Ready For School

There are local news stories about getting ready for school. Some of them have to do with getting school supplies, preparing buildings and classrooms. Several, however, have covered law enforcement thwarting violence planned for the first days of school. So often we think of violence as being a sudden, intense, overt action. One of the definitions of violence also is injury – as to distortion of meaning or fact. It is this type of internal violence that can lead to the overt actions that we construe as violence. When we treat others or ourselves without dignity and respect as individuals, we are committing an act of violence. Treating a person as an object rather than as a precious, unique, one of a kind event is a distortion of meaning or fact – by definition an act of violence. It results in injury.

Treating each other and ourselves with dignity means that we define ourselves positively within and allow others to define themselves that way also. Respect means that we look past the first impression or stereotypical reaction to see and acknowledge that definition of dignity.

Most of us choose to believe that we are good human beings. If we believe this then we must act like we believe it. When we allow situations to influence our actions toward others, we violate our own sense of personal dignity and violate others as well. How we treat others is a direct reflection of how we feel about ourselves at that moment.

Taking a few moments to become aware of this sense of identity sets the tone for our personal integrity. Most people think of integrity as being of sound moral character. There is another definition however – that is the state of being whole and undiminished.

So here is another readiness exercise for school, work, or the simple act of daily living. To define ourselves positively, look beyond appearances to acknowledge that definition in others, and ourselves and hold on to that vision, keeping it whole and undiminished. When we do this, we will be treating ourselves with dignity, respect, and integrity. If we are true to ourselves we cannot help but treat others in this way also. When we define ourselves we define our world. And this may be where healing begins. It is Food For Thought.

Have a Great Day and be good to yourself and those you encounter. You all deserve it.
Gail

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Today’s Food for Thought is excerpted from the book School Mobbing and Emotional Abuse: See It – Stop It – Prevent It with Dignity and Respect. Copyright 2003 Gail Pursell Elliott

Wake Up Everybody

“Wake up everybody
No more sleeping in bed
No more backward thinking
Time for thinking ahead

The world has changed so very much
From what it used to be
There is so much hatred,
War, and poverty”

The above are some lyrics from a song that was nominated for a Grammy Award almost 30 years ago. The singing group was Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, who hailed from my hometown of Philadelphia, PA.

Some people thought the song was insipid. Others took it as a battle cry to make the world a better place. The song pointed out that we couldn’t do it alone, that everyone was needed regardless of race or creed.

The concept of waking up is often an admonishment to see things as someone else does, such as the expression, “Wake up and smell the coffee.” But there is more to it than that. Each of us has an interpretation of what waking up really means.

When we wake up in the morning, sometimes we feel groggy for a few minutes, but then realize where we are and what we are about. We can become acutely aware of the present moment and our true identity, unless we allow ourselves to be distracted by other thoughts.

On his deathbed the Buddha said that he was “waking up.” Walt Whitman wrote, “I must not be awake for everything looks new as it never did before. Or I must now be awake and everything I saw before has been a dream.”

Some may think that the world we live in has a nightmarish quality to it and long to wake up from what seems to be a bad dream. Some whose lives are going very well might say, “Pinch me. I want to make sure I’m not dreaming.” Others of us have spoken of dreams that we have that we wish to realize in our lives or may describe a situation or relationship as “a dream come true.” When we truly wake up our dreams can become reality. Everything looks new not because it has changed, but because we have changed. When we change our perspective we change what we see as reality and choose a different relationship to it.

What would you like to wake up to today? If it is a greater awareness of your connection to all that is beautiful and positive, then hold that thought in your mind and heart and connect yourself to what is beautiful and positive within you. Stop taking negatives personally. They have nothing to do with your true self.

Get in touch with the reality that you are created with intent and have purpose. Wake up to the realization that you have more power than you can possibly imagine to make a difference right where you are.
This very moment, you are where you are supposed to be to make that difference.

Let go of backward thinking. Let go of the dream that is the past and awaken to the present moment and the great gift that it holds. Wake up to the awareness of the great gift that is you. The greatest gift that you can give the world is your awakened self.

Anticipate a great day. It’s YOURS!

Gail

©2011 Gail Pursell Elliott All rights reserved.
Food For Thought is part of the Dignity and Respect message that is Innovations and is the intellectual property of Gail Pursell Elliott. If you enjoyed this Food For Thought message, please share it with people you know. Reprinting or re-distribution in any form for commercial use, including reproducing or displaying on your website, requires permission. Contact Gail for permissions and rates.

Hate Advisory

The weather service has criteria for issuing weather advisories. Sometimes there is a heat advisory, sometimes a wind advisory or winter weather advisory. Once those who are keeping an eye on weather patterns see the potential for danger to us, they issue an advisory so that we can take extra precautions

It would be helpful if we had hate advisories just as we have heat advisories so that precautions could be taken there as well. We may immediately think externally of attitudes and actions of people who believe themselves to be superior to others or who have different beliefs, of those who isolate, exclude, ridicule, or bully others in school or workplaces or elsewhere. We may think of the appalling acts of violence reported in the media. What might not be so obvious, though, are the internal hate advisories that warn us about our own attitudes and actions towards others.

Hatred is a negative force that contaminates the positive potential of the present moment. Although we can certainly hurt others with hateful thoughts, words, and actions, we are the ones who are hurt the most. Hatred is very insidious and may creep into our lives by holding onto past situations. It can cloud our awareness and block our ability to be insightful. It damages our own sense of dignity and respect. The best precaution we can take when we sense a hate advisory is to reconnect ourselves with the truth within us and let our words and actions be a reflection of that rather than reacting to people and situations.

People who operate from a basis of love will look for other things to love. People who operate from a basis of hatred will look for other things to hate or resent regardless of what it does to them or others. It becomes the basis of their interactions in more than just one type of situation.

The following Native American metaphor describes this process well -

A grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt.
He said, “I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart.
One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one.
The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one.”
The grandson asked him,
“Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?”
The grandfather answered, “The one I feed.”

Anticipate a great day. It’s YOURS!

Gail

©2011 Gail Pursell Elliott All Rights Reserved. Food For Thought is part of the Dignity and Respect mission of Innovations Training and is the intellectual property of Gail Pursell Elliott.

The Real Competition

There was a 1960’s era comedy routine about someone in a nationally known leadership position asking a subordinate how he was doing, compared with others who had held the job before he did. The subordinate dodged the question by saying that he was better than some and worse than others. The immediate response was “Who am I better than?” The subordinate hesitated and then gave a name generally acknowledged as someone who had done a less than acceptable job. The response to that was “Who else am I better than?”

Sometimes we find ourselves forced to compete with someone else for a job, for attention, or for simple acknowledgement as a human being. Sometimes we may be asked to explain why we think we should be given a job rather than someone else. In essence, we are being asked to compete by convincing someone that we are the better choice. Although some people find what was once called “jockeying for position” exhilarating, from the position of the observer it rather looks like two or more dogs fighting over a meaty bone.

We may believe that this is real competition, but when we engage in this type of competition we are defining ourselves and giving control of our self-worth over to another person. We allow ourselves to be manipulated. We also may find that when we participate in something like this that even if we win, we lose. Mud-slinging as it is called, is disturbing to many of us and we often hear criticism about such tactics. Yet many of us engage in similar behavior without realizing that is what we are doing, by calling it by another name or justifying it in some other way.

The most formidable opponent that we will ever meet is within us, that inner manipulator that tells us that we have to be better than someone else to prove our value. Those who listen to the inner manipulator also may have a difficult time appreciating others without attaching some kind of external value to it. Since we will always find that in terms of abilities and accomplishments that we are better than some and worse than others, this is a no-win situation. The real competition that we have in life lies in the challenge of being true to ourselves.

Even when we compete only with ourselves we can fall into the better or worse comparison trap. Sometimes we compare ourselves now with someone we think we used to be and wind up once again being better in some ways and worse in others. In the final analysis, the real competition for each of us lies not in being better than someone else, but in living our lives by an inner standard that involves no comparison. When we win this type of competition, our reward is a true appreciation of others and ourselves as we are and to enjoy each moment for what it is because we can be fully present in it.

Have a great day and be good to yourself. You truly deserve it!

Gail
©2011 Gail Pursell Elliott All rights reserved.

The Pursuit of Happiness

©2004 Gail Pursell Elliott

The Declaration of Independence includes the following words. “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Some have interpreted this to mean that they have the right to happiness. Of course that is not what it says. The pursuit of happiness means a quest or following a course of action to overtake or achieve good fortune, peace, contentment, joy or what each person determines happiness to be. It means freedom to choose our direction.

Some may become more caught up in the quest than the goal. They experience the ‘happiness of pursuit’ and may feel unsettled once the goal is achieved. Sort of like, “Ok, here’s the Holy Grail. Now what else do you want me to do?” Those referred to as “over-achievers” tend to exhibit this quality. When it comes to external achievements being equated with happiness, there will always be new quests necessary to maintain that feeling.

A quest is a form of exploration and when it comes to pursuing happiness we may feel as if we are embarking on a journey. Since happiness is more of an inner state of being or awareness, seeking it outside of ourselves doesn’t make much sense. It follows then that the pursuit of happiness when not attached to good fortune, is an inner journey or exploration.

To achieve happiness or any other goal, whether internal or external, we must know what we are looking for. Often someone will express the feeling that they are not happy but when asked what would make them happy say that they are not sure, but that they will know it when they find it. Those of us who express this will find that we must embark on an inner quest, an exploration of our own hearts to discover our true dreams and desires.

We can delay this true quest by engaging in the happiness of pursuit and in so doing may subject ourselves to a roller coaster ride of victories and failures. The pursuit of happiness within ourselves is rather like the quest for the Holy Grail. It was unique, one of a kind, and believed to be possessed with miraculous restorative properties. When we take a few minutes from our external pursuits each day to connect with our inner truth, remember the reality of who we are, and make a fresh commitment to that truth, we feel energized, restored, and even may experience what we call happiness.

Fortunately our inner Holy Grail is not as difficult to find as the external one has been reported to be. When we embark on this quest, we will find that it was always there, simply waiting to be recognized. All that was required was a sense of awareness of its presence.
The poet T. S. Eliot, put it beautifully when he wrote:

“We shall not cease from exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.”

Anticipate a great day! It’s Yours!

Gail

Taking Sides

©2004 Gail Pursell Elliott

“Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“You’re either with me or against me.”

In 1982 Mother Teresa was asked to sign a petition to ban nuclear proliferation. After some quiet consideration she refused. Her reason was that in taking sides on a controversy she would put herself in a position of loving some people and not loving others, which she felt she could not do. Taking sides is a byproduct of conditions. When we take sides we become the judge of who is worthy of our support and who is not, based upon behavior and surface criteria rather than insight and awareness. I promote dignity and respect for everyone, no exceptions. “No exceptions” means without conditions. When we take sides we enter into the game of polarization and separateness rather than inclusion.

There is another trap of judgment. What we notice or perceive in others must have a point of reference within us so that we can recognize it. Therefore, when we judge others by appearances or conditions we are really judging that part of ourselves that resonates with what we perceive. This is what is meant by the statement that we become our own adversaries. Often we are asked or even compelled to take sides when two people or two groups are in conflict. If we do this we are then consciously becoming part of that conflict. We cannot become the observer and look beyond the surface to the substance. We become caught up in surface behavior and cannot look beyond to the substance of honoring individuals with dignity and respect. We become part of the problem rather than an instrument of insight, awareness, and healing.

It is how we perceive that makes all the difference to us. Even our concept of perfection is relative and filled with conditions that we create or adopt from other disciplines. Most of us humans are not perfect but in a state of evolution. Since we are not perfect, we also have no idea what perfection looks like, sounds like, or feels like. Our perspective is flawed because it lacks points of reference. It is like trying to put together a huge jigsaw puzzle without seeing what the picture is going to look like when it is finished.

This is also the reason why we are told not to judge by appearances. Appearances make it impossible for us to judge anything with accuracy. There are too many variables, too many conditions, too much or too little information, making it too easy to jump to conclusions. And of course the conclusions that we jump upon are based on our own experience, fears, doubts, uncertainties, or prejudices. If we accept the concept that we are all connected to each other without exception, we then understand that everything we do impacts all of us. What we do to others we are in truth doing to ourselves. The “golden rule” of treating other people the way we would like to be treated gains more significance from this perspective.

“No tree has branches so foolish that they fight among themselves.” – Native American saying.

Anticipate a great day. It’s Yours!

Gail

Got Gattitude?

All of us at times can get so caught up in issues, individual situations, and our own feelings that we can lose sight of the present moment and the many gifts it holds. Taking things for granted is simply a matter of not paying attention or being distracted. There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about the benefits of having a gratitude attitude. Followin! g is one way to do it. My own made-up word for it is gattitude.

A way we can keep in touch and avoid taking things for granted is to start saying thank you for things we either simply notice or view as positive coincidence. For example, when getting up in the morning, glancing out the window and seeing a beautiful sunrise, say aloud thank you. When finding a good parking spot in a crowded lot, say thank you. Be sure that the words are audible, even if only whispered.

This practice causes us to notice and momentarily reflect on something positive. We may experience a fleeting smile or a moment when we feel more relaxed. Since it feels good, it inspires us to look for a few more things for which to say thank you. It begins to snowball. We then start to notice kind acts or comments that we may have taken for granted in the past. We may pleasantly surprise a few people by noticing and saying thank you. We start looking for positive elements in negative situations and because we look for them we invariably find them. We begin to recreate our world by recreating our perspective of it. Every day becomes one of thanksgiving filled with brief, private celebrations.

“If you say “Thank you,” once in a while, then those things that gave you your gifts, be it the earth, be it the sun, or thunder…well, then probably tomorrow they’ll be happy to come back.” – Iroquois Elder, Tom Porter

Anticipate a great day. It’s YOURS!
Gail

©2011 Gail Pursell Elliott All rights reserved. Food For Thought is part of the Dignity and Respect mission that is Innovations and is the intellectual property of Gail Pursell Elliott. If you enjoyed this Food For Thought message, please share my blog with others! Reprinting or re-distribution in any form or for commercial use, including reproducing or displaying on your website, requires permission.
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E-books from The Dignity and Respect Lady:

Food for Thought Anthology – 2001
Power in the Darkness: Truth for Tough Times
Be True to You: Food for Thought for Teens

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