Happy New Year!

In the beginning of the year, it is customary to set our intentions for the coming months and send around our best wishes. In international relations, experts and practitioners either report on achievements in the past year or publish their forecast for the new year. The year of 2015 will be remembered as yet another challenging year, while 2016 seems just as daunting with old geopolitical realities resurfacing. Looking ahead, 2017 will be even more complex, we are told, with an array of developing conflicts coming into sharper focus. Is this the world we are preparing to hand over to our children?

In addition, as humans, when faced with difficulties and deprivation, we tend to pull back. We isolate ourselves, shutting others out, and turn into self-preservation mode. We hoard ideas and energy, keeping to ourselves, thinking that we will be safer and richer, when in reality we deprive the world and make ourselves poorer in the process. Yet, we all have the capacity to change the world in small ways, which can snowball into major transformation. Conversely, negative thoughts and energy will also travel, snowballing into group movement and resulting in significant destruction, sometimes paving the way for positive change down the road. The point is that change in the world will only come from individual ideas and actions intended as transformative. Even better, whatever may come our way should be met with positive intent. Intentions are contagious. They have a ripple effect; they spread and expand well beyond their original purpose.

We often doubt that we can make a difference in a world of over seven billion people. Perhaps more importantly, we are not usually open to anything that comes our way and certainly not well disposed when what we hear from the news is, for the most part, horrific reporting—whether it is about the refugee crisis or terrorism. This is usually met with a sense of tremendous heartbreak, anger at the insanity, or worse – total indifference, given how horrible stories have become the “new normal.” To be real, the world seems in a terrible state, and who on earth would embrace whatever comes with love and kindness to intend genuine transformation…

There is an interesting body of literature that describes the world we see, the atrocities, the weather patterns, which seems so destructive, as a world deconstructing an old pattern of behavior – an outside world unraveling – while a new internal way of being is pointing to the emergence of a new world yet to come. The unravelling will create enough space on the outside for the new, generated by individuals shining brightly on the inside to fill that space.

Here is a thought to start the year! After all, new beginnings seem to start in January when people review their intentions for the year, when so many of us are heading for the same goal. Let us be swept up into the energy of change! Each and every one of us carries within us the capacity to change the world.

Where to find peace?

In today’s world, one is hard pressed to find a stable and peaceful place. Christians preparing for Christmas may be longing for peace and wondering, but people of all faith and origins aspire to a peaceful place they can call home, where their heart can expand and embrace others. Nature may be one of the very few places left where we can experience peace. Maybe the world is increasingly denying us places to find serenity so that we search elsewhere, looking inward rather than outward. For those of us who always seek a peaceful environment to find our balance, or those who devoted their careers to work towards peace in the world, the time has come to plant the seed of peace within ourselves.

Cultivating peace within, devoting time and attention to grow a state of mental calm and serenity will become increasingly important to face the troubled world around us, and to generate the kind of peace that will make a difference internationally. The anxiety created by environmental challenges, terrorist attacks, and human suffering all around will only be effectively addressed by individual attempts to cultivate serenity within. We rarely allow ourselves to feel the anxiety and acknowledge that we have the possibility to set aside our worries and centre ourselves to experience calm and peace inside, to cultivate within the beauty of nature and what we have sought from the world. It is time to give.

What we have to give the world lies in our positive thinking and creative powers. Thinking positively certainly has the power to change our circumstances and achieve our desires. It turns challenges into opportunities, intentions into reality, and it is contagious. It is not ignoring difficulties and obstacles but it is transformative – beyond the negative. Not only is it able to generate results, but it also creates a positive environment, a good mood, and harmonious relations. Positive thinking will project outward the calm and serenity found within. It has to become the predominant mind set for each and every one of us to change the way we look at the world collectively and ultimately transform the world itself.

This is a time to birth anew.

The world belongs to surfers

The world is in turmoil, making waves up high, crashing bottom low. Riding the waves is the name of the game: alert, standing in the present with our eyes cast on the next wave, going with the flow, offering no resistance. The flow may take us to a place in the world where we would rather not be. Fear would affect our balance and prevent us from negotiating the next move. Resistance may be tempting given the direction and size of the wave we see the world taking, but there is only one way—forward.

There is also time for stillness, being alert, centred, and awake to the next move with full intent.

The world is dynamic and fast changing, and resisting will get us bounced, pulled under by its weight. In resisting we lose control over our destiny. Staying still, in the balance, riding the low point with no fear of reaching low bottom is the only way to ride and catch the next wave with its full energy. Waste no effort in resisting the flow; we need the energy to move forward.

A new wave of terrorism is taking us to a place in the world where we would rather not be. It is very tempting to react in opposition to recent attacks, given their magnitude and the direction this is taking. However, practicing stillness rather than resisting the wave may be the best way to act—standing still to leap forward, staying above water to ultimately catch the next move, trusting life flow to take us where we need to go.

Trusting life flow is not about inaction. It is about seizing the right moment to move forward with minimal effort, carried by the energy of the wave. We have a hard time being in stillness given the history of mankind, essentially embedded in struggle, control, instead of trust and collaboration with the universe.

To be sure, struggle and control of our environment has served humanity well by protecting ourselves and allowing us to survive and grow as a civilization. There is, however, a limit always to how much we can control. To create anew we need to align with the universe and let go of the old rather than resist. This requires trust. It is not the blind trust that everything will be fine. It comes from the full awareness that it can go well, but it can also go badly. This trust stems from the understanding that we cannot take the next wave alone, needing the energy of the next wave – the guiding hand of the universe – to carry us forward. This is a creative partnership with the universe whereby we rely on its force to propel us forward, while it responds to our thoughts and intentions.

Past events and present experiences

Events from the past can have a profound impact on the way we experience the present. It is not only what we have learned from the past, but also the emotional imprint from past events that resurfaces, at times unexpectedly. I recall the first time I returned to Moscow following my expulsion from Russia, as a diplomat, for professional reasons unrelated to my own doing. I had kept good memories from my time in the country and many friends, and I was happy to be able to return and reconnect with a place and a culture which still resonated deeply within. Stepping back on familiar territory, however, I was quickly overwhelmed by a feeling of tension and heaviness. The only explanation seemed to be a body reaction to a stimulus based on what had happened when I left Russia several years ago. I was paralyzed, as if my fears and anxiety at the time had been left on the sidewalk and, as I was walking the familiar streets of the city, they were coming back to haunt me.

A fleeting moment of clarity popped up between the stimulus and the physical and emotional reaction, with flashbacks helping me consciously observe what was happening and acknowledge the power of past events. By identifying the intensity of my reactions and staying with this uncomfortable feeling for a while, I came to understand the importance of replacing that experience by a more positive one to be able to overcome the reaction.

Modifying our reactions by changing our thoughts may prove challenging and perhaps not the best way forward. Simply identifying the process is already powerful, paving the way for greater consciousness. Understanding the reasons behind such reaction is yet another step towards diffusing the negative charge. We actually create boundaries and develop defences to protect ourselves, just like trees need their protective bark. We need the boundaries and defences so that the more vulnerable parts of ourselves can safely heal and grow. There comes a point, however, when boundaries and defences are no longer needed, and can even prevent further growth.

The time had come for me to shed the fear and heaviness in order to soften and loosen up to eventually grow to the next rings and expand boundaries. I hoped to eventually perhaps become a bigger person, having outlived the usefulness of such defences. The timing is different for everyone, and there is nothing wrong or right in questioning boundaries, just like honouring the protective barriers we put in place to allow for growth remains essential. There is a time and space for everything.

As I look at the tensions in Western-Russian relations, I am always mindful that it is a matter of time and space. I had the privilege of knowing periods of growth and periods of constraint in this dynamic, but I often wonder whether the decision point (time and space) is a function of quantity when more people feel it is time to shed the boundaries and defences; or whether it is a function of quality – consciousness—with the right alignment of forces at play.