I feel constantly grateful for the abundance in living, discovered with each step on the way and rejoice at every kind of human endeavor.

These are my commitments to embrace abundance in living.  This day I offer a prayer of thankfulness to God for life, for love, for all people in the world and for the ever-growing abundance manifested each moment.  Choosing to perceive us all as one, I serve my fellow human beings while fulfilling my unique purpose through the expression of my personality and talents.  Today, a complete rebirth from new realization in situations, circumstances and events brightens my path.  I rejoice in deeper inner communion with God.  In the presence of divine bounty, I communicate to everyone my appreciation for the abundant gifts in our hands.

Would you like to share your own commitments with me?

I really like Diane Dreher’s book, “The Tao of Inner Peace” where she shares her insights and understanding for an expansion of consciousness and oneness.  Here are her practical suggestions for a meditation in wholeness and a vision that leads to positive action.  I certainly recommend her beautiful book.

• Find a quiet place, close your eyes, relax, and take three deep breaths.
• Now you may ask yourself: is there something I can do to affirm greater health and wholeness in my world?
• What can I do to promote greater unity?
• How can I promote greater cooperation and understanding?  Can I communicate more clearly?
• When you come up with your opportunity for positive action, see yourself doing what you choose to do.  See the action completed.  Feel the healing energies and experience a greater vision of the one.
• Now open your eyes and commit yourself to this personal action.

My friend Janine Fafard, who lives in Costa Rica, has shared with me a lovely thought known to come from the Buddha as a prayer of loving kindness, and I wish to share it with you today as we continue exploring inner peace.

“May I be in peace.

May my heart remain open.

May I awaken to the light which is my true nature.

May I be healed.

May I be a source of healing for all beings.”

In response to the Peace Pilgrim beatitude, “Blessed are they who see the change we call death as a liberation from the limitations of this earth-life, for they shall rejoice with their loved ones who make the glorious transition”, someone recently commented, “I have a friend who is 91 years old and she knows her time on this earth is coming to an end.  She doesn’t have any faith.  I’ve been trying to help her, but I can’t seem to get through to her.  I guess I’ll just have to keep on trying.  I was thinking about getting her a copy of your book.  p.s.— She is my biggest challenge.”

I understand my correspondent’s feelings of compassion and emotions in her desire to be of help to her dear friend who seems to be struggling in her search for inner peace as she approaches death.  Preparing for our transition to a freer life is a life-long process, very individual by nature as it is based on the complexity of all our life experiences and doors opened throughout time to grasp spiritual realities as we strive toward wholeness and a sense of unity with the all.  Sometimes people have a profound experience of faith just before making their transition and this seems to be a meaningful event to facilitate their passing into a freer life with a sense of completeness.

We do our best in our efforts to facilitate other people’s processes.  The decision ultimately lay in their hands.

Challenges are great opportunities to expand understanding and serve others.

Charito Calvachi-Mateyko, as we join our efforts in exploring inner peace, asked me in a radio interview transmitted on ‘Radio Centro’; WLCH, 91.3 FM in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States, why is it important to give love to the world?

I would love to share with you some of my comments and would love to hear yours.

Peace Pilgrim, who walked more than 25,000 miles for peace, sharing her core values for an expansion of consciousness, said, “Love is the greatest force on earth.  Love conquers all.”  She was referring to the great potential each of us has to manage conflictive situations with love.  Using the transformative power that love offers.

This is a good opportunity to comment in detail of an incident that happened to our traveling friend and its message of peace.  She once was struck by an upset adolescent, with whom she had begun to walk.  He had wanted to go on the trip, but was afraid of breaking a leg and being left behind.  Everyone was afraid to be with him as he was an enormous boy, the size of a football player, and was well known for being violent occasionally.  On one occasion he struck his mother so hard, she had to spend several weeks in hospital.  All feared him; but Peace Pilgrim offered to walk with him.

As they reached the top of the first hill, everything was going well.  But soon a storm appeared. The boy was terrified because the storm was so close by.  He reacted, suddenly approached Peace Pilgrim and hit her.  She didn’t run although perhaps she might have, as the young man carried a heavy backpack.  Even though he was striking her, Peace Pilgrim could feel only the deepest compassion for this young man who was so ill psychologically as to strike a defenseless, and older, woman.  Peace Pilgrim countered his rage with love even while he was beating her … and with this he stopped.

He said to her, “You didn’t hit me back!  Mother always hits me back.”  In spite of his upheaval, Peace Pilgrim’s reaction elicited kindness in the boy. He felt remorse and condemned his own actions.

In summary, the young man stopped being violent and today is a useful person in the world.

Plato described love as the union of two souls with the same divinity.  Jesus Christ said: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’  Taoist Chuang-Tzu taught that through love we experience the inherent connections between ourselves and others, seeing the creation as one.  Marc Edmund Jones commented that the testimony of the world is towards unity.  Buddha saw that understanding and love are one.

In a message of renewed inner peace and serenity, it is a privilege to post my friend Jonas Mather’s Poem as he shares his inner light with the readers of my blog this day, also published on his book, “Shards”.

Be Still

Flexible space, twisting, turning

In on itself, convoluting,

Like the mind that conceives it.

Like time its reality is illusive,

Existence doubtful, except

As created by self.

What’s real?

I am.

Jack Mather

To close my blogs about my strategy in managing life challenges, today I would like to talk about some final key elements in my process, which became instrumental in attaining a sense of transcendence and completeness.  (For antecedents on this topic please see my previous blogs, Focus is Manifestation – Parts I to IV.)

I would love to hear your comments as you see fit.

In a conversation with a friend, he emphasized that finding the “right moment” when dealing with disease or challenging circumstances is of supreme importance for the unfoldment of health.  In my own healing work when I first experienced severe tinnitus I knew that moment had come when I moved from the phase of uncertainty to the stage of rebuilding my life.  I still remember the day when the great insight came to me…  I realized I had to live… pure and simple… it was a supreme need to live that took me into a firm determination and shift from an approach of “live with it” or “cope” to manage and transcend tinnitus in a renewed spirit of wellness and completeness.  Yes, I was going to be able to do so if I could only decide… truly from the depths of my being… that I could do it.

Such initial one moment of supreme importance was strengthened by the realization that pain is for a purpose.

Marc Edmund Jones, founder of the Sabian Assembly, spoke of these things and here are some of his insights:

• Experience is rehearsal.  Experience is under continuous reconstruction.
• Every limitation in life is an opportunity for the clarification of one’s direction in a wider perspective, never a set-back or an obstacle.
• The person with many troubles is alive and their contribution may possibly be greater than that of someone with high success in smooth living.
• Suffering is pain with a purpose.  When suffering, a person may enter into deeper realms of living and lift life to higher levels of experience and understanding.

Finally, here are a few additional comments to round out Focus is Manifestation, an approach to meaningful living, also supported by insights of another dear friend who made her transition to spirit four years ago.

1. Remember, you receive from it what you put into it.
2. Ask, what can I do with this? — What is it good for?
3. Create! Ask, how can I make this a creative challenge rather than an overwhelming obstacle?
4. Appreciation is a key.
5. You make your reality via the significance you give to your experience.
6. Act “as if.”
7. Be yourself — manifest your full potential!

On this occasion, I would like to share with you some of the keys I have developed that have worked for me in managing life challenges, during the third phase when we experience a deep need to move ahead as a series of strategies unfold to create a renewed identity, new goals and a fresh sense of mission in intentional living, and to some extent a new future.  (For antecedents on this topic please see previous blogs, Focus is Manifestation – Parts I, II and III)

Stage III.  Rebuilding

• Visualize success.
• Choose new pattern before a routine establishes itself.
• Keep open communication with meaningful people about feelings, plans.
• Set new priorities.
• Think creatively – brainstorm.
• Establish renewed goals.
• List accomplishments.
• Use time effectively.
• Continue assessing interests.
• Remember it is a process – it takes time for results.
• Be aware of new stress factors.
• Be optimistic – there is always hope.
• List needed adjustments.
• Communicate needs.
• Notice the difference – and celebrate progress.

Focus is Manifestation – that is, how you think and act is what will be – is my approach to life.  As a result, tinnitus does not control my life anymore, and I now have a great sense of wellness and renewed health.  I know that whatever I experience is a privilege, an opportunity to understand life better, to know who I am and where I’m heading — an opportunity for transcendence.

Final comments on this topic in my next blog.

Now I would like to focus on some of the keys I have developed that have worked for me in managing life challenges, during the second phase when we go through a stage of chaos and confusion, with high emotional stress, without knowing what to do next…  (For antecedents on this topic please see my previous blogs, Focus is Manifestation – Parts I & II)

Stage II.  Uncertainty

• Strengthen meaningful relationships.
• Do small things well.
• Test talents in new areas.
• Learn at each new step.
• Read.
• Listen to favorite music.
• List strengths.
• Celebrate small achievements.
• Revisit old goals.
• Keep moving!
• Expand a hobby.
• Initiate a daily period for reflection/meditation.
• Don’t act just for the sake of action.
• Develop new ideas.
• Transform ideas into action.
• Relax and think in an effort to developing poise.
• Realize plans can change as situation changes.
• See strategies to manage new circumstances as sources of strength.

More on this topic in my next blog.

Today I would like to share with you some of the keys I have developed that have worked for me in managing life challenges, during the first phase when we go through rejection and denial, refusing to accept that things have changed and loosing a sense of serenity and inner poise.  (For antecedents on this topic please see my previous blog, Focus is Manifestation – Part I)

Stage I.  Confronting New Reality

• Get involved in a low risk, high reward commitment.
• Reach out for ideas and support.
• Give it time.
• Stay in touch with own thoughts and feelings.
• Exercise.
• Implement practical measures and test how they work.
• Seek out information.
• Focus forward rather than backward.
• Stay in contact with family and friends.
• Re-examine daily activities and see how they fit into new circumstances.

More on this topic in my next blog.