It’s Important to Know You Can Choose Peaceful Relationships

Make peace a reality in your experience

Phil and Iris. Photo credit: Maude Mayes

Hi, Phil and Maude here. This is a topic that we haven’t written about before, so we’re very pleased to present it today. We’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings in the comments.

MAUDE: In our post last week, we wrote about the struggles we have all been going through in the tense situation before this country’s election, the raging wars in the world, climate change, and the overall uncertainty and anxiety caused by all this and so much more. We suggested ways to balance this by creating peace through your deep and intimate relationships.

We received feedback clearly indicating that many people could identify with this description of tension and struggle from their own lives. Many people believe that conflict is inevitable. This is not surprising given the state of the world and the apparent divisions between people. It is our experience that when people are presented with stories of hardship, tragedy and difficulty, they often respond with recognition and a propensity to give them their full interest and attention. There is a willingness to discuss them at length and dwell on these negative challenges.

When faced with the suggestion of experiencing peace within their relationships, and how this has the power to change things, a different response is evoked. This is often met with “Well, that’s all la-di-dah”, or “Nice for you, but not all of us are so lucky!”.

These very different ways to relate to the world are not surprising. The response to threat and danger is a survival skill we all have in our genetic makeup. It was necessary to be alert to so many dangers and to always keep them in the forefront of the mind. We are still doing that.

Peace on the other hand, is just a concept or a word to many people. It has not yet become an experience, a visceral reality. It has the element of fantasy to some, or something that is far off and distant to others.

And it will remain so if you do not make it a part of how you live and conduct your deep relationships. Phil and I know that this is possible, and what we want to share is that there is a choice to be made. There is nothing wrong with feeling bad, but when you are consciously or unconsciously attracted and prone to dwelling in negativity, that is a choice. You can choose peace, you can create peace in your own life. There are many aspects to how, and those are the topics of our posts. The real deciding factor is to make the choice to move in that direction, realize you can, and keep choosing it each time you are confronted with a decision.

The real magic is that the pleasure and delight that peace offers is so attractive, that each time you act in peace, you will move closer to choosing it the next time.

PHIL: It is hard to make this choice for a peaceful relationship because of the commonly held belief that relationships are work; that different people want different things, and therefore conflict is inevitable. With such a widely held attitude, it’s hard to accept that relationships can be any other way, but they do exist. Do you know anyone like that? A grandparent? A therapist? A friend?

So here’s the first thing: you have to believe it is possible, but once you know there is a single relationship suffused with peace, it becomes a choice: which way do you want your relationships to be? And if you want a peaceful relationship, you do that by simply not going there: not creating friction, not responding to friction. Of course it takes effort at first; it’s easier to follow the ruts that have been established than change course.

It’s not a question of ignoring reality. What we think of as real is largely how we interpret events—the term is constructed reality. The idea that people in general are inevitably in competition because they have different interests is a Darwinian view of life that appears everywhere in our culture. Heist movies, the stock market, on sale while supplies last; they all push the idea of neediness. There is little emphasis on the way that humans help and support each other, yet it is the way we work together and care for each other that makes society possible. We supply each other with both material and emotional welfare.

The same attitudes turn up in relationships, too. You have to drop that subconscious feeling of scarcity and replace it with a feeling of connection. Your relationships are miniature societies that thrive on sharing and caring. The more you experience this, the more you know it is possible and the more desirable it becomes, until you would have it no other way.

Reading Corner

Here are some articles on different aspects of the choice for peace.

Reality as a Social Construct “Just as socialization is mostly determined by the world and culture around us, our perception of the world is also influenced by external forces. Consider your own society, for example. A society describes a group of people who live in a defined geographical area, interact with one another, and share a common culture. How do you think your society was “constructed”? Who decided upon the appropriate social norms and behaviors that shape your reality and experience? Sociologists understand that reality is socially constructed, meaning that people shape their experiences through social interaction.”

The Secret to Peaceful Relationships “So here is the dilemma: We develop an expectation about someone else’s future behavior; then, if the expectation isn’t met, we experience an emotional reaction. The way out of this dilemma is to get in touch with one of life’s big questions, which is, “What do you really want?” Do you want to set yourself up to experience internal stress and bring struggle into your relationships – or do you want to feel a sense of internal – and interpersonal – ease and well-being?”

Cultivating peaceful relationships “…The above examples relate to peace as an end goal, as something to achieve. There is, however, another context for understanding the term peace. This context refers to a personal inner orientation that shapes our relationships and actions. Within such a context peace is experienced as the inner freedom to live and act in our world in accord with a value of nonviolence.”