To help inspire the Bloggers for Peace (B4Peace), we will have a Monthly Peace Challenge. To participate, tag your post with B4Peace and make sure you copy your URL to the Linkz collection. Anyone who completes all twelve Monthly Peace Challenges in 2014 will receive a Free B4Peace T-shirt. Yes, I’ve decided to offer the second annual Bloggers for Peace T-shirt as a prize. I envision a day when we will all gather for a Bloggers for Peace Conference donning our various Bloggers for Peace T-shirts.
For the first Monthly Peace Challenge of 2014, I first thought about resolutions, but resolutions are usually destined to fail and make us feel bad about ourselves. So I’ve simplified the challenge. What one thought will you focus on this year to bring more peace?
Neuroscience tells us that “neurons that fire together wire together” which means that we actually change our brains by what we think. Changing our brains changes our thoughts, behaviors, habits, and destinies.
Decades before fMRI brain scans, Gandhi said,
“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.”
So I’m just asking you to post one thought that you will focus on this year. Call it a mantra, a resolution, a pebble in the pond of your consciousness that will send out ripples of peace throughout the year.
You can use these websites to pretty up your thought:
For example, my thought for the year is:
“Abide” is a word that I am focusing on in meditation. It means:
- To remain in a place
- To continue to be sure or firm; endure
- To dwell or sojourn
- To put up with; tolerate
- To wait patiently for: “I will abide the coming of my lord” Tennyson
- To withstand
“Abide as the Stream” is a term Dr. Rick Hanson gifted me with in his essay Eddies in the Stream. In his essay, Dr. Hanson explores the intersection of neuroscience, quantum physics, and enlightenment. To abide as the stream means to sit in the field of infinite potential, “fertile noise,” or “quantum foam.”
When I am able to “abide as the stream” during meditation, I feel an overwhelming sense of connection with all beings that I can only describe as love. So my thought for the year is to “abide as the stream of love.” I want to spend as much time as possible realizing this thought. What thought do you want to realize this year?
Don’t forget to link to at least one other B4Peace post and add your post to the Linkz collection. Here is how:
- Copy your URL to the Linkz collection. You’ll find the link below. It’s the drunk blue frog smiling for peace. Click on it and follow directions.
- Go visit this site to read and comment on other posts related to this Monthly Peace Challenge.
Thank you for spreading the peace. {{{hugs}}} Kozo
everyday gurus 
Fantastic post Kozo! Wonderfully inspiring and it has me thinking that just as “neurons that fire together wire together” so too do all of us dreamers, meditating and taking action for peace bring it into reality. These are exciting times indeed!
Your word ‘Abide’ is excellent for deep contemplation. I look forward to reading more posts about it in the future, as your year progresses. My word is Now, and I have been developing a greater calm and a deeper happiness simply from focusing on remaining aware of this present moment.
I’m so glad to have seen your post right away so I can send my warm and loving Hello’s your way! “Hi!” (big happy waves). Love and peace, Gina
Love the idea of NOW, Gina. I’ve been trying to pop all thought balloons that deal with past or future while meditating. Funny how we always scurry to the future or dwell in the past rather than abide in the NOW. I also love the idea of us dreamers changing the neuronetworks of the world for peace. Love and {{{hugs}}} to you, my dear friend. Kozo
Good for you – the article by Rick Hansen was amazing. Thanks
If you liked the article, you might want to check out this interview I did with Rick about the topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhbWj45e5kU
Thanks for reading. {{{Hugs}}} kozo
Awesome! I didn’t know you had a youtube channel Kozo! You never cease to surprise me. I’ll check this out as soon as I finish my “towel-folding” meditation (it’s exactly what you think it is 🙂 )
It all seems to centre around the idea of magic for me at the moment. This may change during the course of the year, but the mechanics of the creation of reality, of the world I live in, plays a lot in the psyche these days. So my thought is “it’s all magic”. And when I really connect with that I recognize of course that the magic arises from love. ❤ ❤ ❤
xoxoxox
Weewww, Alison, that is the sound of my mind blowing. Love that, “it’s all magic” that arises from love. YES. Reality is here to re-mind us of this simple fact. Here’s to a year full of magic and love. {{{hugs}}} Kozo
Is there such thing as coincidence? I just posted something that answers to your challenge, it is just missing me to clarify what “one thought” my focus is on (if I can) so off I go to edit 🙂 Can’t wait to read Dr.Hanson’s essay. Thank you for your on-going effort, as always, peace 🙂
Yay, PWP. You already have 1 peace challenge done. One twelfth of a t-shirt coming your way. 🙂 Can’t wait to read it. {{{hugs]}} Kozo
I guess I do huh? Awesome! Well, as i said, being part of it is my reward, there’s nothing more rewarding like giving and getting back from a group of people that aim for something you are too. 🙂
[…] to answer to Kozo’s first Monthly Peace Challenge of 2014: What one thought will you focus on this year to bring more […]
[…] To learn more about and to participate in these challenges for peace click on any of the above links or here. […]
I love this idea, “I envision a day when we will all gather for a Bloggers for Peace Conference donning our various Bloggers for Peace T-shirts.” that would be great!!!!! and your mantra is awesome, my friend!!! The description of “…a pebble in the pond of your consciousness…” are deeply moving words.
So glad you have continued this challenge this year, I wasn’t well enough to join in last year!
I love your suggestion for January! it is completely true! it’s how I transformed my life. By ‘acting as if’, by pretending to be the person I wanted to be, I learned to overcome my anxiety and codependency, in addition to many other problems I had, including crippling depression.
I will try and write a post about how I would like to continue to grow over the next year…. But I have to sit & think about that for a while 🙂
Thanks for sharing your powerful story, Barbara. Hope you are feeling better in 2014. Love how you transformed your life by envisioning the person you wanted to be. I think we can do the same thing for the world we would like to live in. Let’s give it a try in 2014. {{{Hugs}}} Kozo
Change begins with me 🙂
I’m composing my post…… Will link back when I complete it xx
I am remembering a hymn that a friend used to sing, “Abide With Me.” If I remember correctly, the hymn has many verses and is centered around asking God to “abide” with us throughout our lives, no matter what. As you so wisely note, to abide seems to connect us with all. Your description of what occurs in meditation is similar to what I have experienced, and I agree, abide is a lovely word for it. Interesting challenge this month.
Karen
I’ve never heard of that hymn, K. Listening to it now on youtube. Lovely. “Change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changes not, abide in me.” Almost sounds Buddhist. Thank you so much for sharing. {{{hugs}}} Kozo
[…] Monthly Peace Challenge: The Neuroscience of Peace. […]
[…] this is actually a Monthly Peace Challenge, but I know myself well enough to know that lack of diligence will get in the way so I will post […]
[…] Monthly Peace Challenge: The Neuroscience of Peace […]
[…] forget, though, to check out Kozo over at everydaygurus.com. Join the B4Peace movement and become a thread in the tapestry of his creation. Plus, if you stay […]
I think my whole blog (well one of them) is a blog for peace lol. I am so excited to have found you. I just finished my post for this challenge but I schedule my posts so it won’t go up till the 30th (had to move some things around lol). I think what you are doing here is amazing and all the bloggers involved are amazing. Just wanted to say thank you.
Welcome aboard, Tracy. Can’t wait to read your posts for peace. {{{hugs]}} kozo
[…] quote from Everyday Gurus: The Neuroscience of Peace by Kozo […]
[…] Have you seen Kozo’s new Bloggers for Peace Challenge? […]
[…] January Peace Challenge: Neuroscience of Peace […]
[…] blog post inspired by Bloggers for Peace while reading another bloggers […]
[…] of Rara’s stretching exercises and the Bloggers for Peace challenge for the month, I started thinking more about this theme for 2014. I tossed around other concepts/words that I […]
[…] You can find more details on that here and here. Today, in respect for my good friend Kozo’s Monthly Peace Challenge, I’d like to keep it simple. He suggested I pretty this thought up a bit so I decided to […]
[…] post is in answer to January’s Monthly Peace Challenge, over at Everyday Gurus. I’m coming in a little late with this one, but hey, better late than never, […]