Let There Be Peace

Peace

Yes, we see it every day in the news. It seems to come at us from everywhere.  What is the reason, why is it happening.  How do we stop it.  Well, it starts with the individual, with the family.  We must embrace peace, spirituality, goodness, kindness, and love. 

Our culture has adopted violence as a means to sell a product.  From television, to video games, to music, to movies, to sports we glorify violence. We must take another path for the well being of our children, families, ourselves, and our society. 

The same time the Oregon incident happens,  we see on ESPN a movie advertisement with a graphic commercial detailing the life of gangster Whitey Bulger.  Children see 100's of murders on TV before they are ten years old.  The top selling video games are Grand Theft Auto and Halo, Ultimate Fighter where men and women beat and hurt each other are treated as entertainment, the football games where multiple players are carted off the field with major injuries,  it appeals to our base emotions.

We know that as violence increases in our entertainment and sports, violence increases in our real lives.  Like the Romans gathering to watch the Gladiators duel to the death, or Christians being fed to the lions.  This increased violence leads to a degradation of society and unravelling of civilization. 

We have to remove ourselves and family from the gratuitous ubiquitous violence.  We have become numb and immune to tragedy.  It's everywhere, commonplace in our culture and society, and we have to make a conscious effort to disconnect from it to seek a place of love, light, and peace.  The idea that if we taught our children to pray and meditate for an hour each day that the world would be a more peaceful place. As St. Francis said, make me a channel of your peace, we need to start with ourselves and be more peaceful, understanding, and tolerant of ourselves and others. 

Don't be fooled by the media.  Most people are loving, caring, and peaceful.  We need to choose and focus on uplifting and positive experiences and entertainment. 

And as the saying goes 

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. 

With Love,

Coach K

Tom Kaufmann

Catch Them Doing Something Right!

In our world of 24 hour media coverage and the continual feed of negative news, it is important to turn down the volume or better yet turn it off as we work on achieving our dreams. The continuous stream of low energy stories from the latest crime, corruption, scandal, and economic hardship leaves us gasping for air, throwing our hands up and thinking why bother?

When we find ourselves becoming cynical, critical, and finding fault in ourselves and others it is time to make a shift. Often times it happens slowly and builds up over time, the drip drip drip of negativity in our lives winds up creating a hole that we now find ourselves.

The good news is that we can easily climb out of the hole and get back on the path of positivity, of optimism, of enjoying the good life.  Just like we wouldn't continually eat fast food everyday without suffering the health consequences, we must also do the same for our emotional and spiritual well being. We need to seek out beauty, rekindle friendships, treat ourselves our friends and family with the love, nurturing, and caring they deserve.  For when we give these things away they must be returned to us.

And so it is with our children, spouses, partners, friends, and coworkers in our society with are so quick to find fault, to criticize, to diss, and to put someone else down perhaps with the intention of building up our own shaky egos.  But resist the temptation to judge others and to tell them how wrong they are, most of us know when we make a mistake when we are in the wrong we don't need someone pointing it out. And many times it is just a matter of opinion any way.

Next time replace the criticism with a compliment, even if you have to look hard to find one.  Especially, with our children and families lavish them with praise, congratulations, and "job well dones".  Instead of always pointing out how their rooms are messy and nagging them, congratulate them on excellent grades, helping their sibling, or for simply giving their best effort.  Nothing is more dispiriting than to continually get berated and criticized despite our best efforts.

Yes, there are teaching moments and times when we can agree to disagree but it can be done in a harmonious nurturing way. We all know and remember the people in our lives that taught us valuable lessons but did so without putting us down or criticizing, instead they pointed out our shortcoming showed us a better way and patted us on the back when we did it right the next time.

Next time we find ourselves ready to pounce when someone does something we don't agree with, let it pass and wait for the opportunity to praise and congratulate.

Catch Them Doing Something Right.

With Love,

Tom Kaufmann
Coach K
tkaufmanncoaching.com