Today is International Peace Day and it strikes me in two ways.  One, immensely inspired and wanting to connect with others to celebrate our humanness and the joy of being alive on this planet–while another feeling is that it’s odd we’d have to set aside a day for this–shouldn’t every day be a peace day?

For those of you who may have missed this, September 21, 2009 marks an annual event, a day that the United Nations as well as churches worldwide have agreed to pause and reflect together with individuals in peace.  Even the military is said to have a cease fire period.  This year is our 27th such event.

Wikipedia offers a definition of peace beginning with it’s opposite – “An absence of hostility…”  Certainly peace means different things to different people, it’s laden with cultural meanings, political meanings and religious meanings, but it’s amazing how often it’s perceived in terms of it not being the negative.  Is it because we mostly know it through the mental constructs of duality such as good/bad, right/wrong? 

Being at peace is about the emptiness, the grandeur of simplicity, when you’re calm and connected to yourself and, therefore radiating that connection with others…yet even these descriptions are more “talking about it” and limits your unique experience of it.  The good news is we know it when we’re  there, it doesn’t get confused with other stimulation that focuses us.  No, this is the real deal, when you get that sense of wholeness with all life.  And it doesn’t have to be arrived at only through sitting and meditating–though that’s a great place to practice it and find it too. 

If you are someone who feels caught up in the busyness or complications of life and you don’t feel you have peace or can sustain it, take a look at what’s stopping you.  Commit to make changes today, even small ones, like saying “no” to what is disempowering and “yes” to what allows you to breathe and relate to yourself and others positively, like scheduling regular moments of daily time-out to get yourself centered and back on track. 

Today you have alot of great energy from others backing you, but know too that in the undeclared days of peace, you’re always loved and supported to live peacefully.

Tags: finding peace, international peace day, our humanness, peace, world peace

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Inspirational, Personal and Professional Growth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.