Treat me like a half-person and we'll see how that goes...
Back in the fall of 2003, I was getting tired of being treated like half a person, literally! This is how it all got started. Dealing with an A-type personality was not one of my stronger abilities, as I hadn't learned the fine art of saying NO and enforcing personal boundaries, yet.
I was creating (and maintaining) logos, custom merch designs and a website for a band back when 'drag and drop' was not yet a thing. I taught myself HTML coding and put it to good, creative use. However, I was still in a place where I was unable to stop people from taking advantage of me. I allowed disrespect and an overall mistreatment to continuously go on in my life.
I had no idea how to get off the wheel of this suffering. It seemed like I would endlessly attract people into my life that treated me the same way. I was unable to say it's NOT OK, and that should have signaled there was much more mistreatment to come.
I wasn't ready to accept my own worth completely.
However, looking back I realize now that I needed to experience all of it in order to shock me into action. I needed to be in pain from the way I was treated in order for me to overcome that pain, create something wonderful and discover my worth is more than anybody can ever tell me - and I will never let anyone ever tell me what they think my worth is again.
I needed to learn how to forgive myself properly for allowing anyone else to treat me in those ways.
A little RESPECT, if you don't mind!
Clearly, one can put up with mistreatment (in ANY form) for only so long. In fact, my entire life seems like I've been heading in this direction anyway. You would have thought after two divorces that I would have learned not to accept anything less than being treated fairly and with respect - but I hadn't learn that, yet.
One of my favorite sayings is: lessons are repeated until learned. Well I was stuck on a what seemed like a broken record. I knew which direction I was growing but didn't know how to get out of the mess I always seemed to attract.
Who would have thought that those experiences would have shaped me for today? Looking back is always a 20/20 view. Perhaps it's not 20/20 vision for me looking back, but it's appreciation for agreeing to go through this experience in the first place and more importantly, waking up and integrating the lessons after they have been learned.
Take FULL responsibility for everything in your life
I agreed to experience all if it in order to become who I am now... and I love who I am! I'm here to share my experiences of learning the hard way; and how it does get easier when you shine the light IN on yourself - instead of always looking on the outside for all the reasons why something happened to you.
You need those experiences to grow - every single person here on this planet. I will write another article about all that so as to not digress from the story of how TEACH PEACE came to be...
Learning unconditional forgiveness for mySELF
I did forgive myself and made the decision that this experience would just have to be my launch pad. How would this look? I had no clue but I had to create something of my own; something nobody could ever take away from me (unless I chose to give it away)... something I knew would be my way of living authentically and honoring my mission here on earth, on Gaia.
Teach Peace Gets Life
I opened my own custom printing Cafepress store and called it CyberPeaceStore on March 27, 2004. I featured products with 'Teach Peace' and 'Support World Peace' as my main message. I also created the original, blue Support World Peace ribbon. You can still view my original store HERE
The mass consciousness was mostly supporting troops (and the war) at that time and I needed to completely disengage. I had gone on a peace march down in DC after the 911 events and in direct opposition to the battle cry of "they're hiding weapons of mass destruction". I never bought into all that and felt the misdirection should be more obvious to most people. Sadly, it was not.
Sadly, people were in need to react from fear and experience more war - however there was a growing number of people who simply did not believe the packaged story bought and sold to the public masses. This was to be my audience.
This was my purpose, part of my mission!
Items from my store sold in every state and even Hollywood scooped up one of my Teach Peace bumper stickers for a movie called Tenure. I signed release forms and everything! Here's a picture and a link to the same bumper sticker in the movie (our best selling one).
The statements I would make on March 27, 2004 when I first opened my Cyber Peace Store was in direct opposition to the message under the yellow 'Support our Troops' ribbons that were in mass production and seen everywhere.
Yellow ribbons became synonymous with supporting our President and supporting the war HE wanted and the propaganda machine was in full swing. I wasn't against 'supporting our troops' but rather, the message under it. I absolutely did NOT support George W Busch and his agenda (and that of his father). "Either you're with us or against us!"
I decided to take a stand (against them) and that's why I created the original blue, Support World Peace ribbons and the Teach Peace message that went along with it.
Healing Through Inspiration
I became obsessed for a little while so I could get everything up and running and I poured my anger of the previous mistreatment from the band and what I perceived as total lack of respect and support, into this new project transmuting the negative energy into something positive.
Forgiveness is sometimes a very long process when it goes deep. I slowly healed and I eventually realized how all those experiences helped shape who I am now. These experiences had cut me very deep.
Earlier I said that I am truly grateful for these experiences of mistreatment and this is because it has enabled me to, not only become the person I am now, but it has also served as a 'timeline trigger' (or an alarm) to wake up more and set my course straight for fair and just treatment for all humans regardless of their gender, race or any other definition/label that seems to separate individuals.
What Goes Around, Comes Around
What is done to me, is done to everyone. What I do to you, I do to everyone. I choose to forgive and empower myself and you!
We are truly empowered when we are united and these experience have brought to light the darkness that I still had to clean out within myself. Whether or not I am here to clean out my own dark, or to be the vessel to transmute darkness into light from others as well, matters not - because the circle goes around fueled on the power of peace, love and light - and we ALL embody all of that.
Many years ago, Teach Peace was born from an overload of pain, as a need for forgiveness and as an idea for a new campaign in the form of a message to spread everywhere and FOR everyone... looks like that message got out and continues to build momentum. And so it is <3
Here's the link to the original store CLICK HERE
