Today I took an opportunity to share an idea I thought might help contribute to peace. I was listening to NPR while I was working. The Kojo Nnamdi show was on WAMU. They were talking with author and professor, Peter T. Coleman, about Cracking Intractable Conflicts.
I posted a note on their website with an idea that had occurred to me while working in documentary filmmaking years ago. I wondered what would happen if you recorded people during peace negotiations (forget for a minute the obvious confidentiality concerns) and then each night after the negotiations they had to watch footage of themselves during the negotiations. I wondered what impact it would have on people to be able to see and hear themselves from another perspective, perhaps through the eyes and ears of someone else at the table. They might be able to see where they appear angry or appear to be inflexible through their body language, when that was not truly what they meant to communicate. They might be able to hear where their voice sounded aggressive or hostile. It might just help them all to see things a little differently. What if that could help in the peace process?
I didn’t know if they would actually address the question, but they did. The guest seemed to like the idea and thought that it was creative. Whether anyone will actually try the idea or not isn’t important as much as the intention to contribute to a more peaceful world by sharing the idea. That intention was felt by however many listeners there were at that moment for Kojo’s show and felt by those who listen to it online at some future date. You just never know who your ripples of peace might touch or if they will touch anyone at all, but it’s always worth making a little splash. Maybe then our combined intentions will create a great wave of Peace.
Showing posts with label Anchor of Peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anchor of Peace. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 9
I missed a day. I think maybe I didn’t write about yesterday because it’s a little more difficult to write about. It requires a bit more revealing of myself than I would like, but I made a pledge.
I’m a very empathetic person, and that may be an understatement. There are times when it feels as though I can feel other people’s feelings with and for them. There are times when I feel called to allow collective emotions from humanity in general to move through me, sometimes in words, sometimes in tears. I think that allowing, that movement, helps the energies to shift, even a little bit, which I’m grateful to be able to do. Sometimes though it’s very difficult, like when I did the writing about the Holocaust that I posted on this blog a couple years ago. I know it is my practice of peace that now allows me to be able to move through this process as gently as possible. That practice of peace has helped me to know there is a connection to peace within myself which is always present, always accessible. I worked with a visual of it for a long time, an anchor. The anchor was very solidly planted in peace and there is a long and very strong anchor line that connects to my heart. It was a visual reminder for me that helped me return to that place of peace again and again. It helped because it reminded me that I was never disconnected from that peace; there would be times when I couldn’t remember it, couldn’t feel it, but never a time when that anchor wasn’t there. All I had to do was remember the connection and I could begin to feel the peace flow again.
Yesterday was a day when it was difficult to remember my anchor of peace. The emotions and energy that were moving through me were a real challenge to stay disconnected from, they centered on the pain of violence we do to each other. The process is much easier when I remember not to allow the emotions to become my emotions, my energy. Sometimes though the feelings associated with the energy are so intense that it is difficult not to empathize and feel them. That is when I really need the memory of that anchor. Yesterday it took me a while to remember, to feel that peace again, to remember that there is love in the world. Yet, when I did feel it again, I was incredibly grateful for the path of peace I have been traveling, because otherwise it might have taken me much longer to remember.
I’m grateful in another way too. After all, the reason that I made this pledge was because I could feel a shift happening, a shift toward a new way of being in the world, that baby new Earth that I could feel. I suppose it’s no surprise that there might be what feels like turmoil during a transformation like that, and in the midst of that turmoil it is a wonderful thing to remember that I can always return to the memory of Peace and choose to live from there.
I’m a very empathetic person, and that may be an understatement. There are times when it feels as though I can feel other people’s feelings with and for them. There are times when I feel called to allow collective emotions from humanity in general to move through me, sometimes in words, sometimes in tears. I think that allowing, that movement, helps the energies to shift, even a little bit, which I’m grateful to be able to do. Sometimes though it’s very difficult, like when I did the writing about the Holocaust that I posted on this blog a couple years ago. I know it is my practice of peace that now allows me to be able to move through this process as gently as possible. That practice of peace has helped me to know there is a connection to peace within myself which is always present, always accessible. I worked with a visual of it for a long time, an anchor. The anchor was very solidly planted in peace and there is a long and very strong anchor line that connects to my heart. It was a visual reminder for me that helped me return to that place of peace again and again. It helped because it reminded me that I was never disconnected from that peace; there would be times when I couldn’t remember it, couldn’t feel it, but never a time when that anchor wasn’t there. All I had to do was remember the connection and I could begin to feel the peace flow again.
Yesterday was a day when it was difficult to remember my anchor of peace. The emotions and energy that were moving through me were a real challenge to stay disconnected from, they centered on the pain of violence we do to each other. The process is much easier when I remember not to allow the emotions to become my emotions, my energy. Sometimes though the feelings associated with the energy are so intense that it is difficult not to empathize and feel them. That is when I really need the memory of that anchor. Yesterday it took me a while to remember, to feel that peace again, to remember that there is love in the world. Yet, when I did feel it again, I was incredibly grateful for the path of peace I have been traveling, because otherwise it might have taken me much longer to remember.
I’m grateful in another way too. After all, the reason that I made this pledge was because I could feel a shift happening, a shift toward a new way of being in the world, that baby new Earth that I could feel. I suppose it’s no surprise that there might be what feels like turmoil during a transformation like that, and in the midst of that turmoil it is a wonderful thing to remember that I can always return to the memory of Peace and choose to live from there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)