This year again I had trouble thinking of a theme for Blog Blast For Peace again. Not for the lack of ideas, though, but I've been having too many random ideas and then I have to really find that one strong idea that I truly want to voice this year.
Anyway, here's my peace globe this year:
This year I've been having a lot of conversations with many different ladies around the world and there's one thing that keeps on echoing throughout those conversations. It's that when our inner world is chaotic and raging with so many different voices warring one another, it's so hard to go out there and create peace, because you're having all those wars within and all you want to do is protect yourself.
It gets even harder to want to create peace outside when you don't get any validation as to what is happening inside, when you feel alone and when people think you're overreacting. When you're confused and in denial especially...it gets harder to embrace yourself and love yourself as we are. When you can't love yourself even at your darkest moments (or perhaps especially on your darkest moments) and when you can't embrace whatever it is going on inside you, how can you extend that kind of love towards others? And it's especially made worse when other people who don't know or understand your pain keep on saying "the wrong thing" or "trying to fix you" or trying to tell you to "move on" even though all you need is that they just listen to you and empathize with your pain and validate your grief.
So this year I want to call for each of us to be more aware of what's going on inside us...to embrace each part of us, to become our own best friends, to dare to be naked within to reveal whatever it is that we need to face inside us, to accept the things we can't change and to believe that we are worth being loved even during those times when we feel least like it and to try to find our own support system. And I hope that by continually doing so, healing can begin from within and peace can be restored from within one step at a time. And then we can start spreading the peace again all around us, one ripple at a time.
P.S. The image of the two penguins in my Peace Globe is a portrayal of how I'd like us to treat ourselves - as our own best friend.
We communicate every day with other people. Everybody says that communication is very important in any type of relationship, but just how effective is it?
In order to carry on an effective communication, first you've gotta know yourself. If you don't know what you're feeling and why you're feeling something, how can you explain that to another person?
I remember one time when my mother had unbearable pain on the back of her leg again, I decided to ask my brother to take her to a doctor since our car was left in a rented garage. I didn't have the heart to ask my Mom to walk to the rented garage and back home, since she was obviously in GREAT pain. My brother's motorcycle was at home, so I thought she could just get on it and go back home fast.
Since it all happened in a hurry, we forgot to tell my Dad, who was at the time at the side of the house. When my Mom got back home, he yelled, "What are you trying to do? Kill me by giving me a heart attack?"
Yep...he was angry because he was SO worried (and it was my fault too for not telling him about the situation), but he said it in a way that made my Mom felt bad!!! This is not a good example of effective communication.
A good example of effective communication would be like this, "I feel this and this whenever you do such and such..." instead of saying "YOU make me feel such and such..."
So, let's try to be more aware of the words that come out of our mouths. Remember that words can make or break a person...and it can heal or jeopardise a relationship.
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“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”
- Anthony Robbins
“Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.”
- Jim Rohn
