peace be with you

This simple phrase, when spoken from the heart, triggers love, acceptance, and forgiveness.  These four words bring about diminished anger, the beginning of healing, and an opening of the heart.  The message wraps gently around the other while saying, “you are not alone.”

Peace is both an environment and an active state of being.  When we are peace, our unconditional love and compassion spirals up and out of our being.  The yellow-orange spiral flares across the abyss to ignite the spark of another.  When we are aware, the gifted peace of another sparks our peace and we lovingly and gently pass it on.  We become community.

You might ask, “Vanessa, where is this peace today?”

My response? “In your heart, in my heart, in the hearts of all.”

Even when a person does not appear peaceful, the nugget of this energy lies dormant deep within the heart waiting to be awakened. This peace that is with us is bigger than us and cannot and will not be contained.

The words “peace be with you” ignite my hope.  We are at a phenomenal time during which we are asked not to give into fear but to grasp peace with courage and curious daring.  Through intention our peace sparks the peace of another whose peace sparks yet another and another and another until we have a conflagration of peace that burns away fear, anger, hatred, and mistrust.

Possible? Yes.  Probable? Only when each of us becomes conduits of peace.

Peace be with you as we edge closer into the dark night of the year,

Vanessa

Vanessa is a Community Builder, Intuitive Healer, and Compassionista Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

www.intentandaction.com

Gratitude for the Big, the Small, the Pain, the Joy

Yesterday (because it always seems that yesterday is the day my inspiration strikes!), I attended a Gratitude Retreat.  Usually I talk myself out of having the time to attend a program, but the retreat venue was literally on my way home from a meeting and the retreat was only 90 minutes long.  So I went. 

Near the end of our time together we were invited to write two thank you notes…one to our self and another to the Sacred.  The catch?  Our thank you to the Sacred would be a thanks for only one thing in our life.

If you had only one thing to give thanks for, what would it be? 

I share mine and invite you to share yours by either posting as a comment to my blog or sending me an email. 

What melody do you hear that impels your heart to sing forth in gratitude?

A week before this national day of thanks, being in gratitude for all...the big, the small, the pain...the joy...but mostly for the love that surrounds,

Vanessa

Vanessa is a Community Builder and an Intuitive Healer who understands the power of Compassion to cross boundaries, provide healing, and create communities. 

www.intentandaction.com

When two or more are gathered…

Sitting on the Compassion Bench: Brenda Frank, 

Special Assistant to the Mayor, Vanessa Hurst, 

& Dr. Muhammad Babar, Compassion and 

Community Laureate.

What happens when two or more are gathered?  

I discovered the answer at the 4^th Anniversary Celebration of the Partnership for Compassionate Louisville. When two or more are gathered, the positive power of compassion burrows past differences and creates community. 

Yesterday, I experienced the spontaneous creation of community.  As each person stepped across the threshold into the room, the presence of compassion in the room grew.  An incredible lightness of being filled the room.  The atmosphere became one of excitement, joy, and happiness.

Community was formed without words as the each person’s spark of compassion jump from one person to another igniting collective compassion.  The energy of compassion was palatable.  I could feel it surge from the confines of the room and out of the building.  Who knows where compassion went and what our collective compassion transformed?

Boundaries disappeared as we smiled at one another.  It didn’t matter how we shared compassion  — as individuals, non-profit organizations, for profit businesses, churches, or as part of other groups — we became a community sharing compassion in many ways.  We all heard Compassion’s call and responded by celebrating.

Thomas Merton talks about choosing to be with others in a crowd or in community.  Yesterday, we chose to be a community of compassion.  As we left the room, the invisible lines of community remained.  We left as Compassion’s emissaries.

What happens when two and many more gather?  Yesterday, the potential for radical change through compassion exploded sending forth a legion of compassionate agents of change.  Who knows where compassion will show up in the next days, weeks, and months as we edge closer to Anniversary #5.

How will Compassion show up for you, in you, and with you?

Vanessa

Vanessa is a Compassion Catalyst, author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent and Action, and a member of the Coordinator Circle of Compassionate Louisville.

www.intentandaction.com

What if...

What if we woke up every morning believing in miracles?

What if we woke up every morning expecting miracles?

What if we woke up every morning agreeing to be vessels through which miracles happen?

A Facebook post encouraged me to “expect a miracle everyday.”  (Reminded me of the adage, “an apple a day…”)  This post nudged me to conduct an experiment in a very unscientific way sans controls or proper procedures, etc…yep, the Vanessa Way.

Over the past week or so, the experiment began most mornings when I awoke.  I sent my intent to live into the miracle unfolding in my life.  Of course, some days my intent was overrun by thoughts of have-to-dos.  On those days, at some point the whisper “miracle” welled up inside of me.  In those moments I stopped, focused on my breath, and affirmed the miracles swirling just outside of my sight/site.

Awareness focused on miracles, I discovered them falling around me like leaves.  Those miracles that gently fell on me or within my sight/site could not be ignored.  Others, like the smattering of leaves on my patio could only be seen when my attention was turned to them. 

Among the miracles of this week:

·      A friend who texted just to check in

·      A conversation with a new client

·      A beautiful, color filled sunrise

·      A 4 a.m. cuddle wake up by Jobi, my feline friend

·      A participant affirming my presentation

·      The miracles that connected me to my son, my nieces, my nephews

These were not the water-to-wine variety of miracles; rather, these were miracles that I discovered while peering beyond the veil that separates the mundane from the extraordinary.

Expect a miracle — it waits just beyond your sight/site

Namaste,  

Vanessa

www.intentandaction.com