Unmasking can be defined as...
to disclose the true character of; expose. v.intr. To remove one's mask. ...
As I move forward through the blogging experience, I strive to continually "check myself". Checking what I am seeking and then choosing to share. I've been asked about including a "boycott list". While on some level a potentially purposeful option to share, I'm concerned about how that might change my focus. Shifting gears to seek companies who lack any evidence of movement toward social responsibility or who can't seem to wrap their minds around an abundance mentality, searching out "offenders" is simply not true to my goal. There's already so much opportunity for negative news... this blog seeks positive information to guide decisions, choices that help grow hope and empowerment. Our purchasing choices do matter, let's seek great options together.
Developing our online gift boutique gives me an extra layer for thought. Choosing our first line was so important. It makes a strong statement about what we believe. Our first line will be dedicated to raising funds and awareness for United Cancer Services. The thoughts and feelings that CANCER evoke are indescribable from terror to rage to hopelessness. I believe that United Cancer Services is an amazing gift available in our community to help individuals and families move toward healing, calling to an empowered fighting spirit, far beyond an anger response.
I believe that United Cancer Services facilitates that movement at it's core and is why we chose it as our first cause to support, it embodies hope and empowerment.
The following excerpt is from the blog below...
http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/805
**While some feel that Eastern teaching can not benefit those of Christian faith, I find that there is power in knowledge.... I intend this blog to be based in compassion, and found this insightful to seek inside ourselves. Unmask our actions, are we being driven by anger? Is it helping us meet your goals?
..."anger can be an unreliable barometer of wrongdoing: Sometimes our wants are frustrated or others disagree with our values or ideas, and we resentfully brand our reaction as something nobler, like moral outrage. On competition, she reminds us that former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who led his teams to more championships than any other coach in college history, never pushed his athletes to win. Instead, he urged them always to give their best effort; winning was the after-effect.
Chodron also thinks that compassion is a far better approach to social action than anger. A compassionate mind looks at a situation more broadly, seeking a solution that's acceptable to everybody.
Michael Nagler, a noted scholar and author on nonviolence, observes that Mahatma Gandhi's effectiveness against the British in India came largely from his ability to convert the raw power of anger into something more creative and positive, like turning heat into light. Gandhi developed the ability, Nagler says, from a pivotal insight he had as a young attorney in South Africa in 1893. While traveling on a train, he was thrown out of a first-class compartment after a European passenger complained about letting a "coolie" travel in the first-class coach. Rather than take the offense personally or direct his rage at the individuals involved, Gandhi decided—after an epic inner battle—to dedicate himself to changing the social conditions that gave rise to the incident.
Gandhi found no problem with feeling anger, only with how it was expressed. That is a crucial distinction that many spiritual practitioners miss. Many people believe anger is "unspiritual," a damaging misconception that leads them to stuff the emotion, trapping it inside themselves, says Cope. Sylvia Boorstein says that those who think their own spiritual practice will erase anger are terribly mistaken: "I'm continually telling people, we don't get to be different people—we have the same neurology and physiology and, actually, the same neuroses all of our lives—but we do get to be wiser about how we put them out in the world."
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