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I. Cross-Cutting Opportunities for Cleansing & Building
Our Total Wealth
II. Our Living Equity
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III. Our Financial Equity
A New Unity Is Percolating
IV. Appendices:
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"To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness
to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first
discipline and control one's own mind."
—The Buddha
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- We have the power to create
perfect health.
- We are our own doctors.
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- Learn about the power of
the spirit and mind to influence
our physical health.
- Stop watching TV.
- Learn what adds or removes
vitality from air, water and
food; make sure that you have access
to clean air, clean water,
and healthy food.
- Get plenty of exercise,
rest, and sleep.
- Learn about alternative
health and healing methods
and tools such as biofeedback
machines and QRS systems.
- Learn about safe and healthy
ways to reduce or eliminate
dependencies on drugs.
- Invest time in detoxifying
your body in the manner that
works for you: juice
fasting, liver and gall bladder
flushes, colon cleansing,
massages, saunas, and steam
baths.
- Get a health coach—or do self-help health coaching
with your friends and family.
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“She looketh well to the ways of her household
and eateth not the bread of idleness.”
—Proverbs 31:27
Where do you want to live? Are you living there? Where
are you surrounded by people you love and trust? Where
do you have access to the air, land, food, and water
that will nurture you and your family?
A beautiful home gives you energy. This means that
it does not drain you of time and resources. Are you
a slave to a house that is big and expensive and filled
with lots of possessions that take time to maintain?
Move out of your field anything that is not beautiful,
life- and energy-giving, and useful. We find de-cluttering
by yourself hard to do. Team up with friends
to help you de-clutter and reorganize one another's home and office. There
is a myth that beauty is expensive—that we cannot create beautiful homes within our means. Another myth tries to convince us that beauty in a home has to be complex. Not so. Beauty just takes time and attention—and it
is something that we can all have. A home that
is in alignment and harmony with the land and environment
around you is the most beautiful—and powerful—of all.
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- We deserve a beautiful and
safe home.
- We can create a beautiful
and safe home no matter what
our circumstances.
- Our ability to create a
beautiful and safe home depends
on our ability to understand
how we can honor others' ability
to do the same.
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“I do think it's not asking too much for
you to . . . engage those among you who are visionary,
and remove from your life those who offer you depression,
despair, and disrespect.”
—Nikki Giovanni
Who are the people in your life, your family, and your
community that you love? Are they getting your admiration,
time, and energy? Are your time and energy going
instead to the people whom you are afraid of, who have power
over you, or who demand your attention in negative ways?
Do you hunger for association with people who—after you study their work and how they make money—are contributing to the drain on you, your family, and your
community?
Take a look at your schedule. Have you planned ahead
to make time available for strategic thinking, conversation,
and whateever else you need to do so that you can
live in alignment with and care for the people you love? Be there
for the people whom you would like to be there for you.
One of the advantages of forgiving people who have harmed
you or done you wrong is that it frees up an enormous amount of time
and energy that you can then invest in the people who are doing
you right.
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- Giving priority and investing
in the people we love and
who love us is the most important
investment we will ever make.
- In a healthy culture, men
and women build up each other's
power and security.
- In a healthy culture, members
of a family think and act
opportunistically on each
other's behalf.
- In a healthy culture, members
honor those among them who
practice their values and
lead toward the world they
envision.
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- Make a list of the people
you love.
- Pray for them; plan and
invest strategically in your
relationship with them; be
a blessing to one another;
remember birthdays and other important
dates.
- Identify the leaders who are building
the world you want, particularly
in your immediate area and
life.
- Find energizing ways to
support them.
- Withdraw your support
from the leaders and the people in your life
who are draining
you.
- Save time and energy by
practicing forgiveness.
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"What's done to the children is done to society."
—The Buddha
Catherine had a friend who was married to a village
chief. At meetings, she would ask one person to represent
the viewpoint of seven generations yet unborn. To her
amazement, this led to significantly improved discussion
and decision-making. That’s because children matter. It
takes many years to help a child grow up healthy and
strong in spirit, mind, and body. Families
that help every member to be successful and who are surrounded
by communities that support families' being successful are able to grow healthy children.
This means that children are well raised and successful whenever each of us enjoys and is committed
to supporting the children in our lives and in our community, as well as
supporting their parents.
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- Children matter.
- Raising our children well
is our most important investment.
- Respect for parents and
children helps create healthy
families and communities.
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- Think about what would make
your neighborhood safer and
more pleasant for your children
and your neighbors' children.
- See if any of these ideas
present an opportunity for
the investment of your time
or money.
- Identify the children around
you and identify opportunities
to support their parents in
raising them well.
- Take time to learn from
the children in your lives; have them teach you
about what they consider important
and interesting.
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“Let’s make no mistake about this:
The American Dream starts with the neighborhood . . . to
sit on the front steps—whether it’s a
veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big
city—and talk to our neighbors . . ."
—Harvey Milk
A wonderful world is made up of wonderful neighborhoods
and communities. Think about what you can do to make
yours wonderful, to increase the feeling of connection
and belonging, to look out and care for each other. Connect
to allies and resources in your community. Which
people in your community have the skills and experience
in the areas critical to the well-being of you, your
family, and your community? What about your local librarians—are they available to help you raise your learning metabolism? What
about the organizations dedicated to service and smooth
operations in your community: Rotary International,
the local Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau, Kiwanis,
the Optimist Club, and many more? What local churches,
temples, and other religious/spiritual organizations are committed to making
your community work? What about other arts, civic, and
educational organizations? Rich local community networks
are leveraged by wider networks. Identify
who your natural allies are in cooperating to build
the kind of world you envision. Then take action to get to know
them in a way that is mutually energizing.
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- Building a wonderful world
happens one neighborhood and
one community at a time.
- In a wonderful world, neighbors
look out for each other, and
there is a deep sense of belonging
and sharing.
- Safety and well-being come
from connectivity with people
we can trust because
they are ethical, they are
effective, and they care about
us.
- Service to our community
in the form of volunteering
is an opportunity to express
our gratitude and give of ourselves.
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- Ask yourself: Are
you giving energy to the people
in your community and in your
wider networks who can help
you build the world you envision?
- Whom would you like to know
in your neighborhood? Start
making an effort to get to
know them.
- What can you do to make
your neighborhood or community
more wonderful?
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Only after the last tree has been cut,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
—Cree Indian Prophecy for North
America
Catherine once heard a story at an investment conference about psychoanalyst
Carl Jung. Apparently,
Jung had a patient who came to see him after a nervous
breakdown. As a young woman, she had married a wealthy older
man and then taken a young lover. To resolve the tension
between her desire for wealth and her desire for her lover, she
murdered her husband. It seemed that she had gotten away with it, but she reported to Jung that from the time she
killed her husband, the birds stopped singing wherever
she was. She told Jung, "The birds knew.”
Many of us are complicit in enjoying and tolerating
a negative return on investment economy. If indeed
"the birds know,” then imagine the energy
that can be unleashed if we change and individually
commit to removing our support from the negative return on investment economy?
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- All life—past, present,
and future—matters.
- All life is potentially
available as our ally.
- All life is a source of
energy.
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- Listen to and appreciate
all living things. What can they teach you?
- Identify steps in your life
to improve your sustainability
with nature. Learn
about permaculture, biodynamic
farming, or how to live green.
Grow more of your own food.
- Identify steps in your life
to increase your (and others')
independence from fossil fuel
or unclean air, land, food,
and water.
- Fill your home with animal,
plants, and natural objects
that give you energy.
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“Many have marked the speed with which Maud’Dib
learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit,
of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others,
we can say that Maud’Dib learned rapidly because
his first training was in how to learn. And the first
lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn.
It is shocking to find how many people do not believe
they can learn, and how many more believe learning to
be difficult. Maud’Dib knew that every experience
carries its lesson.“
—Princess Irulan, in Dune by Frank
Herbert
As we manage increasing levels of complexity in our
lives due to new technology and globalization, we are
also dealing with rising levels of political and economic
uncertainty. In this environment, thinking strategically
about what we need to know, how to access and acquire
that knowledge, and how to build collaborative networks
to help us do so, can provide a steady flow of
new energy. There is a reason why nations have
intelligence agencies and why companies have lifelong learning
programs and investigative firms. When you look back
through history, how did our ancestors deal with periods
of high spiritual and financial stress? What worked?
Surely, nothing that we are dealing with today is tougher
than what Native Americans, slaves, or immigrants and
settlers dealt with during the past 300 years. Some cultures have evolved a high degree of
knowledge as well as protocols for surviving great levels of
stress. We can identify and learn from those who have
this knowledge.
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- We
use only a tiny portion of the
knowledge and learning capacity
available to us.
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- Develop
a learning plan for your life: What could you learn that
would give you the most energy
for achieving your vision?
- Identify
the people who teach you the most: What can you do to give
them energy?
- Identify
the people who teach you the least. What can you do to transform
that learning and teaching drain? If that is not possible, consider removing yourself from their life.
- Identify
who knows about things that you
need help with, particularly
in your neighborhood.
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