Peace in the shadow of Pain

It was cold, dark, windy and wet when they arrived, 3am, emergency placement, siblings.

The bruising on the youngest child's face tearing me apart, silently.

The anger on the oldest child's face, seeping through every pore, tearing me apart, silently.

The blank look, vacant eyes of one of them, tearing me apart, silently.

Fear ripping through me, every part of me; what would tomorrow bring?How would I explain this to my other children, 4 of them, when we had agreed to take a break for awhile?What would I tell my clients scheduled to see me tomorrow, and the next day, and the next?How could i possibly meet all of these needs and stay sane?

6am, the sun was coming up in Denver, the youngest had not been able to fall asleep; so neither had I. But it was time to get the rest of the family up and going. Fear settles in, again, tearing me apart silently. She cries, softly, has nothing familiar to cling to, nothing had come with her.

She would not let me hold her, comfort her, get close to her. She too, has marks that I see now~ from her? or someone else? the thoughts tearing me apart, silently.

Pain and Pain and Pain and more pain.

The 3 month old sibling who was transported to a hospital instead of to foster care, has suffered multiple broken bones. they witnessed some of it, auditorily, or visually doesn't matter-that too is tearing me apart, silently. I remember the small, fragile body of my babies at 3 months-oh the pain of this.

But, ..... then, .......in the midst of this dark night of the soul, from within, comes comfort.
Comes relief, comes freedom.

I remember my mantra, taught to me by a wise soul, for the times when the pain is overwhelming and my human brain tries to convince me that I can not handle it, that I can not deal with the reality of this much pain.

"I am yours, they are yours, protect us all, bring peace. I share this pain with thee"

I repeat it over and over, offering up or out or somewhere, the pain that I can not possibly carry alone.

And it dissipates slowly, I begin to breathe and it decreases, I find my mind, my body and my spirit. I find peace again, internally.

I remember the soothing, safe, compassionate, caring, quiet, nice, gentle and understanding part of me as I slide back into relationship with some very scared childern; fully expecting some very challenging days ahead and knowing that if I am who I am always, I can do this.

I can face any challenge in this life, those I bring to me, and those that just appear, from a place of love, understanding and remaining true to who I am.

Their fear will not become my fear. Their anger will not become my anger. Their darkness will not become my darkness.

I will remain the soothing, safe, compassionate, caring, quiet, nice, gentle and understanding person that I know myself to be; regardless of what life brings.

And in that truth, I am set free. I find peace even in the shadow of pain.

Peace,
Juli
www.coaching-forlife.com

The emerging science of happiness...

A very wealthy client of mine, with more possessions than most of us have together, came to me again yesterday, complaining of his ongoing unhappiness, emptiness, lack of connection to others. all his words, not mine....

Seems the more we 'get' in this society, the emptier we somehow feel. Know what I mean?

Happiness is not just being in a good mood, or experiencing joy once in awhile.

Happiness is not a mood. Happiness is not an emotion.

Mood is biochemical...for more see www.coaching-forlife.com

Emotions come and go frequently changing.

True happiness comes when you open yourself to the optimistic possibility that in every moment of life, good or bad, hard or easy, scary or safe, there is something to learn, a direction to grow in, and an exciting possibility of something to come.

True happiness, peace and life come in living the life that is offered to you everyday, instead of fighting what life provides.

If you look around you will find more to be happy with, than to fight with.

Unless of course, you simply prefer to fight...

a list of some components of happiness:
Love
Optimism
Courage
Freedom
Health
Security
Spirituality
Altruism
Servant attitude
Humor
Purpose
Appreciation

Think of these, meditate and pray on these, work toward these.

Work toward happiness, put all of your energy, thoughts and actions toward happiness. Spend not one more minute of your life, unhappy. Its your life after all, you choose....

Peace,
Juli
www.coaching-forlife.com
A 3 day retreat to peace and happiness...
Simply Healing Retreats coming this summer, sign up at
www.coaching-forlife.com for our monthly ezine and further information

Peace Challenge: The final countdown!

this is our last posting by blog in the PEACE Challenge 2010.

You can continue to follow our encouraging work toward peace for all families, individuals and organizations by becoming a fan of our face book page at www.coaching-forlife.com and just click on Face Book right on the home page!!! Please, forward this, spread peace, do what is good for you and our world~

Are you catching the symptoms of inner peace?

Are you comfortable in your own skin?

Is the one, true voice in you calm?

Are you committed to living in love, rather than fear?

Are you ready to let go of the need for outcomes, and live fully in the journey?

Can you move into allowing life to happen instead of forcing it to happen?

Are you honest with your personal feelings?

Are you ready to quit blaming anyone else for anything and get on with your life?

Can you move to curiosity instead of judgment of differences?

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This weekend, Valentine's Day Weekend, The weekend of Love, 2010,

Let us all

Be Fully Present for this Present Moment and in it seek only Peace

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I am off for the long weekend here in beautiful, snowy, white Colorado with my family to bring peace to our lives, to our spirits, to our family. I pray that you will make the time to do the same.

Turn off the screens for awhile, get face to face, listen well, love deep, say what you would regret not saying if time had run out.....

Inner peace is the road to world peace, I pray you catch it~

Peace,

Juli

www.coaching-forlife.com

motivational speaker/organizational consultant/executive and life coach

sign up here www.coaching-forlife.com for our periodic newsletters and coming information on our Simply Healing Retreats for women, couples and families. I will be waiting to hear from you~

PEACE Challenge: 5 days to go!

How are you feeling?

Are you actually working through the challenges, or are you still just going through the motions of life?

Some days are hard, be gentle with yourself, and know that Peace is just waiting for you to join in. go back and review the challenges from January 6 forward~

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February 10, 2010

If you are rushing around, you can not, simply can not find peace.

Today, slow down in all you do, no rushing. Speak slowly, walk slowly, move slowly and with intention..... and watch Peace creep in.

Peace,

Juli

www.coaching-forlife.com

motivational speaker/organizational consultant/executive and life coach

Peace Challenge: 6 Days to go

Welcome Back to the Peace Challenge

I encourage you to go back and review each days encouraging message toward inner peace beginning January 6 2010, through Valentines Day 2010

February 9, 2010

The world can not find peace until each of us has enough peace to create a world of peace

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You can not give away that which you do not have to give.

Peace comes from within, not from someone or something else.

You don't have much time. You are mortal. Will you end this week in peace~

If you need some support, if it doesn't make sense, if you just can't seem to find it, please, reach out.

Find a coach, mentor, pastor, priest or confidant who will not allow you to wallow in your pain, but will share the pain and encourage you always toward the peace that is waiting for you, and always has been.

Peace,

Juli

www.coaching-forlife.com

motivational speaker/organizational consultant/executive and life coach

Peace Challenge: The last 7 days

Welcome Back to the Peace Challenge 2010

After this week, we will continue to post encouraging suggestions toward increased Peace on our face book page under coaching for LIFE. Please, forward this to anyone you know who is also in search of peace, and consider joining us on Face Book too!

visit me at www.coaching-forlife.com and click on the link to face book on our home page

February 8, 2010

Compassion before competition in all you do today

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How often do you formulate your response before the other person is even done speaking?
How often are you convinced that you are right?
How often do you work to truly understand anothers position before working to sway them toward yours?

Today as you work toward Peace, think about this? Do you really want more peace? Are you sure? Does all of you want more peace or only parts of you? Is there a part of you that is so competitive that it pulls you into fighting, instead of understanding?

Are you willing to compromise and let go some of the old parts of you that no longer serve you well in order to move toward emotional regulation and peace?

I believe that YOU are or you wouldn't be here today, with us.

So today, in all you do, consider your compassion for others before you compete for anything with anyone at anytime.

You will win through compassion every time~

Peace,
Juli
www.coaching-forlife.com
motivational speaker/organizational consultant/executive and life coach

PEACE Challenge: Day 30

Welcome Back to the Peace Challenge!

make sure that you forward this to your team at work, your family and friends.

Hold each other and yourself accountable for the peace in your life.

Do not expect anyone else to do this for you.

This is your life, quit giving it away!

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For 40 days, from January 6-Valentine's Day 2010

The Peace Challenge

Today, February 5, 2010

we strive for EVEN MORE and push ourselves even a bit FURTHER toward a world of PEACE

Love somebody today as you long to be loved

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Peaceful loving sometimes requires that we teach that which we long for, by providing it first.

We each receive and offer love from our own paradigms of what love means to and for us. Because we have each received love and learned to give love in diverse manners, we may have to teach those whom we love now, how to love us back, by showing them~

In remaining open to our own deep needs and validating those needs through sharing them with others, we take responsibility for ourselves in a profound new way.

Others may or may not choose to remain in relationship to you and learn to love you as you need, but whether they stay or go no longer dictates your right to be loved; first by self and then by others.

The transformative surrender required in this level of giving and receiving love propels us into the world far above thought, yet spiritually and emotionally sound.

Think about one specific way that you long to be loved. Write it down. Now go out and provide to your loved one~it will soon come back.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

juli

www.coaching-forlife.com

motivational speaker, organizational consulting, executive and life coaching

PEACE Challenge: Day 29

Welcome Back to the Peace Challenge!

Be sure to go back and review each day's work beginning January 6 thru Valentine's Day

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February 4, 2010

(today we strive for more, we push ourselves a bit further, we extend into a world of peace)

In the most challenging time during you day today, extend grace to all others

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We are all doing the very best that we can do in any given moment. However, when those moments become stressed, we become confused and at times disoriented. In our own times of stress we may act in ways that we would not typically act, yes?

We do what we do from all that we have learned about the world up until that moment in time. We can only do from what we have learned. None of us has reached the point at which we no longer need to learn......not even you~

Many of us have learned to protect ourselves, our emotions, our bodies, our spirits and out of that may unintentionally hurt others, from a place of fear. If we have been hurt, we often become the one pushing others away to 'protect' ourselves from being hurt yet again-the cycle of ongoing hurt is now perpetuated yet we are not aware of our part in it.

Everyone is doing the best they can in any given moment. Today is the day to forgive and offer grace to everyone who acts in ways that upset you, anger you, frustrate you, push you to your 'window of tolerance.'

Today, find that quiet place of peace inside, and extend it out.

Feel your wise, intelligent and loving body/mind/spirit flowing with ease through life.

Choose Peace, Choose Grace, Choose to BE who you know you can truly be.

(an excerpt from my book coming out this Spring, Peace in a Broken World)

Peace,

Juli

www.coaching-forlife.com

motivational trainer/organizational consulting/life coach/relationship expert

PEACE Challenge: Day 28

Welcome Back to the Peace Challenge 2010

For 40 days, beginning January 6 and ending on Valentine's Day, the day of love, we are working collectively to bring nothing but peace to life~

I encourage you to go back and read each daily post beginning Jan. 6 and to print them out, forward them at work, to your family and friends and to join us in Bringing Peace to 2010

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February 3, 2010

Day 28

No fighting, with yourself .....or others

In a coaching session yesterday, a newer client said to me, "I feel so stuck, I am in a rut and I know it but have absolutely no idea which way to turn, what to do, how to be or how to really change. I am stuck...."

I took a very deep couple of breaths (we had been through this same dialogue several times already) and from somewhere deep within, I replied, "I encourage you to just stop fighting and give it all up."

We were both silent, completely silent for a moment or two at which point I gently reminded her to simply breathe....and the flood gates opened. And I mean OPENED. The fight finally came out, poured out in tears and sobs and more tears for many minutes. No words, just a full, huge release of what she had been fighting with for years.

When I encourage clients to give it up and stop fighting, I am in no way implying defeat, but am instead implying victory. Fighting will never produce a real winner, for even the 'winner' must live with whatever was done to the other in order to 'win.' Fighting off what makes you feel bad, makes you feel bad, which induces the fight which makes you feel bad.....

You and I and everyone, every client (nobody is beyond the hope of healing, nobody) has an incredible source INSIDE of us, that is wise, intelligent and spirited. This source inside of us is a power if you will, a drive, a force and is infinite in spirit.

This source is waiting for you to call on it, to give in to divine surrender, to know that once you can get quiet enough to listen to what you know is right and true and just, and to follow that, you will find peace. This source is IN you, it is not anywhere outside of you. You have been made to manifest the Glory of God in all you do, and the power to do so was gifted to you at conception.

You just have to be quiet enough, removed enough from the noise of your day, to hear it and to listen and to follow.

Even in the times when we alone may not have the energy or wisdom to navigate a challenging time, situation or relationship, there is something inside of us that does.

Only in quieting the mind, calming the body and lighting the spirit can we experience the divine surrender that will offer the guidance we long for, instead of reacting to the conditions outside of us that keep us 'stuck' and overwhelmed.

Today, no more fighting; seek this source, merge with in in body/mind/spirit and feel peace infiltrate as you never have.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Juli

www.coaching-forlife.com

PEACE Challenge: Day 27

Welcome back to the Peace Challenge

I apologize for the time our server was down, almost a week now, and am so relieved to be back. You can still follow us on face book, coaching for life, and here too!

Thank you for joining this growing network of individuals working to create more peace in our world!

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Day 27!!(we are working for 40 days to increase peace, ending on valentines day 2010)

Today:

Focus on your need for approval from others;

what do you say and do; how do you dress; speak; answer questions? Are you the 'yes' guy?

Is somebody else's approval of you more important to you, than your own, quiet approval of self?

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If we could regain the time in life that we have spent anxiously worrying about what others think I dare say that many of us would live years longer. Instead of worrying about what the other parents think of me with my children(all children, biological, foster, adopted, friends) I would be emotionally attuned to the need of my child in that moment, maintaining relationship and having been true to myself as a parent, first. Instead of working myself to death and leaving my family too many hours in a day for a measily paycheck, I would find my passion in life, work in that and be rewarded many times over!

Your quiet, true approval of self will bring real peace, not a temporary peace, but real peace that is unshakable even in the face of others disapproval. Now that would be nice~

Consider today how you seek others approval; who do you sell yourself for daily at work and home? For whom do you put on a mask? In what ways do you compromise your integrity for the applause of others?

This existence of longing for others approval becomes a slow, toxic wasting of precious moments of life, this life, the only life you have.

Today you can choose, with integrity to be all that you can be in spirit, even in this world. Today, you can choose to earn your own, quiet approval~

Peace,

Juli

www.coaching-forlife.com

click above for FREE support toward a life of more peace