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