Do you remember the song “Let There Be Peace on Earth”? In the summer of 1955, Jill Jackson Miller and her husband wrote that song and within weeks it touched lives. A music director for a national conference of Christian and Jewish teenagers brought the song to the inter faith and inter racial workshop. After singing the song once, the 180 teenagers quickly made it their theme song and wanted to share and live the message. They sang it in a circle and envisioned the world in the middle of the circle. That was just the start for this powerful song; for the next 10 years, the Miller’s spent 30 hours a week answering fan mail.

I love the line ‘and let it begin with me” for that is where everything starts – with you. How you ask? If you want peace in the world, be peaceful in your own Place in the world. Speak of love, gratitude, appreciation, forgiveness, abundance, and peace. Turn your attention to those who are making positive changes in the world. Speak of solutions. Laugh a lot. Give of yourself to others. And when you need a little reminder of peace, think of those 180 inter faith, inter racial teenagers who in 1955 joined together to sing about peace on earth.

Quotes of the week

“When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.” ~ Peace Pilgrim

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ~ Jimi Hendrix

“Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace.” ~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

“Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.”

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Soulful Links

Let There Be Peace on Earth ~ Vince Gill

Peace Train ~ Cat Stevens

Peace Train ~ Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

Give Peace a Chance ~ John Lennon

Give Peace a Chance ~ Peace Choir

For the next week I invite you to be peaceful by choosing to

Start your day by saying let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

Be gentle with yourself and with others

Love yourself, love life, and love others

Speak about peace rather than war

Spend five minutes each day to sit with the thought of a peaceful world and sending out that intention

Mostly, I wish you a week filled of peaceful hearts. Choose to think of love, compassion, appreciation, forgiveness rather than fear. Choose to change conversations of war/terror/poor economy to a conversation of hope and allowing. Choose to be peaceful with yourself if you are going through a contrasting experience to what you want knowing this too is a learning experience to grow from. Choose to be at peace with yourself, with life, and with others.

Until next time, Peace Out!

 Did You Know…  

That there is a group of amazing world citizens called The Elders who are leading a global pathway of hope and  peace? The idea originated from Peter Gabriel and Richard Branson in the late 1990s and they took it to Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel in 2001. The Elders, Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Lakhdar Brahimi, Gro Brundtland, Fernando Cardoso, Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson, Muhammad Yunus, and Aung San Suu Kyi, are committed to supporting people who are making the world a better place. 

Our 7th Free Hug event of 2008 came to a close at noon today. What amazing weather, amazing huggers, and amazing huggees!! Each month I fall in love with this event a little more thinking it can’t get better — but it somehow does. We had 18 huggers out on Michigan Avenue distributing hugs and lightening hearts.

From the left Judith, Kali, Cassie, Lena, Dawn, Michelle, Sharyl and Jenilyn front and center were some of our huggers for the day.

The trolley passengers wanted hugs and we were quick on our feet to oblige.

Chicago’s finest need hugs too. The other officers opted not to get a hug, but this female officer jumped in.

The lady to the left was in town with several friends celebrating her birthday that was today! Birthday cake and hugs, does it get better?

We had so many huggers and not enough signs. Gary was so generous to go buy some supplies and makes more signs right on site!!

Many of our Naval men came by to receive our arms.

This woman was in town with an interfaith group to bring peace to the world. She’s Palestinian and there were people from Syria and Israel in her group.

Ask and you shall receive — he asked for a group hug and we gave it to him!

Front left - Kali, Cassie, Judith, Livi, Gary, Dawn

Middle left - Chris, Lena, Noah, Joann, Jenilyn, Maureen, Rossi, Arqui

Top left - Sharyl, Michelle

We had such a great time and I am so grateful for the experience, for the huggers, for the huggees, for the weather, and mostly I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this to Chicago monthly.

To see more pictures: http://www.positive-focus.com/wpg2?g2_itemId=1709

July Free Hugs picture montage

Hugs,

Carol

Happy Wednesday!

Have you ever thought about life as being one big spice rack? You get to choose which ingredients to add to your life. You can choose loving ingredients, or you can choose fearful ones. You can choose peaceful or hateful. You can choose abundance or scarcity. You can choose light or dark.

Be the best chef in your life by taking a pinch of several ingredients you choose, blend them together, keep them at a nice simmer, add more as needed, and enjoy your Happy Life recipe.

Quotes of the day:

“What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team.” ~ Benjamin Fairless

“There are three ingredients to the good life: learning, earning, and yearning.” ~ Christopher Morley

“The ingredients of health and long life are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.” ~ Philip Sidney

Soulful Links:

A Recipe of Love ~ Harry Connick Jr.

Recipe for a Happy Life ~ Serenity

Happy Marriage Recipe ~ Carol Miller

For the next week, I invite you to create your recipe for a Happy Life by mixing the following ingredients:

Gratitude: A healthy blend of gratitude is a key ingredient. When you can be grateful for your contrasting experiences it is a tasty treat of knowing you are on a path for a happy life. You simply know this is just a momentary experience that is helping you grow and evolve.

Love: loving you, loving life, and loving others should be a daily ingredient and used often. When challenges arise, ask yourself, ‘What would love do?’

Forgiveness: forgiving others is truly a benefit for your well being. Even more importantly is forgiving yourself for allowing others misdeeds to permeate your being. Forgive yourself for taking things personally or your involvement in the contrasting experience.

Trust: Trust in yourself knowing that each experience you choose whether caring or contrasting are part of your life path - you chose, so trust you chose well.

Allow: Everyone’s path is slightly different, some have more bumps, twists and turns, but each is the right journey for that person. Allow everyone to mix their ingredients for their life without judgment.

Mostly, I want you to remember that even the best cook ruins a recipe on occasion. But a true chef doesn’t give up, (s)he just works on perfecting it. Have fun blending the ingredients to create your perfect recipe.

Until next week, happy cooking!
~Carol

This is an amazing video — enJOY

Love and Fear

Prior to reading ‘Recipes for a Happy Marriage’, I’m sure you conquered my ‘Date to Success Recipe Book’ and know all the ins and outs of good communication blending to perfection with humor, respect, and genuine compassion.

So now you are ready for the Happy Marriage recipe. Keep this close to your heart and read often and you’ll figure the perfect blend to make your marriage special. And remember, since we are in the advanced stages of Relationship Recipes, in time, you will figure out the perfect pinch of each ingredient needed to create ‘your’ Happy Marriage.

So let’s get cooking!

First, collect all the ingredients needed: Bride, Groom, humor, trust, patience, respect, honesty, and a sampling of spices.

Take one committed bride and one committed groom. (Make sure to weed out the ‘I think I’m committed ones’ – refer to recipe ‘What was I thinking chili recipe’ in my ‘Date to Success Recipe Book’.

Blend in a large dose of humor. I often recommend over usage of humor in the first year to help you get through the delicate times. This comes in especially handy during the ‘I can’t believe he just said that to me’ stage. Oh – and this ingredient is desperately needed when dealing with the ‘in-laws’. You will thank me for over usage of the humor ingredient!

Next is an equally large dosage of trust. This requires constant seasoning and remembering that it was a key ingredient to get you to this recipe in the first place. Your own intuition will tell you when you need to add in another pinch of trust in your Happy Marriage recipe.

Patience is a commonly misunderstood ingredient and it might be the most difficult for you to find the perfect blend, but once you do, you will become to rely on it heavily.

Respect and honesty are equally important ingredients and should be watched closely as they can occasionally be lost in the other ingredients and cause things to boil over.

Don’t forget to season to the perfect taste either! All of the ingredients I’ve shared with you are equally important and only the two of you can find the perfect mixture for your ‘Happy Marriage’.

A few last tips as you start tasting your ‘Happy Marriage Recipe’:

o        Remember that boiling over creates a mess on the stove and in a relationship. Follow the ingredients closely and you’ll maintain the heat without boil overs.

o        Simmer may be a slow process, but in the long run it keeps a smooth and effective taste to the recipe. Always keep your marriage in a good simmer.

o        And most importantly of all: Even the best cook ruins a recipe on occasion. But a true chef doesn’t give up, but just works to perfect it. Keep striving for the happiest recipe of them all and you’ll achieve the success you were looking for the day you said ‘I DO’!

Blend all of the above together for years of a successful marriage. And keep it cookin!

Carol Miller

Author of ‘Recipes for the Happy Marriage’

 And ‘Date to Success Recipe Book’.

I used this song/video in the weekly affirmative message “Can You Spare Me Some Change” as I love it. I trust you will enJOY it as well.

Be the Change

That was stupid. I can’t do that. I am undeserving. I’m too old, too young, too skinny, too fat, too tall, or too short. Do any of these comments sound familiar to you? I bet you have said these to yourself in the past or possibly still do. The list is endless of negative self talk. However, it’s just as endless for positive self talk - you choose what to affirm whether positive of negative.

Now let’s wipe off the ick from those statements and ask yourself if you would say any of those comments to your best friend? The answer is NO. You would realize these statements would just perpetuate their negative self talk. You would choose affirmative comments and help make them feel better because they are YOUR best friend.

How about being your own best friend and catching your own negative self talk and turning it around to be supportive and loving? Rather than talking yourself down, talk yourself up. Rather than giving yourself a hard time, be gentle with yourself. Talk to yourself about solutions rather than problems. Talk to yourself about blessings rather than hardships. Talk to yourself about gratitude rather than lack.

Quotes of the week:

“If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.” ~ Maxwell Maltz

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” ~ Bernard Meltzer

“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends with them?” ~ Abraham Lincoln

“Silence is the true friend that never betrays.” Confucius

Music for your Soul:

You’ve Got a Friend by:

Carole King

James Taylor

Carole, Gloria, Celine, Shania

Patti LaBelle

For the next week I invite you to be your own best friend by:
 
Giving yourself five compliments each day. If you are struggling to come up with five compliments, think of things you say to your friends. Or think of things friends say to you and repeat them to yourself.
 
Treating yourself the way you treat your best friend going through a challenging time by being gentle, loving, and supportive.
 
Motivating yourself with excitement and eagerness to start whatever it is you’ve been putting off and beating yourself up about.
 
Laughing at yourself several times a day just the way you laugh with your friends.
 
Mostly, I invite you to truly think of yourself as your own best friend. Be your biggest cheerleader rather than heckler. Be pro you rather than anti self. Be hopeful rather than worried. Anytime you start the negative self talk, ask yourself, would you say that to your best friend? And I bet the answer is - NO!
 
Until next week, my intention for you is to have a week full of amazing friendships, and that starts from within.
~Carol 

“Carol Miller is an amazing support around marketing my classes, workshops and branding my company.  She has worked on my monthly newsletter, flyers and promoting my workshops on her website.  She is the most responsive person I have ever worked with. If she needs more time, she lets me know when it will be completed and is always a head of schedule. Her attention to detail and creative writing are her strengths and she makes anything I started a masterpiece. She fills in the gaps, that I didn’t even know were there and makes it all look effortless. She listens to my ideas and implements them in a creative and effective way. Carol goes above and beyond by suggesting venues where I can market and facilitate my work. I especially appreciated that she understands the alternative healing community since my company is based on yoga, mediation and positive thoughts. She is easy to reach and is straightforward in her approach, cutting right through any resistance and on to making it happen. She is like a life coach, graphic designer and public relations woman all in one! If you are ready to make your business take off, Carol is your person as she is ready to make your dreams a reality.”

Happy Wednesday!

Wouldn’t you love to see wars end? Wouldn’t you love to see people not fighting and hurting others? Wouldn’t you love to see people not littering and being destructive to our environment? Wouldn’t you love to see (fill in the blank)?

How often do you have thoughts of changing others? Changing the world? Changing loved ones? I certainly do, but I am quickly reminded of my favorite quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” by Mahatma Gandhi. My second favorite quote is Margaret Mead’s “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

When you seek change, seek from within. If you see war, poverty, pollution in your outer environment, look within on how you can change. Perhaps it’s just changing your thoughts and focusing on peace, abundance, and purity. Rather than fighting war, be for peace. Rather than fighting hunger, be for abundance. Rather than fighting illness, be for health. Rather than fighting hatred, be for love. Change your perspective from a negative situation to a positive solution. Involve yourself in groups that promote positive solutions rather than fight the negative problems. I promise you, if you make those changes for yourself, your world will change.

Quotes of the day:

“The key to change is let go of fear.” ~ Rosanne Cash

“Everything changes, nothing remains without change.” ~ Buddha

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” ~ Jimmy Dean

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living.” ~ Gail Sheehy

Music for the Soul:

Be The Change - Kat Edmonson

Change ~ Tracy Chapman

Change of Habit ~ Elvis

For the next week I invite you to live your highest good by focusing on:

Peace: be peaceful in your world. Be peaceful to yourself, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and your world community.

Love: be love in your world. Be loving to yourself, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and your world community.

Compassion: be compassionate in your world. Be compassionate to yourself, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and your world community.

Appreciation: be appreciative in your world. Be appreciative to yourself, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and your world.

Forgiveness: be forgiving in your world. Be forgiving to yourself, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and your world community.

Mostly, my intention for you is to be the change for you by living a peaceful, loving, compassionate, appreciative, and forgiving life. I promise you, if you live this way, your world will change.

Until next time, remember - change starts from within.

~Carol

Looking for a way to stay focused on Living Life Fulfilled? Make sure to surround yourself with people who lift you up, inspire you, support you, and simply love to laugh and have fun.

Happy Wednesday!

We celebrate the 4th of July as declaring our independence from Great Britain. It’s personally my favorite holiday as it falls in the summer and there are fireworks. Thinking about our freedom and independence as a nation brought me to thoughts of our freedom and independence at our core, as individual people. Rather than looking at millions of people living in freedom and independence, look at yourself. Are you living a free and independent life?

Quotes of the day:

“Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.” ~ Voltaire

“Freedom lies in being bold.”  ~ Robert Frost

“Everything can be taken from a man but…the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”   ~ Victor Frankl

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”  ~ Gandhi

 
During this week as we celebrate our freedom and independence as a nation, I invite you to celebrate your freedom and independence by choosing to:
 
Live your highest self without fear of failure, disapproval, or rejection.
 
Recognize how amazing you are as a part of this wonderful world filled with billions of unique people.
 
Affirm your freedom as YOU choose your destiny; YOU choose your dreams; and YOU choose your desires.
 
See the positive in any given set of circumstances knowing you are free to make the right choice for you at the right time.
 
Mostly, I wish for you to celebrate the 4th as an amazing free and independent individual who chose to live in a nation built on freedom and independence. As I celebrate the 4th of July and watch the amazing display of fireworks, I will think about how each of you are amazing unique people and I’m grateful knowing you - even if it is only through a weekly affirmative email.
 
Until next time, remember - Freedom Rocks!!
 

 ~Carol 
 
Looking for a way to stay focused on Living Life Fulfilled? Make sure to surround yourself with people who lift you up, inspire you, support you, and simply love to laugh and have fun