The Hero Within…

by MarBeth Dunn | Apr 14, 2012 | Uncategorized

I was especially touched by my special guest on this Sunday’s Joy Strategies radio show.  Cassandra Perkins is a bright, happy fifteen year old high school freshman with a mighty presence and poise far beyond her years.  You wouldn’t know by meeting her that just a few short years ago, she was so victimized by bullying, that she retreated from public education to be schooled at

Cassandra Perkins

home.  But the bullying didn’t stop there.  It pursued her over the internet, where she was cyber-bullied by her old classmates.  The once strong, confident girl became contracted and dark.  She felt powerless against the barrage of viciousness.  Many young teens would have given up at that point, and retreated into victim hood, but  Cassandra Perkins had an epiphany.  She realized she could forgive the girls who had originally bullied her and go back to school.  She contacted the girl who had cornered her in the locker room and told her she forgave her.  Cassi took control of the situation, faced her fears and came back exponentially stronger.

Cassi understood that her experience was a huge gift, an opportunity for growth that she could share with others.  “Without this experience, I would not be the person I am today,” says Cassi.   Today, Cassandra Perkins is a spokesmodel for BYOU (Be Your Own You).  She works closely with girls her own age and younger to instill self confidence and self appreciation.

Cassandra Perkins works closely with several non-profit organizations that coordinate community youth outreach, suicide prevention, and cyber safety awareness, and has co-authored several books . She has recently been nominated 2012 as “Woman of the Year” candidate for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and she needs your help to win.  Please join her in supporting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society be making a donation to her fundraising campaign. Every dollar she raises counts as one vote and the candidate who gets the most votes is named as the Man or Woman of the year for her chapter.  Click here to donate for this worthy cause: http://t.co/DQ829Njw

We all suffer adversity and often feel we have no way out.  We can feel small, contracted and diminished by circumstances, yet, we always have options how we can face them. Cassandra Perkins chose to use adversity as an opportunity to grow into her grandest, most magnificent Self.  She could have stayed small, victimized, and unhappy, afraid to be authentic.  Many people do.  Yet Cassi chose another way.

Albert Einstein said, “we can’t solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.” By forgiving the people who had threatened her, Cassie shifted her perception, and realized that the girls who bullied her were projecting on her the hurt, and victimization they were unable to deal with in themselves.  She understood, and with understanding comes compassion.

When we realize that we are bigger than our fears, we can expand into our bigger Selves and become beacons for others in similar situations.  Thank you Cassi for being a beacon to others, and an example of who we can be when we face our darkest fears.

Listen to Joy Strategies Radio Sunday night to hear my interview with Cassandra Perkins:  http://bit.ly/IAUNXm

Be my facebook friend: https://www.facebook.com/marbethdunn

Miracles of forgiveness…

by MarBeth Dunn | Apr 1, 2012 | Uncategorized

Shawne Duperon

My focus this week is on forgiveness.  My special guest tonight on Joy Strategies radio, 6 time EMMY award winner, Shawne Duperon, is producing a movie called “Project Forgive”,(www.projectforgive.com) inspired by her friend Gary Weinstein, who found peace through forgiving the drunken driver who killed his wife and two sons, his whole family.  In fact, Gary Weinstein has reached out to Wellinger, asked to speak to his children, to help them heal.  Stories like Gary’s are inspirational.  They give us hope by showing us another way, a path of grace through the unforgivable.

Gary’s story brought to mind something I read last year about a woman, Mary Johnson, who forgave Oshea Israel, the man who killed her only son.  When you look at their picture, Mary and Oshea could be mother and son, yet he is the man who shot her son, Laramiun Lamont Byrd, multiple times and left him  outside North Memorial Hospital in 1993.

Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel

Mary Johnson lived with bitterness and hatred for over ten years said, “He was an animal to me and I felt he was where he needed to be.  He needed to be caged.”

Yet today, Johnson said, “He’s like my son.” They’re now raising funds for a support group Johnson founded called From Death to Life,and are working together to promote healing between families of victims and perpetrators.

This miracle of forgiveness occurred 5 years ago, when Johnson went to visit Israel in prison, because, she said, God nudged her. She said, “That was one of the most profound events of my life.  It was life-changing.”

She said the visit brought her to her knees.  She said, “When I stood up, I began to  feel something in my feet.  And it just began to move all the way up my body and it just went and I knew, I knew that all the anger, all the hatred, all the animosity I had for him, I knew it was over with.  It was gone.”

Johnson and Israel hope to bring other families of violence together for forgiveness.  They also dream of  building a grief center in north Minneapolis.

These stories put our “stuff” into perspective, don’t they?  If people can find peace through forgiving the very people who killed their only children, can’t we find it in our hearts to forgive those who have hurt us or offended us in other ways?  Forgiveness is not about the offender.  It’s a gift for us, a way to create miracles of peace and joy.  We can release the anger, hatred, pain and the bitterness.  Sometimes it takes a little willingness to see things differently, for by releasing the other person, we are releasing ourselves.

Click here to listen to my interview April 1, 2012 with Shawne Duperon on Joy Strategies Radio!

Life as a Movie

by MarBeth Dunn | Mar 24, 2012 | Uncategorized

Tonight I saw a  light-hearted, yet philosophical. movie about inner truth, forgiveness and authenticity.   In A Thousand Words, Eddie Murphy plays a glib, superficial book agent, whose life becomes inexplicably entwined with a mysterious tree that appears full grown in his yard.  When Murphy realizes that the tree loses a leaf for every word he speaks or writes, he stops talking, aware that when the final leaf falls, he and the tree will die.  Murphy learns to communicate from his heart, on a deeper level, and is finally freed by forgiveness.

If life is a movie, I want my movie to be happy and joyful!  What about you?  If your inner thoughts are creating your reality, projecting your story on your very own big screen, everyone of the 70,000, plus or minus thoughts you are thinking on  a daily basis has relevance.  What if you could always live in a place of pure awareness, and just notice your thoughts, without judging or suppressing them?  What if you could automatically observe your thoughts with neutrality without engaging in any drama they might generate? Life could only get better, right?

But isn’t it nigh on impossible to notice every one of your 70,000 thoughts?  And, if you could, wouldn’t you be so focused on your thoughts, life would pass you by?  That’s where your feelings and emotions come into play.  Your feelings and emotions are as correlated with your thoughts, as the tree in the Eddie Murphy movie was with him.  They can serve as indicators when your thoughts are disrupting your peace.  Anything that occurs in your life is an event.  How you react to it is a result of your thoughts.  If an event occurs and you feel angry, it’s not the event that is creating the anger.  The event is neutral.  It’s your thoughts about the it that are disturbing your peace.  For example, you might be standing in line when someone brushes in front of you without a word.  Do you feel angry, belligerent, victimized, or do you just shrug it off philosophically?  It’s your thoughts that govern your reaction.

So what to do when you’re reacting to a situation?  Choose different thoughts.  Take a deep breath (or three) and remind yourself that any event in itself is neutral.  Suspend your judgment.  How you think about it is your choice.  You have the opportunity every moment to choose another way of seeing it!  Look at the situation from your heart (not your head) and ask, “How can I see this in a different way?”  Listen for the answer.  It may not come immediately.  You may hear it in a song on a radio, read it in a book, or in words someone says.  Your openness to see it differently will create a space for a shift in perception to occur.  The end result:  more peace and joy!

Holidays Got You Down?

by MarBeth Dunn | Nov 25, 2011 | Uncategorized

How to survive and thrive this season

Do you dread the holidays? The time of year filled with laughter, joy and lots of good food can be tortuous to those who have experienced loss. Memories well up, followed by sadness, depression, anger and emptiness.  Being around lighthearted celebration  can be excruciating.  I’ve lost loved ones, and I know how sad the holidays can be without them.  Yet I have learned to view things from a grander perspective, and in that process I have grown and blossomed.  I know things can shift for you, as well!  Let this year be different.  Don’t be victimized your thoughts and emotions.  You are a powerful being who can make a different choice!

1. Recognize that you are bigger than any thoughts or feelings you are experiencing.

When you are feeling grief or sadness, don’t resist the feeling. Allow yourself to feel it. Where does it show up in your body? Does it make you feel contracted, small or diminished?  Acknowledge it.   Notice how it makes you feel, but don’t judge it in any way.  In this way, you move away from emotionality into a state of neutrality.  You begin to recognize that you are not the emotion.   Now declare, “I am bigger than this!”  Remember a time when you felt happy and joyful.  Expand into the sense of love, joy and well being and feel the feeling.

2. Realize that everything you experience is an opportunity for personal growth.

The feeling of hopelessness comes from being trapped in the illusion that you can’t change your circumstances.  What if you realized that everything occurring to you is part of your specific curriculum in the school of life?  No one said school was easy!  Rather than getting caught up in a cycle of counterproductive thoughts and emotions, look at the situation more objectively, and wonder out loud, “What can I learn from this?”or “How can I handle this differently?”

3. Remember that you have a choice, every instant, to see things differently.

Nothing is set in stone.  As your thoughts and perceptions begin to change, your life will shift accordingly.  When you realize that people show up in your life as your teachers and students, and that your time with them is a gift, the appropriate response is love, appreciation and gratitude for your time together!  I believe that we are surrounded by unseen helpers in the form of Spirit, angels and guides.  Ask them to help you see things from a different perspective, and notice how your perceptions expand and shift.  In fact, the very realization that you have a choice in how you view your circumstances creates a space for thoughts and feelings to shift.

4.  Give of yourself this holiday season

Give of yourself this holiday season and notice how giving makes you feel.  Since giving and receiving are the same, when you give from a place of love and service, you will receive in kind.   Just try it and notice what shows up in your life.

I would love to hear from you.  Please let me know how these strategies work for you!

With love and blessings,