Adding Peace to the World

How we feel radiates around us.

Cultivating a habit of peace by training ourselves to resolve and dissolve our own conflicts is a significant contribution.

Lifting ourselves above despair lessens the heaviness in the atmosphere around us.

Forgiving those who have hurt us lightens the intensity of betrayal.

Forgiving ourselves for hurting others, (we would have done better had we had known how), allows us to listen for good ideas now.

Being generous in our attitude toward strangers gives us less to criticize.

Finding beauty in simple things adds to a feeling of appreciation.

Everyone is dealing with disappointment, frustration, pressure in some way.

Our conscious addition of uplifting qualities penetrates the layers of unhappiness with an infusion of light.

Light spreads and expands through even the smallest openings.

Our work in peace, every breath of it, has a powerful effect.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

The Calmest Moment in Your Day

How to create it.

Pick the first one.

Create a moment of calm around a repeated event in your day.

When that becomes a habit, chose the next repeated event in your day.

Surround yourself with calm every time you do it.

In this way, you can build a life of calm as you move from one moment to the next.

Repeated Events:

Putting the key in the car ignition.

Putting on your shoes.

Folding Laundry.

Another way to practice is to choose one repeated event with each member of your family to infuse with calm.

Wiping a child’s face.

Teeth brushing.

Packing a lunch.

Deliberate calm hugs.

You can start with anything, as long as you give it the designation of being a conscious moment of calm.

You can start over as many times as it takes.

Calm is worth cultivating.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

My Beautiful Thanksgiving Day

My usual beautiful day in the country.

A cloudy, overcast day with winds in the trees.

Later, a soft drizzle of rain.

Sweet potatoes roasted in the wood-fired stove with bacon and cheese.

Reading.

Conversation.

Sitting quiet on the porch.

Early dark because of the clouds.

Very grateful for the beauty and the peace.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Your Own Peace

(Questions to inspire you to take your own walk to awareness and inspiration.)

What inspires you?

What reaches into the deepest part of you?

Can you take the steps, the deep breaths, which take you deeper and deeper, into your own peace?

You have your own style of peace.

Your peace may be in an activity that means something special to you.

You peace may be in woodworking, in sewing, in art, in music.

Your peace may be in reading, in study, in meditation.

Your peace may be in cooking, in hospitality, in community.

What allows you to reach into your peace?

What allows you to practice your peace?

Listen within.

Be so quiet that you can feel the feeling.

You will find yourself taking the steps to be your own peace.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Requirements for Peace

A requirement to live peaceably?

A requirement to live happily?

A requirement to be relaxed and satisfied?

Where is this new Universe I am living in?

Apparently, right here in front of me, because I am in the same exact place.

But I do not feel the same exact way, because I feel happy and relaxed and ecstatic over my work.

As I searched for my purpose during my first years of retirement, I have been led to pursue a new aspect to my profession.

I have acquired the skills to express it.

I have continued my search through spiritual study and meditation.

And I have continued feeling better and better about my work and my purpose in it.

So when I added on some interesting classes, I thought everything was going just fine.

However, I found myself feeling uptight and rushed and I was not able to follow through on the wonderful new steps in my delightful work.

After two weeks, it became apparent that although the classes were as interesting as I had hoped, and very helpful in some ways, that was not where I belonged.

So I dropped them and immediately regained my happiness and relaxation.

I was able to turn myself back to my purposeful work, and I am feeling just great.

I am ready to take the next steps easily while continuing to listen for the guidance I am used to receiving now.

Who knew?

The Universe who loves us and guides us is a very particular Presence.

As we listen to fulfill our purpose, we are required to stick with it.

And in so doing, we really do find our happiness and satisfaction and peace.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Peaceful Balance

I feel good that we have discovered a solution to a project using available resources.

I love that we have come up with a simple way to complete another step with an innovative use of materials.

I love that these steps are all fitting together in a balanced and harmonious way.

Sometimes as we have worked on projects, looking for solutions, they have seemed very far away and out of balance.

Shifting our viewpoint and getting an insight takes away all the struggle and we find ourselves instantly in balance.

There is no struggle to make things fit.

It is the strangest and most wonderful thing.

After working and thinking and figuring, we just have to let it all go.

Then there is room for the solution to appear.

When we push for one thing or another to happen, it is out of balance and there is no way to bring it about.

Then, when we finally let go, without any disappointment, while we are thinking and talking and doing something else, the solution works its way back into our conversation.

We know just what to do and we can do it.

 Voila!

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Bringing New Life

Trusting ourselves brings new life into our experiences.

I am so grateful we took the big step of moving ourselves into a completely different environment.

We love our new location and the new possibilities it offers us.

Instead of dealing with unsolvable problems built into a previous situation, we have found the love and delight of planning a new experience and then taking the unpredictable steps of getting there.

It is good we are getting used to unpredictable steps, because there is a lot more of that as we explore our new location and create the things we love to be around us.

We always feel happy and grateful and delighted with the beauty we have moved ourselves into.

We are finding new venues to explore and new things to learn.

It keeps us alert and provides lots of interest.

We love having a new base.

We love keeping in touch with those aspects that we loved and finding new aspects to bring into our experiences.

We keep our mental alertness, not to protect and guard, but to expand and taste new delights.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.inspiredPractices.com

More Stuff

I am watching the “next generation” go after more stuff.

Our grown adult children all have jobs that make more money than we, their parents, could have ever dreamed of.

As teachers, we understand the importance of being what we teach.

Integrity, honesty, good work ethic, intelligence, perception, accuracy and inspiration.

We see all these qualities in our grown children.

We are astounded at the money they spend on holiday presents for their children,  our grandchildren.

We see them incorporating good manners, attention to vocabulary, and many other fine qualities.

But we see a kind of malaise, a kind of taking it for granted that money is the best true goal.

In Napolean Hill’s writings, he warns against this growing focus, even with his view from several decades ago.

All his writings about wealth incorporate expressing the qualities of a good work ethic and good character.

The things that are becoming even more important to me is to treat each person as though s/he is precious.

The value of a person is their being, not their bank account.

How we express kindness, consideration, compassion, understanding.

How often we can be an uplifting or calming influence in tense situations.

How we can cut through all the self-condemnation or envy or sense of unfairness.

First we have to cut through it for ourselves, then we can gently see a newness and delight permeate our own lives as we live simply and let go of the importance of stuff.

As we focus on the power of goodness and love and happiness, we see it expand in ever-widening circles around us.

We hear good news from others.

We can feel the presence of the Infinite Beneficent Universe infusing the world with this kind of power.

This is creating the conflict and the change.

It is giving us all a different basis from which to live.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Calm About Food

Over the years, I find the way I eat changing significantly.

While I was in college and working, I drove from rehearsal to rehearsal and ran from class to class, cooking and grabbing food on the way.

For so many years, I was in a rush to cook dinner for my family, teach music lessons, clean the house, and organize children’s activities.

Eating was basically about having enough strength to fuel all those actions.

Now, as I am taking the time to learn more about food and to change my cooking and eating habits, I realize the opportunity to eat in a calm manner along with eating better quality food is making quite a difference in my life.

I am no longer “hungry” all the time.

I consciously notice that my home-canned “beans and greens” are very satisfying.  I don’t keep looking for things to snack on.

When I do snack, it is on nuts and fruits or homemade yogurt and homemade fruit preserves.

The organic meats that I cook taste like the food from my childhood in the fifties.

The first time I served bison hot dogs, just for variety and interest, I noticed that my teenage son was full after eating only two of them, instead of needing three or four of the brand name hot dogs I bought in the past.

A recent video comparing the amount of pesticides consumed by a family before and after two weeks of eating organic food alerts us to the need to be very caring and purposeful about what we eat.

Now, I am learning how to grow some of my own food in a container garden (no weeds) in my backyard.

It has been a case of learning one thing at a time and then creating the habit of doing that thing, and then learning the next thing to do about food.

Gradually, more of my budget has been taken over by the higher quality of food, but I am calmer.  

Now that I am doing so much canning, my budget is evening out, and so is my time.

Body and budget, and therefore mind and emotions are calmer, too.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Peace Within, Peace Without

No matter what is going on, it is our job and privilege to establish peace within.

Indeed, that is the only place we will ever see it.

We must reveal it in ourselves from within, in order for it to take place in the visible world we live in.

Long term or short term we must seek out our peace, over and over again.

It is our true nature.

It is the true nature of our planet and its systems.

And it will become the true nature of human relationships once we realize that all we desire comes from within.

I have had the privilege of learning to establish peace within myself when provoked by very strong and disturbing images.

Some have been from the past, some from the present, some over worry for the future.

I was glad to learn how to establish peace from within during any and all of those circumstances.

Since the disturbances were so uncomfortable, I was forced to recover my peace consistently.

Finally, it has paid off.

I got to the point where it didn’t matter to me what my fears were.

I simply had to find something else to think about.

I had to establish my peace and then I would be able to engage myself in the kind of world I prefer to live in.

Over and over again, persistent issues would interrupt me.

I would go within, whether by reading some inspirational literature, saying a “mantra”, or just listening deeply to messages from my Infinite Source within.

Then my happy and productive day revealed itself to me day by day and now one more long term issue has proven itself resolved.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Changing Triggers

It is possible to build in new triggers to create positive responses to events.

Joe Dispenza explains in his book “Evolve Your Brain” how to do this.

It is a conscious, repetitive process.

I am not doing this at anywhere close to a hundred percent level, but I am able to do it to some extent.

Discovering that it is possible and beginning to practice it is making a significant difference in my life.

When I find myself responding in the old patterns, I can stop and look at what is happening.

Then I can design what I prefer to happen instead.

I can give myself a whole new story.

I can appreciate where I am at this point in my life.

I can be grateful for the tools and techniques I have learned to address that issue.

I can look around and see the evidence of my new approach.

It is so totally worth making the effort to practice until the new patterns become the automatic default.

I learned how to train my muscles to play a musical instrument with all the repetition that required, so I know I can reset my mental “muscles” as well.

Lots and lots of conscious repetition.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Moving to a Peaceful Setting

It is making such a difference to be living in a peaceful setting.

It would not be everyone’s goal to move to the country, using what skills you have to finish the inside of a cabin, collect rainwater, read by flashlight, and start a garden from scratch.

But, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

In fact, I like this world much better.

Today, I was able to take my first “garden” shower.  It has warmed up enough that the camping shower, plus a quart of heated water was very pleasant outdoors.

We still have our indoor camping shower, which we mix with cold and hot water to the right temperature, but it was nice to be able to bathe surrounded by Nature.

We have been walking back and forth to our covered deck where I have set up my gardening supplies.

I have over sixty plants from two plant sales, and about half of them are in containers now, ready to grow in earnest.

I used rainwater which I collected in five-galling buckets from the roof of the covered deck.

My soil mix is in thirds - coir (coconut fiber), vermiculite #3, and compost.  A dozen five-gallon buckets now hold various herbs, squash, kale and peppers.

Another two dozen of a different commercial organic soil mix will hold peppers, tomatoes and more herbs.

The same soil mix will be in a raised garden bed for more veggies and flowers.

I will add various supplemental microbial stimulants to enrich the soil.

And then, we will see what happens.

We are still preparing the garden fence, as we are next to a wildlife conservation area in addition to our own wildlife inhabitants. 

We listen to jazz on the radio as we pick up our raw milk from a local dairy.

We watch the fireflies come out at night.

Tonight, it is cloudy, so we will expect some more rain to help our garden grow.

It is a different, lush setting for two city folks, who are rapidly learning about country living.

Sharing the peace…

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Leaving the Storm

I am learning to leave the storm behind, rather than just take relief from it.

Every time I reestablish my peace, it is more real to me.

Even though I experience interruptions to my peace, the deeper truth is becoming more and more convincing to me.

The peace is always there.

I am learning to come back to it, because it is always there.

The extremes which took me away are becoming less and less powerful as I find I can return to peace more and more.

I am also learning not to complain about the negative things, but to spend all my effort on returning myself to peace.

I am learning to leave the storm completely behind.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Keeping My Calm

I had a wonderful day and was walking around our land with my husband.  We found a large dump area that our neighbor in front of part of our land has been building.  Eew!  Sheet metal, dirt, and everything else!

What to do?

We started reviewing our property bounds and will certainly order a current survey.

But what about the bad  feelings that came along with the discovery?

After exploring several options, I have decided on this point of view:

Divine peace is always one hundred percent in effect.

I will keep drawing on it.

It never lessens.

It is unconditional.

It is in operation no matter what is going on in anyone’s life.

We all have access to it all the time.

I am sure we will find out what we need to know about he property line, and if there is no violation, once the season fills in the leaves on the trees, it will not be in view.

But the main thing for me, is maintaining my peace no matter what happens since I can draw on the Infinite Divine Peace which is always there, all the time, no matter what else is going on.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Peace and Happiness

I am so grateful for the sense of peace and happiness that I am feeling.

It is proof to me that despite the confusion of the news stories and sadness of many of our Congressional leaders, there is more good in the world than bad.

I hear discussions about the important things, and I see that so many of them are being taken care of.

I know that despite the problems, there are already solutions.

I know that despite the fact that many of the available solutions are being ignored, at some point many of them will be enacted, and many new ones will appear.

I know that we are all being given the opportunity to reevaluate what is important in our lives, always a valuable and rich process.

I know that as I make positive changes in my life, I am being led to better and better solutions.

Our lives form a microcosm of all of the lives all over the world.

We are each reaching out for solutions, and despite the fact that many of them appear to be in the hands of less than noble people, our individual answers can still come to us in the most effective ways.

I am listening within and I am feeling peace and happiness.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Moving Peacefully to the Next Step

Sometimes the idea is so big, we really can’t see all of it at once.

We work on what we envision, and then wait for the next step.

And the next, and the next.

I am learning to move peacefully into the next steps, because I now know I cannot see the whole of this idea that I am embarked on.

It really is a journey; it has expanded into much more than a path.

But still, I take each next step.

It is leading me into a much larger world.

As I continue, I find I am loosing my anxiety and gaining many other useful skills.

I am so incredibly grateful to be learning how to live peacefully.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Criticism and Acceptance

I have been looking for a replacement for criticism, and I think I have found it:  Appreciation.

I am thinking of it in terms of building up a paper mache sculpture.

Each strip of newspaper soaked with glue becomes a part of the sculpture.

I can shape it as I go.

It creates smooth layers to build up each feature, and lets me adjust the finer points where I need to.

By contrast, criticism hacks at what I am creating.

It is harsh and unrefined.

The new path I am building for myself is based on self-appreciation and appreciation of others every time I see someone or think about someone.

I am no longer interested in my opinion unless it is appreciative of something about the person.

I reject the years I spent being harshly criticized, and thank the Universe for Its resources in helping me escape to a better place through creativity and engagement in other projects.

Now, I find that the old habit of criticism has run its course.

I am glad to discover another way to live with increasing happiness and appreciation.

I look forward to all those little strips of appreciation I can add to my life-sculpture all along my new path.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Deeper Rhythms

Underneath the daily rhythms of life, there are larger, more powerful rhythms which impel us forward.

As a society, we are beginning to see what happens when the daily rhythms are pushed forward by the deeper rhythms.

Our day-to-day lives are impacted by local and national policy decisions.

Our larger rhythms have to do with the planet, and even beyond that, the Universe.

The larger rhythms of caring for everyone with the planet’s resources are impelled by the Universe’s care for us all.

We are each of us, precious.

The rain falls and the wind blows over the whole planet.

Things grow over the whole planet.

Wherever people live, they can choose to take care of each other.

When we get below all the noise, the policies, and even cultural norms and personal preferences, we feel the deepest rhythms.

This is where our true and unlimited resources lie.

This is where we find ourselves in synchronization with the largest designs of the Universe.

We get beyond just taking care of ourselves, and we act to see everyone live well.

When we consciously realize this, we are moved by a different rhythm.

We feel ourselves directed in a different way, with different motives, with an unstoppable power.

The conflict between the personal, expressed as nationalism, and then corporatism, is giving way to the largest rhythm of all.

It helps if we have the vocabulary to listen for it.

But even if we don’t, we will acquire it, because this is what is impelling a new kind of consciousness.

Soon we will give way to living as though all of us are precious.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Restfulness

I love resting in my new life.

I am doing the things I enjoy.

I am learning new skills.

I am eating better through cooking better.

I can share my skills with others and have them appreciated.

This is all progress for me.

Letting go of the anxiety created by being so far from what I truly am, and finding my home and purpose and living differently is great.

I find myself surrounded by those of like mind.

We share ideals and have many different approaches to what we are doing through our different lives.

It is refreshing and peace-giving.

Even with all the work there is to be done to carry out our ideas, I find it restful to be in the presence of people who love to serve and uplift.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com