Hi EveryOne,  Some of us may have big goals in life and that’s great if you’re inspired to do so. But for many, a big goal can be to just get through each day with a little bit of calmness and self control… Simple? Maybe not! So how do you keep your cool in heated circumstances? How do you keep your cool – period?…

The world is increasingly heating up (and no, I’m not getting into the whole global warming debate) but I would like to point out that turmoil and heated situations are now a common scene. Just look around – if you dare… Earthly disasters are more frequent than ever (the Pacific Ring of Fire alone is becoming increasingly restless) not to mention global disastrous human interaction. This is not to frighten anyone but to draw your attention to the importance of working on your own inner cool. I often hear people talk about what ‘others should or should not be doing’. Lets stop pointing the finger and bring it back to ourselves – after all, world change starts with self-change! Lets consider our own anger, angst and anxieties as possible contributing factors to the element’s inability to no longer keep a balance. Lets look at the violence (radiating heat) within ourselves… It’s easy to point out what’s happening in our streets. It’s not so easy to acknowledge our own heat emissions from personal internal conflict (self-violence) that results in all the finger pointing, projection and judgements… Living in denial may appear to work short-term. But contradiction, impatience and intolerance wear heavily on our hearts, on our minds and on our relationships – not to mention on Mother Nature. Yes Mother Nature is struggling, yet she is nothing more than a reflection of what is going on inside each of us. She can no longer give what we as humans have seen as our right to take and take and take. Now it’s our turn to give back. How? One way – is to keep your cool!

Friction creates heat – intensifying over time. If there is no escape valve to release the buildup of that pressure, at some point there will be an eruption. Like stress, accumulative pressure and friction in life does’t magically appear – it’s incremental and more often than not, by choice. It smoulders away while we try to escape (find distractions) pretending all is ok. But the slightest updraft can flare it out of control – at which point we say ‘I don’t know what happened’ because it seems so sudden… You know, it’s not uncommon these days for a ‘normally calm’ person to ‘suddenly’ lose it and murder a whole bunch of people. But in hindsight, was it really sudden? Husband bashes wife… Wife stabs husband… Parents murder children… Crazed gunman on rampage (with another massacre in Las Vegas only last night)… Was it really sudden? Rarely! Emotions left to stew are NOT resolved, they simply simmer away in the background. If we don’t give ourselves a healthy outlet to reform and transform them, they will inevitably explode! We justify. We rationalise. We blame! Then we keep going and going and going till something or someone snaps, unleashing all fury. Not really cool is it? Using anger with anger never works. We cannot fight fire with fire – there’s no possible way we can keep cool – yet we keep on pretending hoping it will go away. Compelled to go against our own love, peace and inner truth – we wonder why life has become so painful and complicated. Time to change!

To keep your cool does take practice but it’s not as difficult as we want to believe. It just takes a bit of personal effort, so please don’t dismiss it as ‘too hard’ or ‘but you don’t understand’. We’ve ALL had ‘stuff’ happen in our lives, no-one is exempt from pain or anguish in the Iron Age. The key is focus on how we respond, not wait till we react! To catch ourselves (our thoughts and inner language) early before we lose control of them. To check in with ourselves on a regular basis… You know, people often look to us as Brahma Kumaris and want to believe that ‘it’s easy’ for us, but that’s just a cop-out. Living a Brahma Kumaris lifestyle takes discipline, determination and self motivation – that most aren’t willing to practice. So if we appear to have it ‘easy’, it’s because we individually work very hard (every single day) on changing ourselves. If we look calm or peaceful or ‘cool’ it’s because we are constantly working at calming our own ego (body consciousness) so we can reclaim a bit of our own inner peace. And it’s this coolness and silent power that we are then able to share with others… When we are in control of our own emotions we don’t take on the stuff of others. This enables us to be more economical in our thoughts and our actions, so we can be more productive and purposeful in our lives. We check and change ourselves on an hourly basis so we can fulfil our own needs and communicate better with the world around us. Through meditation we reconnect with ourselves so we can keep cool on the inside. This is one very powerful way we can contribute to the cleansing (and cooling) that is so desperately needed around the world.

Question:  Do I control anger or do I let anger control me?

Consideration: When do I let anger control me and why? How might I be able to release that pent up heat before blowing my top?

Action:   For the month of October, practice stopping regularly to take a deep breath and to check in with yourself (this action alone is a form of meditation). Check to ensure that your thoughts and actions align. If you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, apply a brake and change direction immediately to prevent loss of control. Make sure you pat yourself on the back for catching yourself, then simply keep going 🙂

ps. I look forward to connect with those coming to the Leura Retreats in October. There are still some spaces in the day retreat ‘The Art of BEing Happy’. However, the weekend retreat ‘How to Reclaim Your Power (Peacefully)’ is already booked out. Though sometimes you can ring the office direct and ask to be put on the waiting list as participants do at times drop out 🙂

Lots of love Annemarie

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