What if …
What if you could prevent a crime? What if you could save a live? What if you could prevent racism, sexism or any other type of ism? What if you could change the world? Would you invest a little of your time and energy into making that change come about?
Social scientists agree that most of interpersonal communication happens through body language, facial expression and voice quality. Essentially our disposition and feelings leak and impact our interactions with others. A meditation project in Washington, DC is credited with reducing violence by 23% over a 6 week period June and July of 1993. It seems that having a large group of Transcendental Meditation practitioners quietly focusing their positive energy is enough to change a community’s behavior.
So, what does all this have to do with recovery? What if working a program resulted in us “leaking” positivity onto others which caused them to respond with healthier communication? What if the time we spent in meditation really did change the behavior of people we would never meet or interact with? And what if there was actual science to back up these suppositions?
One of the key facets of my work deals with motivation. Most of those I see have multiple experiences with recovery not working and often have little in the way of long term success in this area. In this circumstance my goal is to place a picture in the person’s mind of the consequences of change. When people understand that dealing with their resentments results in others learning how to be happy it becomes easy to change. When people realize that simply the act of focusing on a higher state of consciousness (if this sounds too spacey, read step 11) can change the world, daily meditation becomes something to look forward to. The thought that changing me will change the world puts a whole new slant on working a program.
So, for this New Year, let’s change the world.
John
What if you could prevent a crime? What if you could save a live? What if you could prevent racism, sexism or any other type of ism? What if you could change the world? Would you invest a little of your time and energy into making that change come about?
Social scientists agree that most of interpersonal communication happens through body language, facial expression and voice quality. Essentially our disposition and feelings leak and impact our interactions with others. A meditation project in Washington, DC is credited with reducing violence by 23% over a 6 week period June and July of 1993. It seems that having a large group of Transcendental Meditation practitioners quietly focusing their positive energy is enough to change a community’s behavior.
So, what does all this have to do with recovery? What if working a program resulted in us “leaking” positivity onto others which caused them to respond with healthier communication? What if the time we spent in meditation really did change the behavior of people we would never meet or interact with? And what if there was actual science to back up these suppositions?
One of the key facets of my work deals with motivation. Most of those I see have multiple experiences with recovery not working and often have little in the way of long term success in this area. In this circumstance my goal is to place a picture in the person’s mind of the consequences of change. When people understand that dealing with their resentments results in others learning how to be happy it becomes easy to change. When people realize that simply the act of focusing on a higher state of consciousness (if this sounds too spacey, read step 11) can change the world, daily meditation becomes something to look forward to. The thought that changing me will change the world puts a whole new slant on working a program.
So, for this New Year, let’s change the world.
John
RSS Feed