Blog Archives | Rohini Ross - Part 45
 

Blog Archives

Love Trumps Hate!

I just got back from the LA Women's March. What an adventure! It started with the best laid plans going awry. I was traveling to downtown LA with my youngest daughter, our neighbors, who are good friends, husband and wife and their daughter, and another of my daughter's friends. We thought we were smart in deciding to take the end of the line North Hollywood Metro to Pershing Square. The difficulty finding parking should have given me a warning to how crowded the Metro would be. When we got the station the crowd was enormous.   We managed to descend the staircase...

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Let the Example of Martin Luther King Jr. Point Us in the Direction of Love and Justice

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.   Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day in the United States. It is a holiday that commemorates Dr. King's life and work. He lead a movement for racial justice and equality, and embraced nonviolent action as a powerful revolutionary force for social change. He employed Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence as the means to confront racist laws and discrimination in America. His work made a significant contribution to President Lyndon Johnson signing into law the historic Civil Rights...

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History Lessons From My Father and the One Solution for World Peace

My father was born in Jaffna, Ceylon in 1939. Ceylon was under British rule at the time and did not become Sri Lanka until 1972. While on vacation in Sri Lanka over the winter break, I asked my father about the civil war in his homeland and whether or not he thought the issues between the Tamils and the Sri Lankan government have been resolved. Sadly my father was not hopeful.   Over the course of our trip, my father shared an abridged version of his understanding of Sri Lankan history with me and his own story. It was on beautiful beaches,...

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Wishing you a 2017 (or whatever number you label it) filled with love and blessings!

One of the items I had the most resistance to leaving behind while on holiday in Sri Lanka was my computer. Now as I write this, by hand, I am having resistance to getting back on it. It is a refreshing reminder of how habits can change, and how malleable we are as humans. I went from feeling like my world would end with out having access to my computer, to relishing the last moments of my vacation before opening it up again.   I can also feel the clunkiness of getting back into my writing groove. Although jet lag may be playing...

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Taking the Easy Road: No Thinking, Just Doing

It has been a busy week in the Ross household. Our daughters have their final exams, and we are feeling the impact as a family. However, for the most part, moods are good. We are all looking forward to going to Sri Lanka for the winter break. We are meeting my dad, my step-mom, and my brother there. As many of you know, I did not grow up with my father. This will be an opportunity for us to connect in his homeland, deepen my understanding of my heritage, and share this with my family. I look forward to being in...

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Relationship Rescue: Don’t Take Your Arguments Seriously

When I am upset, the whole world looks different. Before, I would react to my perceptions and try and fix things from a place of disturbance. If my relationship looked like a problem, I would work on that. This usually resulted in fireworks and not of the sexual kind. If work was looking like a challenge, I would consume myself with trying to figure it out. This left me feeling stressed, discouraged, and hopeless, as I would mentally wear myself out from the unproductive spinning of my negative thoughts.   In the past, I have been overly focused on the shifting experience...

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I Stand with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Their Allies — Do You?

This post is a different style than my typical blogs. It has been described by an early, anonymous reader (who I happened to be married to) as boring and too factual. The criticism was there wasn't enough heart in it. I have made some edits based on the feedback, and, for me, my heart is behind the facts. I care deeply about the right to sovereignty of the Native Americans. I care deeply about the safety of the drinking water of the Missouri River, and I care deeply about the ravages of the fossil fuel industry on this planet. My heart...

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Relax! Your Personality is Just a Thin Slice of Who You Are

It is such an easy trap to fall into, thinking our upset comes from outside of us. I have done it and still do it at times. It is easy to buy into the illusion that we feel our circumstances and not our thinking. Our emotions flood our experience so quickly it is hard to see the role thought plays in creating our reality.   Just this week I got really flustered when a video conference link wasn't working. I couldn't get into the meeting room to join the group I was supposed to be facilitating. When it was happening, it felt...

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