Sacred Silence

April 2003

Last month was a good month in many respects. My coaching practice is growing, thanks to your many kind referrals, and my being out in the community to meet professionals who are challenged and excited by their career paths. I feel strong and healthy, and am able to work hard and play hard. My two sons were home for Spring Break and we spent some good (albeit too brief) time together. I decided to participate in two new groups, one spiritual group and one coaches’ book group, which will stretch me in those areas.

Yet March was also a month that saw this country enter into war, a fact that is deeply disturbing to me. I have struggled to deal with this war on many levels: political, emotional, physical, and spiritual. I have wept for the loss of life on both sides. I wonder what it will take for us, as human beings, to change from living in fear and blame to living in love and forgiveness. Slowly I’m coming to how I can contribute to that change in a small yet significant way.

The first step, for me, seems to be getting quiet and surrendering my mind to God. Marianne Williamson writes in Everyday Grace, “As difficult as it can be to find genuine inner calm, it is the key to creating peace in the world as we know it. The world will not change until we do, and there is nothing the world can deliver to us that will give us the peace we crave. Peace comes not from the world, but from God..When enough of us learn how to become deeply, profoundly quiet, then the hysteria of the world will begin to subside.”

Starting my day with quiet helps me to see the world from an entirely different viewpoint, that of love. Fewer problems seem to come up; when difficult things do arise, I am better equipped to handle them from a place of calm and serenity. When I take the time before every coaching call and meeting to just be quiet, and open my heart and mind, I approach my work with an entirely different energy. This month, I have set aside two days to just be quiet, to go to that place of holiness within my own heart, and to regain my center.

I believe that our world will not change until we change our hearts. Being quiet in a world full of noise and violence is a way to begin this change. It is my hope that as I discipline my mind, and free my heart, our work will also in turn benefit from me approaching our time together from a new, deeper, and more peaceful place.

Sharon
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