In this week’s episode, Kristi Nelson speaks to us about her personal experiences and insights about money and social change; the powerful currency of gratefulness; a deep sense of receiving and true community, gratefulness as a key to happiness and justice. Where is is our real wealth as people; what really nourishes our lives and feeds the earth our true home: gratefulness as the reverence generator; the ongoing Indiegogo campaign “Grow, Grow, Gratefulness” as a call for grateful action.
Kristi has spent virtually her entire adult life immersed in the rewarding work of non-profit leadership, fundraising, and organizational development. In a wide variety of roles, she has helped to lead, support and develop organizations committed to progressive social and spiritual change.
In 2001, Kristi started a values-based consulting and leadership coaching practice, and in this capacity, she worked with organizations such as the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Spirit in Action, Wisdom 2.0, and The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, among others. During this same period, she was also the founding Executive Director of the Soul of Money Institute with Lynne Twist, Director of Development at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, and Director of Development and Community Relations for the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society.
Before 2001, Kristi spent five years as the Executive Director of a regional women’s foundation where she led a successful $5 million endowment campaign, developed empowerment programs for women and girls, and oversaw a community-based grantmaking program. She now also feels tremendous good fortune to be working with her incredible colleagues from around the world at A Network for Grateful Living.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/grow-grow-gratefulness
”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik
http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html
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For me, what awakens the openness to receptivity is the understanding that we ALL – mySelf included – “Children of God”. All too often, unbeknownst to us, our efforts to “help others” are rooted in images within ourselves of self hatred and dislike, and we (secretly) believe that if we can successfully give to other people, that we will somehow succeed in repairing our relationship to ourselves. But that is putting the cart before the horse – until we truly know what it means to love ourselves AS Children of God, perfect, whole, and complete, exactly as we are in every single moment of time unto Eternity, nothing we give to others can have any real or lasting value. Gratitude, like Love, like Truth, like Trust, is either Absolute, or it is not at all. We cannot be grateful for part of the creation and know the Whole. Gratitude is due to formless Being, not to any ephemeral form. To say we are grateful for this, but not for that, is simply self hatred expressed in a somewhat more palatable form; egotistical judgement that is constantly changing. The bottom line is Knowledge of Self: if I know mSelf AS the Ocean, then I can recognize that any and all waves are made of the same salt water and honor and respect them as part of myself; no matter how any one wave is “behaving” at any given time. The vision is internal. Gratitude is never allowing any thing to pull my Consciousness away from the Awareness of the Unity of the Ocean, Thank you for you!