PeaceWalker Blog

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. ~Abraham Heschel Maybe it's part of being American, this want to build on things instead of facing them. After all, our ancestors believed it their manifest destiny to keep moving on until they ran out of land. But now that there's nowhere left to go, a different sense of exploration, that has waited centuries, is calling. Instead of building a road to somewhere other than where we are, the life of the spirit requires us to open doors that wait before us and within us. This is what Abraham Heschel calls "facing sacred moments" : the opening of doors into the life we already have. The effort to build our way elsewhere can be admirable, even heroic, but it often distracts us from inhabiting the life we are given. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with bettering our outer circumstances, but these constructions mean nothing if we never face the very pul...

Sam Jackson as Jules exercising his 'people skills' in    Quentin Tarantino's classic 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. One of my favorite movies is Pulp Fiction. I love the scenes where Samuel Jackson's character, Jules and John Travolta's character, Vincent talk and especially when they 'negotiated.' They had a straight forward, no non-sense approach. Obviously their gangster style left little room for debate as did their pistols, however much can be learned if you know how and when to use those crazy gangsta tactics. Here is one of those tactics. It's as a simple, straight forward way to communicate boundaries. It's called the "If / Then" tactic. This tactic is one method you can use to communicate cause and effect  consequences and strong boundaries. It is a straight forward approach that should be used sparingly and only if you are ready and able to follow through with the 'then' consequence. Don't make idle promises...

Ahh, summertime! A time to get out, mingle, socialize, meet new people, and connect with old friends and acquaintances. While you're out there shaking hands and kissing babies you may run into some people who you've met but just can't remember their name. Well, here's 7 tips from Gretchen Rubin's book "The Happiness Project" and a couple from yours truly.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1) The "I know your name but I'm blocked" Dodge: "I keep wanting to call you 'Dave,' but I know tha's not right." 2) The "Of course I know you - In fact, I want all your information" Dodge: "Hey, I'd love to get your card." 3) The "Tip of my tongue" Dodge: "I know your name, but I'm blanking right now." 4) The "You're brilliant!" Dodge: "Wow, you have a terrific memory. I can't believe you remember my name from that meeting six months ago." 5) The "S...

I've been driving Honda Civics for almost 20 years. My little black 2007 Civic almost has 200k miles on it. It has been a great car.  Very little has gone wrong with it; tires, a brake job and rear shocks are the only things I had to put in it other than regular oil changes and a tune up or two. It's my third Civic since I bought my first one in 2000. Awesome cars! Anyway, so I drive out of state a fair amount, and although my car is good, it does have a fair amount of miles on it and I can see some repairs coming in the future, so I started to wrap my mind around buying another one. I figure I should start the process early; a dig your well before your thirsty kind of thing. In 2016 Honda updated the Civic look to an eleven on the awesome scale. After looking at a couple, I was sure that was the way to go. And that's, as they say where the trouble started! The 2016 Honda Civic got bad reviews from Consumer Reports(CR), so much so it was the first time it slipped ...

Relationship Assessment Questions: 1) Do I feel better or worse when I'm around, talk to or think about this person? 2) Does this person usually have a positive or negative mindset and attitude? 3) Is this person taking responsibility for their life or always making excuses about being the victim of circumstance? 4) Do they support my efforts and excited about my success or do they complain about their own life when I achieve something or try to make me feel bad about myself or them? If a person is being a relationship Vampire (RV) than cut them loose and free yourself from their anchor of despair! Life is too short to keep spending time with people who are emotionally sucking you dry. I know how difficult this can be. Don't make it personal. It's not you, it's ME! Really, sometimes the chemistry just doesn't work. It could happen in your personal, professional or public life. Sometimes it's better just to cut ties and move on. That is all...

1)    You will receive a body. You may love it or hate it, but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth. 2)  You will be presented with lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called ‘life.’ Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum. 3)  There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation, a series of trials, errors, and occasional victories. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that work. 4)  A lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons will be repeated to you in various forms until you have learned them. When you have learned them, you can then go on to the next lesson. 5)   Learning does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned. 6) ...

This post about Col. John Boyd's OODA Loop, comes to you from the infamous Wikipedia.  You can click the link if you want to read it from that source.  The OODA Loop is yet another process that is simple and something we do all of the time, however understanding the recipe with greater clarity can help us to utilize these skills with greater success, especially during times of stress and conflict.  Rather than reinventing the wheel and writing my own article about this now famous method, I decided to re-post Wikipedia's description of Boyd's OODA Loop. So, without further ado, here it is: The phrase OODA loop refers to the decision cycle of observe, orient, decide, and act , developed by U.S. Air Force military strategist Colonel John Boyd.  Boyd applied the concept to the combat operations process , often at the strategic level in military operations. It is now also often applied to understand commercial operations and learning processes. T...