With everything we need to get done through holidays and before the end of the year, it’s easy to lose perspective, isn’t it? We lose ourselves in task lists and often unrealistic expectations of being able to check everything off… on our own terms. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in that that we forget about the big picture; regardless of your personal faith, most people (yes, save a few) become much more tolerant and personable this time of year, if you let the feeling of the season get past the mental anxieties.

The past 2 years have personally provided me with tremendous growth in more ways than I can even share. Without going into a whole monologue about that in itself, let’s just say that through business challenges, personal challenges, and spiritual contemplation, I’ve really found myself. I not only feel my heartbeat and that of the world around me, but now I know that both are connected.

However, I’m still working on ways to change habits that I’ve developed over my lifetime – too much to do, too little time! In all the hustle and bustle – and panic – I’ve had over the past several weeks, I think the Universe decided to give me a good slap in the face, so I’d shake myself out of it, and remember to look around me!

There were two items I came across in the news that startled, irritated, and honestly disgusted me. I came across both in a purely coincidental manner, as a byproduct of research I was doing for completely unrelated topics. As they both “stuck” with me, I’ve reflected on them, and decided they both provided very strong messages:

Lesson 1 : Don’t Always Write Off Conspiracy Theories as a Joke, and Don’t Always Think the Media is Telling the Truth
The other night, I came across a story on the news that was about investigative reporters who in the ’90s had been assigned by FOX News to uncover the dirty secrets about BST in milk (remember, the growth hormone that many dairy producers were injecting into their cattle to increase milk production?). The whole story was told by the three reporters, and about how much they did uncover to basically blow the whistle on the company that provided the product, along with the FDA. In this piece (the one I was watching), they talked about what they did uncover – and it was fairly extensive. Again, without going into a lot of detail, basically the company and the FDA persuaded FOX News to make sure that story never made it on the air. The 3 reporters didn’t care; they felt like it was their integrity on the line to get the story out, but in the end, they were strong-armed out of it… leading to one of the reporters to sue the TV network for forcing her to misrepresent the information. Here’s a surprise: she lost. The explanation of the verdict? I can’t remember the exact language, but basically, it said that it’s up to the network to decide what to broadcast… regardless of whether it’s fact or fiction.

And we think propaganda and media lies are simply from countries where the citizens don’t enjoy the freedoms we do? Remember, (in many cases) we also have the freedom to lie – and so does our media.

Now, being in marketing and communications for 20+ years (in fact, at one point when I was younger, I did want to become a broadcast journalist), you’d think that seeing stuff like that doesn’t surprise me anymore. But it does – because it’s just a wake-up call to be skeptical, and always ask questions, regardless of whether (actually, I guess especially if) it comes from a supposedly “trusted source.” What spoke to me personally in that story is that back in the ’90s, as much of a skeptic as I am, I drank the Kool-Aid on BST. I worked for a huge multinational company, and managed product marketing for a cattle feed supplement that provided dairy cattle with the additional energy they needed when injected with BST… so they wouldn’t waste away to nothing while producing all that extra milk. I had scientists and vets tell me it was OK (of course, they drank the Kool-Aid, too), the BST was harmless, and it wouldn’t have any effect on people… yadda, yadda, yadda. Little did they know!

The lesson: ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS (which is something I’ve taught my children from an early age)!

Moving on…

Lesson 2: It’s Not Groups, Organizations, or Governments That Do Unthinkable Things To Others – It’s People (and It’s Important, Even if They’re Not in Our Neighborhood)
This one was really painful. In fact, I honestly wanted to throw up for a few minutes after I read this – and I wouldn’t even fathom watching the video accompanying the story. I came across it completely by accident – in fact, I was doing some online research for a client in the holistic health community. I’m still reeling.

Backstory: I recently read a series of books my teen daughter was reading (the Alex Rider series); one of the books included a story that talked about Asian mafias that kidnapped people, imprisoned them, and basically kept them alive as long as possible while they harvested an organ or two at a time for incredible profit on the black market. Now, quite honestly, in the books, they made it seem very toned down (of course, the books target early teens) – though the person was kidnapped, in turn for harvesting their organs one at a time until they died, they were kept in a resort-like atmosphere, treated well, etc. I remember thinking, I’m sure it goes on somewhere, but it must’ve been from years ago…

Wrong.

(Beware, this next paragraph is a bit graphic… though I’ll tone it down as much as possible). In this article/coverage I found, the information was originally uncovered by a person who had formerly been a guard at a prison in China…. and I think that this was within the past 10 years. Now, I couldn’t get myself to read through all the fine details, so I don’t know what kind of prison it was – whether it was governmental, or a mafia or other crime society – but here are the basics: He recounted (and apparently later on proved and had others back up the story) when as a guard, there was a woman in her 30s who had been kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, raped,…. you get the point. But in the end, they had their “doctor” come in and basically harvest her organs – which is bad enough – but without anesthesia, without knocking her out, or anything. He described the whole thing in detail, including her screams.

I can’t go any further on this, because it makes me sick, but you get the point. It still really happens. Today.

So my point?

It all comes around to that rosiness I’ve had, that feeling of progression… and that people are getting better as people. At first, I felt like the message I was “sent” was to wake up and smell the coffee! But then, as I ‘ve continued to reflect on both stories more and more, I really think the way to consider them are as examples of how we are getting somewhere, and how we have the opportunity to take it even further.

Look at it this way: Today, the vehicles are available that allow those three reporters to step forward and tell everyone the truth today, worldwide – to remind us of the message that we should think for ourselves more and more, and use our gut instinct – and though I say, “think,” I really mean “feel.” If something doesn’t “feel” right, most often it isn’t. How many times have all the facts lined up about something, and your brain said it was “right,” but there was something that bothered you about that situation, even though you couldn’t put your finger on it? That’s what I mean. With all the communications we see today, it becomes easy to turn off feeling and proceed simply on intellect. But more and more, we need to use both to get to the heart of the matter.

On the other story, maybe it’s a good thing that that guard – who stood by and watched this unspeakable thing happen 10 years ago – stepped forward to tell the story, even if it is today. All I can hold on to is the thought that since they’ve had others come forward to legitimize his story, the same is the truth here as the reporters and the BST – we can all know about it. No matter how many of us are developing and evolving into better people, there are still those out there who are sick, demented, and disgusting – and there are still places where people do these unspeakable things to others. I hope that maybe whatever that situation was, it’s been disbanded by now, but you know there are others out there – heck, think of POW treatment!

Anyway, this is a long story to hopefully get you to consider some really important points:

• There is huge potential of the strength of the Internet and other media and capabilities we have today to make it a smaller world, which can help us to really communicate with each other – person to person, not just media to media or government to government. When we do that properly, it can become easier to see the truth – and harder to hide it indefinitely.

• The power is in the way we are becoming more and more connected – not just to our family, friends, and neighbors, but also to others on the other side of the state, country, ocean, and the globe. Because it’s only when we stop seeing someone as a “them” or “they” – “The people who live over there,” “Those kind of people,” etc. – and start seeing everyone as an “us” and a “we” – that we can really make a difference! Once that happens, we can break down all of the imaginary walls between us – whether it’s geography, governmental philosophy, politics, religion, culture – and simply become unique individuals who all have something to contribute to the whole. With that strength, individual contribution, and unity, we can potentially turn it all around, stop the mistreatment of others, and stop mistreatment of our planet.

It brings to mind the quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet, and peace activist:

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”

I wanted to share this with you, because I wanted to give you something to contemplate over the holiday (if you celebrate it) and while welcoming in the New Year: If we engage ourselves and strengthen our connection to each other – person by person, community by community, city by city, state by state, country by country, continent by continent – until we are all as one, think of all the good we could do! Think about the potential to eliminate the misinformation, the inequities, the power of some held over others by forced ignorance and brainwashing; think about the power of getting rid of that, how much we could fix… and how much we could evolve!

With that, I’ll leave you with my warm wishes for a great New Year, and a wonderful 2010 with tremendous potential. We really can change the world…. think about – I mean feel – it!

So, typical symbolism of a dream, right? True. But it was different – it had that feeling and vividness to it – and when I woke up, even though I was halfway across the country, I just knew there was something wrong. But I had an early meeting, and had to go on with the day. As work travel goes, it was a long day; I called Michele later in the evening, and she didn’t answer her phone. So I left a message, hung up, and just went to sleep.

And had the same dream again, that night.

The next morning, I remember having a little time in my hotel room before I had to go off to any meetings. I waited until the workday started, then called her number. When she didn’t answer, I got truly nervous. Since I’d worked at the company where she worked previously, I still had a lot of friends there, so I started calling other friends at that company to see if she was there. It turned out that that morning, they’d found her ex-boyfriend of 2 years dead in his house. She was devastated.

Anyway, that’s what I mean, about telling dreams. I’ve found that as I get older, they get clearerand clearer, and I tend to understand their meaning a lot more than I used to!

Let’s see, what else? Then there are my “dreams” in different dimensions, but that will be a blog for another day…