just be it It’s about the work involved in establishing a dedicated practice to feelings of a bigger belonging through practices aimed at increasing feelings of compassion, gratitude and forgiveness

Mission Statement

Published on 07/06/09
by randy

Just Be It, Inc., is an organization dedicated to participation in the healing of the planet through increased awareness to the power of “presence in the moment” and happiness as consequence for recognition of the gift of “belonging”.   All ‘practice’ comes from awareness to life’s affirmation with each breath in, followed with ‘thank you’ and consequent joy for each breath out.

Just Be It, Inc., functions from a perspective of nourishing the body, mind, and spirit to greater potential performance in participatory action to a more peaceful planet.  Upon ‘arrival’ to the moment, in gratitude for the opportunity to participate, Just Be It, Inc., points actions beyond notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, in recognition to the divine wisdom located within the hearts of all creatures, in recognition to the “non-duality” of the universe.

Current Project Focuses

A. Mindfulness Retreat Center: In recognition of the need for ‘space’ to nourish oneself to renewed freshness and clarity, Just Be It Retreats provide programs of practice aimed at more mindful living.  Through scheduled daily periods of mindful breathing, walking, meditation, eating, writing, speech and listening, and body sport activity, participants ‘stretch’ into deeper levels of life action aimed primarily to those activities the heart draws one to.  The participant’s decision to ‘make space’ for listening to the heart with clear intention to nourish the body, mind and spirit contributes to more sound life intention and solid direction in where one’s attention must go.  While these retreats deal with ‘spirit’, they are nonsectarian and they serve to deepen one’s understanding of any particular religious background.

B. Horns For Healing: In recognition that our response to this gift of ‘belonging’ must aim toward global peace, Horns For Peace is dedicated to ‘sounding the horn’ daily with intention to ‘conflict resolution’ and our full ‘arrival’ to peace.  In a time of increasing violence, where it’s more difficult to hear the dove’s cry, we come to recognize the need for increased volume in our ‘pleas to peace’.  Horns for Peace will contribute a conch shell to those classes willing to commit to ‘sounding the horn for peace’ each day.  Particularly in times of apparent growing conflict, we must hold our optimism by ‘seeing peace’.  This is best done through ‘toning’ since the more delicate sounds of the dove and bell seem to be lost in ever increasing distraction.  The ‘volume’ aiming to peace must be turned up if we’re to evolve from our adolescent methods to solving conflict.

C. Teaching “Thank You” As Source of Happiness:  Just Be It, Inc., will work to further understanding of the power of gratitude in one’s arrival to personal peace and happiness.  Currently, there is no apparent research directed to the importance of teaching children the use of ‘thank you’ as a source of ‘their’ happiness. The use of ‘thank you’ beyond mere etiquette function carries great power to heal the planet.  Educational programs will be created and research in this area will be supported to clearly show the improved sense of well-being found through an attitude of gratitude.

D. Consulting:  Success in life and business is becoming increasingly more dependent upon finding peace in these times of accelerating change.  Randy Johnson is available for consulting and speaking engagements for all organizations looking to increase awareness to ‘quality’ performance.  Johnson has directed speech and language clinics in the Canada and the US, taught Interpersonal Communication at Valparaiso University, and successfully founded and headed up one of the largest boardsports companies in the country, now in existence for more than twenty years.  Johnson’s main area of interest is in conflict resolution, creating genuine customer and employee loyalty through gratitude, and enhanced performance through mindfulness training.

E. Educational Materials and Events:  Just Be It, Inc., is dedicated to the acquisition and assembly of insight wisdom harvested from music, writing and speech.  In a time where it seems too few take the time to pause in reflection to ‘what works’, Just Be It, Inc., will aim to contribute to the collection and preservation of these insights for continued movement to humanity’s nourishment to peace.

F. Just Be It Apparel: Throughout the course of history we’ve used clothing to demonstrate our interests and ‘level of knowing’.  Those following a lifetime of spiritual pursuit wear a particular dress that tells others of their ‘practice’, whether it’s a monk’s robe or a nun’s way of dress.  Practitioners of the martial arts communicate their level of skill through the color of their belt.  The purpose of ‘Just Be It’ apparel is to serve as a means to communicate this mutual level of deep knowing in a particular area of interest.  It’s a way for one human being to communicate to another that their depth of knowing within this particular area has resulted in experiences beyond boundaries, experiences that have touched the divine.  It’s an invitation to others within this ‘community of mutual interest’ to initiate dialogue.   It’s a statement to others of our commitment to ‘heart’s pull’ within this area of intention and attention where understanding grows deeper day by day.  It’s clothing that designates deep commitment and discipline, in honor to a particular area of interest.

G. A Study of Language. How we ‘language’ our world determines our approach to life.  Do we language through love or fear, connection or separation?  How do we language our notions of time and space?  Do we language to close learning with answers or deepen our knowledge through pushing the question further?  After journaling for many years, Johnson discovered a key language element that facilitated ‘presence’.  Much of the writing could be condensed down to three words…just be it.  If we could just connect the authority of our heart with our ‘doing’ we could align with our true nature.  Johnson hopes to ‘deepen’ the Nike ‘Just Do It’ campaign to an ‘awakening to our doing’ in peace with the divine authority of the heart.  Moving from the separation caused through language of the head brain to connection of all through the heart brain, we stand in ‘wonder’ at the level of performance.  At this level, outside the boundaries created through language, we find the space to ‘touch the rhythm and harmony of the universe’ like never before.  The combination of Johnson’s study of language, sport and music with the practice of Zen Buddhism has given him a keen insight to the thoughts we continually allow to impact our living.  Johnson is currently assembling years of writing in his upcoming book entitled Just Be It…Waking Up to What We Do.

H. Circle Process.  Johnson has collaborated with several approaches to the ancient format of circle process.  Intrigued with the dialog process and deeper listening, this format of moving from shallow to deeper conversation has provided a safe container to explore a greater awareness of topics of interest.  While the conversational agreements may vary a little, they generally involve the following elements as laid out by Conversational Cafe (www.conversationcafe.org)

Open-mindedness: listen to and respect all points of view

Acceptance: suspend judgment as best you can

Curiosity: seek to understand rather than persuade

Discovery: question old assumptions, look for new insights

Sincerity: speak for yourself about what has personal heart and meaning

Brevity: go for honesty and depth, but don’t go on and on

I. Health Care Freedom.  The old paradigm of ‘disease care’ simply doesn’t seem to work anymore.  A true ‘health care’ system will place the majority of its resource on working the population to healthy living.  This necessarily requires a dedicated ‘practice’ aiming to honor body/mind/spirit in the ‘wonder’ of all that goes right.  Johnson sees this ‘health care’ provided to all and looks forward to the day that we can reduce the billions of dollars spent during the last months of one’s life in exchange to educating one another to the benefits of mindful living.  Johnson believes this move to mindful living can occur when we truly accept the fact that we are only temporarily housed in these bodies rather than functioning from actions of harm to a body we ‘deceive ourselves into believing will last forever’.  This project works to strengthen the power of integrative medicine, education to the power of regular exercise, mindful consumption, meditation and community participation.  Having faced a terminal illness with his son and serious health deterioration with his father, Johnson is available to listen to others who may be facing these difficult experiences as they, too, travel into a land of deeper questions.

J. The Blues as Language to Peace. A truth of life is the knowledge that once we receive we ‘know’ the loss of what’s been given is inevitable since nothing is permanent.  On the flip side, those who’ve experienced these losses discover their healing through eventually finding the gift in what has changed. Etta James has capsulated life into ‘Life, Love and the Blues’, capturing blues as a language that helps us move from the pain of lost love.  Otis Spann has referred to the Blues, as ‘a doctor’ that sometimes heals, sometimes doesn’t, but its aim is to help one move through the pain of life.  For over thirty years Randy Johnson has developed his taste, appreciation and expression of the Blues through trumpet, vocals and harmonica and is always ready to participate in the party this great musical form creates as performer and audience meet as one in the glory of the human condition. The Blues is a very deep language of the heart that processes us through the deepest of wounds. Affiliated in Minnesota with the blues band, Ride, Johnson also performs solo for special occasions, from weddings and anniversaries, to funerals.

K. Multimedia Presentation. While nothing is permanent, do you really want to risk losing the photo images you now have on paper?  Randy’s father frequently reviewed a DVD that’s compiled a lifetime of photos.  While a rare form of dementia robbed his father of recent memory, the images of days gone by helped him maintain an appreciation of his full life spectrum.  Simply assemble the photos and video clips you’d like digitized in a movie format and Johnson can create a DVD you can share with friends and family.  During the recent series of natural disasters one of the more painful experiences was watching families crying over destroyed photo albums.  Whether for a special family gathering, a relative suffering memory loss, transferring your photos to a web page for all to see, or just the security of capturing your images before they fade on paper, digitizing makes sense.

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