Family book club. Our family is reading together these days, sometimes in pairs or threes and sometimes as a whole. One of the most profound books all of us have read this year is Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. One of the concepts he explores are the three modalities of consciousness; acceptance, enjoyment and enthusiasm. If you are not inside one of these modalities, you will find you are creating suffering for yourself and others. The first of these concepts is one which I have been working to at least witness in myself. When ever I find my stomach in a knot, or my mood growing cloudy because something isn’t going the way I had planned, I try to recognize that I am resisting in some way the circumstances I am in. I am trying to learn that while I can’t control my circumstances, I can at least detach myself from my expectations. It’s truly shifted the way I see the world around me. I can bring peace by performing an action in a state of acceptance, and the peace of that surrender turns into a sense of aliveness. It’s as if the veil of my displeasure is removed and suddenly the world around me is beautiful again. Joy does not come from what you do but rather joy is about being in the present moment not resisting anything but accepting what IS. I’m a true beginner at this new practice of acceptance, but those moments when the veil is lifted, and I suddenly find peace, effect not just me but anyone who I am in contact with in that moment. In the acceptance I can find enjoyment and sometimes even enthusiasm. That small shift in consciousness is my way of Being the Change I want to see in the world. My butterfly effect. #butterflybtc