Dear Friends!

I am so happy to have found Steemit! A platform that can help harness the power of community to provide support to people accross the globe to make a difference, to share their wisdom & generosity and to provide us all with a view of the world that is not manipulated by multi-national organisations with an agenda.

Creating a Culture of Openness and Vulnerability

Even the media platforms that Steemit will replace (e.g. Facebook), seem to encourage a culture of trying to present ourselves in the best light possible - not sharing our difficulties and pain - like somehow we need to create a commercial advert ourselves as some indestructible infallible human being. My feeling is that Steemit allows us to truly bring our heart into action, to support others in their aspirations, their difficulties and their openness. This culture of embracing our vulnerability as power is sweeping the globe by storm as beautifully shown in the video below by Brene Brown:

Content is Key

The true value of the Internet lies in the content within it. To date large organisations have created a space for us to share our content and have made their BILLIONS by effectively treating our content as theirs. On Steemit we have a chance to own our own content, Steemit belongs to us and the more successful our content, the more we own of Steemit and the more we earn from our content. So it's fair, a content supply system 'For the Many - Not The Few' (as the UK labour party manifesto recently coined!) - furthermore we see the news that we as a global people feel is relevant and important rather than that which the massive news global corporations have a vested interest in showing us!

Releasing Despair, Unlocking Trauma, Empowering Change

NEWS - it's a depressing thing - indulge in it regularly and we'll most likely end up in despair - a dangerous emotion - and collective despair is the worst! But only because global news corporations have decided to show us the worst of what's going on in the world - rather like pornography seems to have veered towards the most extreme forms of sexuality (no judgement on any form of sexuality - just noticing the trend!) - Steemit, on the other hand, has shown us that when we allow news to be curated (voted on) by the people, we get a much more balanced view of the world - the things that are going wrong but also the things that are going right - AND MORE IMPORTANTLY WE GET A CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING TO HELP THOSE THINGS THAT ARE GOING WRONG!

When we watch the news, we have no choice but to sit and experience the trauma with no possibility of helping - psychologically this locks trauma into our bodies as we neither operate 'fight' or 'flight', with Steemit we can do something to help - we can promote that story and help financially and share our feelings about it by a post or comment - WE ARE EMPOWERED! - and because we are able to take real action - our bodies and minds feel better.

Being Part of a Cooperative Community

When I joined Steemit (last week!) - I was so touched to see a post from a guy looking to get support with medical bills for his operation - over $5,000 of support already after half a day of posting - unbelievable! It's not the same as crowdfunding as our resources are not depleted from giving - like the age old story about the magic coin that keeps appearing back the more it is given away!- we earn from supporting - it's a win / win - the more generous and supportive we are to the causes that touch us, the more we earn the community's respect and their well-being. In this system we truly see our inter-connection - our 'interbeing' - we can not win by competing anymore - we win by being co-operative. As the writer Charles Eisentein comments on 'Interbeing":

To me, this seems to be one of the unwritten value of a true Steemian. I highly recommend Charles' book ' The Better World our Hearts Know Is Possible" - something which the Steemit platform could be one of the major drivers over the next decade.

My Story

I have always followed my dreams (who doesn't want to - I'd argue that we all just need to feel there is support for us to do so - like the Steemit Community and Platform!) - as a student I grew Cannabis and wanted to do it as a job so for 10 years my career was Hemp & Cannabis - being one of the pioneers of the worldwide medical marijuana movement and creating companies to grow hemp, sell hemp products etc

At that time (20 years ago) no-one could have believed that this illegal plant would now be so widely available for health, recreation and materials. We can create change and especially if we come together as communities of interest - Steemit can help focus and magnify the power of communities of interest to help enable people to realise their aspirations - it's like the idea of a global wage which frees us from the chains of the consumer capitalist system in order to follow what our hearts tell us (without having to consider the financial implications).

After having children, I realised how much anger and impatience was within me and started looking for help. I found community and the practice of mindfulness (meditation) - through the help of others I have been able to slowly transform the seeds of suffering within me and now help others to do the same - particularly young people (www.youthmindfulness.org) via the practice of mindfulness. If we can realise the incredible power of the heart we can quickly get out of our stressed, frustrated and desperate mind-states (see www.heartmath.com for science and technology to move into the heart).

Listening to Others

So now I am planning to do Listening Circles at colleges, schools, workplaces and on a mobile bus - because if we are truly listened to, we feel connected and accepted - a basic human need! This inspiration arose after taking part in Bearing Witness retreats in Auschwitz Concentration Camp (yes, I still shudder even mentioning this name) and living on the streets with no money (see Zen Peacemaker Order ( http://zenpeacemakers.org/ ) - and as I continue my journey I now know I have a place to share my work and my discoveries and the things I learn from the people I meet and perhaps, more importantly, that I now have a place online (STEEMIT.COM!) where I can also discover and learn online more than I have ever felt possible before.

Images of Bearing Witness Retreat at Auschwitz Camp

Please follow me so that you can see my new posts on the Listening Circle work I will be starting this year!

Steem as a CryptoCurrency and as a Global Movement!

As you may or may not know the market capitalisation of Facebook is currently $432 billion dollars! Just think how many more people will embrace a platform that is their own rather than belongs to the wealthy few, if Steem reaches the market cap for Facebook then we are talking about a 900x increase of the value of Steem - thats $1800 per Steem. I believe it can go atleast this big as we, as a community, take the Internet back into our own hands. I am so happy to be a new member of the Steemit movement !

I'm new here - I need friends - please kindly follow me or upvote me or anything you can do to help move my life onto Steemit!

Love you all, Will