It's Time to Breathe and Serve

In 2004, I was a facilitator at the Parliament of World Religions Conference in Montserrat, Spain. During the sessions, people began to share some of their painful life experiences and we all felt a collective stress. A stress that seemed to stop progress.

As I stood up to speak, I invited everyone to recognize what we were each feeling. Immediately, people realized that we were all experiencing the same thing and this common understanding instantly created a new feeling of peace in the room. I challenged everyone to consider one commitment they could make to serve the community assembly. It was a "collective breath" that enabled us to shift our focus from ourselves towards others and we were able to move forward. Afterwards, the graphic artist that recorded the session showed me how she captured my presentation (see the image above).

Now, it seems as though a global stress has stopped progress. We all struggle with our own real challenges and we hope that we can survive the economic crisis. The problem: We think we are all alone -- that somehow, we must go through all of this by ourselves. This isolation and stress combines to stop our progress.

May I suggest that it is time to take a collective breath? More importantly, if we are to get back on track, we must start to think how we can be of service to others and realize we are all in this together. What can you do to get things going again? Who can you serve today?