12 Habits Zoom Parties 2024
Through May 2024 on the Third Monday of each month, we held a “12 Habits Zoom Party” on the Zoom video conferencing platform in collaboration with our partners at Humanity’s Team, with a special guest to go deeper with that month’s habit, and give all our peer partners a chance to share stories and ideas, ask questions, and meet others in our intentional practice community.
These have been absolutely fabulous and mind-widening conversations, if you'd like to get plugged into the fun, and get access to our current monthly project, Masterminding Peace-in-Action Online Circles, become a peer partner and Join the 12 Habits Community! and help us all be the change together … one month at a time.
2024 Archive
January 2024 – Lend a Hand with Rosie Greip and Elaine Parke
Rosie Griep, Community Organizer and Certified Crime Prevention Specialist and Elaine Parke, Author and Social Change Pioneer, were our co-hosts exploring Masterminding Oneness and Lend a Hand. We explored what it takes to promote Oneness through the Mastermind process, through examples in the real world, and how coming together as communities, either in the virtual or actual world to generate ideas, support, share successes, and shore up weaknessess. They outlined any number of ways to bring the 12 Habits into our lives and Communities and make the world around us shinier!
We invited our guests and anyone interested to join us in our new series of Online meetings of a Masterminding Peace Virtual Circle, meeting on Zoom the 1st Mondays of each month, starting in February 2024. It's a standing invitation - Join us!
February 2023 – You Count with Dr Melvin Steals
We had an absolutely delghtful Conversation with Educator and Songwriter Dr. Melvin Steals, the first principal of the first school to use the 12 Habits 4 All of Us to improve their school, and the Writer of “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love” by The Spinners.
Dr. Steals is a lifelong gifted educator at transforming the lives of at risk youth. In 1999, he implemented the first 12 Habits of Caring and Unity program in one of the most violent and worst performing middle schools in Pennsylvania.
Two years later, the school earned the $5,000 PA State Violence-FREE ward from then Governor, Tom Ridge. Successful outcomes included students commenting that, “I am now nice to the people I used to be mean to.” Dr. Steals will shared the story of his work inspiring success and unity among students and in neighborhoods, most in need of successful personal empowerment and good relationship abilities.
Special Bonus! - Melvin “Lyric” Steals performing “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love” that he and his brother Mervin “Mystro” Steals co-wrote originally recorded by the Spinners. “Go Doc” At the Pittsburgh All City Star Band Festival, 2018. Our gratitude to Adreana Richardson Steals for the use of this delightful footage.
March 2024 – Resolve Conflicts with Steve Bhaerman standing in for Fidel Moreno
Our Own Steve Bhearman with the 12 Habits Team filled in for Fidel Moreno. Steve dusted off his Political Science degree – although he admits he never actually got to dissect a politician in poly sci lab – to take on the complexities of conflict resolution in a manner that avoids the pitfalls of confrontation, in our language, our approach, and to grasp context and big picture considerations. As the Swami remarked, “March is a time to get off the battlefield, to forgive, to release our attachment to grudges and live like nomads. That is where I nomad at you and you nomad at me, and that way we have no madness on the planet. And to help, I offer a mantra guaranteed to end all arguments. Ready? Ready? You are at it. right and so am I. Remember there are no sides only angles and when you look at it from the right angle we are all on the same side.” We had a very dynamic and enlightening conversation. Just one of the many insights – “Have conversations, not confrontations.”
Our planned special guest Fidel Moreno of Red Nations Rising was unable to attend due to a sudden Family Emergency hours before the event. We hope to have him back soon and the group extended our prayers and best wishes to him and his family.
April 2024 – Take Care of Our Environment with Sami Arron
We had a brilliant evening with our very special guest, environmental activist Sami Aaron, founder of The Resilient Activist, sharing her empathic, wide-ranging, and sometimes outside the box wisdom for caring for our planet in a time of turmoil and tenacious global capitalism. She gave us reasons to get resilient, and not give up!
Of particular interest, she shared with us Five Essentials for a Resilient World - simple concepts to help you understand, make decisions, and take action in ways that benefit humans, non-humans, and our planet’s ecosystems. You should definitively check out the principles here.
One of the evening’s highlights was a short video, “I must return the gift” by Phoebe Lynn Pinkner, inspired by the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants,” which we also very highly recommend. Robin writes, “Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
A parting thought as we contemplate our place in the vast, but finite world - a call for the re-imaginging of the destructive excesses of extractive global capitalism. “Infinite growth is not sustainable within a finite system.”
If you missed April’s Zoom Party, check out the replay. It's really worth your time. As always, far more great conversation than we could possibly summarize here!
May 2024 – Be Grateful - Grattitude Reunion Finale
The last of our 12 Habits Zoom Party series was a Gratitude Reunion special event featuring many of our past presenters from the series to date. We caught up with Susan Campbell, Antonia Albano, Misa Hopkins, Kurt Griffith, the Swami, and more. We had a wonderful time exploring the many ways of gratitude and how it uplifts each and every one of us.
“The more we appreciate what we have, the more what we have will appreciate. Now, of course, in our society, we are told we must pursue happiness as something out there. And as you look at some of those unhappy people pursuing happiness, you go, wow, they must have run right past it!”
– Swami Beyondananda
