. By loving and accepting ourselves completely, we can share our love with others. The goal is to spread our love, compassion and kindness out into the world in as many ways as we can. Imagine a world in which kindness guides all of our actions, where compassion shows us the way to interact with all those around us, and where love is a powerful source for peace, for cooperation and for hope.

Love is the greatest force for good on the planet. The more we all access the unlimited capacities of our heart the more the world will naturally move toward greater well-being. A compassionate world provides for everyone, promotes our shared hopes and dreams, and encourages of healthiest expression of potential and possibilities.

A world filled with people who love themselves and are able to love and accept others will be a wonderful world.  If we let love do its thing, the revolution of love will profoundly change things in ways that will benefit everyone.

*** Blog Note: I am transitioning in my posting here at my blog to longer posts several times per week rather than shorter ones 5-6 times per week. I want to write about and explore ideas more fully.  I also want to send out emails to let people know when the latest post comes out.  You can signed up for my emails at the Peace Tweets ad to your right. More on changes to come in 2012.