A few years ago I was invited by my friend Kimberley Jones to be Goodwill Ambassador for her peace activist project called One Minute for Peace.   The concept was beautifully simple:  World Peace starts at the individual level.  When we individually focus one minute each day on peace we can help to create peace on our planet.  It makes sense if you think about it: inner peace starts from within but is also reflected outwardly. By focusing or meditating on peace for one minute a day, we can activate our personal peace field and begin to change the energy field on the planet.  The project began in 2009 and ended in 2011.  It was a wonderful experience to be a Goodwill Ambassador and to practice working with my own personal peace field.  Since the project ended, I have continued to strive to bring more peace into my life and found myself missing being part of a community focused on peace.

Last year, I became a board member of Heal My Voice, a non profit organization with the mission to empower women and girls to heal grief, loss, and trauma, and reclaim their inner authority, so they can discover and use their leadership skills in their homes, communities, and the world.  Heal My Voice develops collaborative projects that encourage leadership, community building, and the reclaiming of each woman’s voice.  Book Circles are at the heart of what Heal My Voice does.  Last year I also participated in one of of these book circles and became one of the contributing authors of the  book from Heal My Voice called Empowered Voices: True Stories by Awakened Women.

I am currently involved with a new Heal My Voice book circle called:  Harmonic Voices:  True Stories by Women on the Path to Peace. Being a part of this group has and has been a catalyst for me to continue to call more peace into my life.  One of the women in the group, Beth Terrence, challenged the 25  writers in the circle to do a weekly blog post on Mondays for the month of August.  Perfect timing.  I have been writing a bit every day for myself and had been wanting to do get back into the groove of blogging.   No time like the present…:-)

Last August I was diagnosed with extreme adrenal exhaustion and it was a huge wake up call!  In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.  I was working around the clock running one company and launching another one.  I was maintaining my 10 year old HR Consulting business and was launching a collaborative coaching company with several of my colleagues from my coaches training.  Essentially I had taken on too much and my adrenals became depleted.

I knew I couldn’t maintain the pace of my life and knew I needed to make some changes. Fast.  My health depended on it.  Every month beginning in September I pulled back a layer of responsibilities with the start up company.  By the end of February, it became clear that I had to take a stand for my health and I chose to leave the start up company.  It was not an easy decision.  I had poured my heart and so much energy into this new venture.  I had to go deep within to see that letting go of the company was the most health giving decision I could make for myself.

I have learned to take care of myself in a whole new way.  I made getting enough sleep one of my top priorities and also made sure to carve out “white space” on my calendar. I cleared my decks and created a schedule that allows for ample time for sleep, rest and time to BE.  Allowing myself to BE has been a big challenge at times, especially in this western culture of ours that is so focusing on DOING.

I feel so fortunate to have an amazing support system in my life from my husband, my friends, my holistic health partners ( chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist, coaches).  I have learned how to ask for and to receive support.  It has truly been a mind, body and spirit healing endeavor.  I have spent the last year healing my adrenals and have also learned to say no more often.  One of the surprises for me has been that by saying no to things that are not in complete resonance, I have more peace in my life.

So far 2013 has been a year of deep exploration and healing for me.  I have allowed myself to have more questions than answers.  There has been a visceral link between the questions and my healing process..

Some of the questions that have come up for me are:

How do I stay peaceful when there is chaos all around me?

How do I know when it is time to step away from something that is not contributing to peace in my life?

How do I do what I love without depleting myself?

What impact does clutter have on inner peace?

How do I bring more peace into my life right now?

Exploring these questions helps me to bring more peace into my daily life.  I am looking forward to sharing some of the things I have learned from being curious about peace.

The Voices of Peace Project has had a healing impact on my life.  As I have been calling in more peace in my life, I have compared the process to peeling back layers of an onion.  One layer at a time, releasing the things in my life that were life taking as opposed to life giving.  I learned to say no to things that weren’t in alignment, so that I could say YES to the things that really called to me.

Gently Moving Forward,

Kat