The importance of peace of mind became obvious to me during the years I spent working with dysfunctional families, involving all sorts of conflict and violence against people and property. The unhappiness and angst in these relationships motivated me to find a starting point that anyone could use to help people gain peace of mind; one that would fit in with any religion. Studying people in conflict made me aware that peace of mind doesn’t mean being free of problems and conflicts because these are just part of life’s journey. So at first it didn’t seem like rocket science; all anyone needs is the knowledge and the skills to handle whatever happens. However, life is never that simple. Knowledge and skills are reasonably easy to pick up but everyone is different so the problem is ‘what knowledge and what skills will be right for every person?’

All journeys have a starting point and a destination, with a road between the two. All adults already have a great deal of experience in dealing with problems and conflict and the ability to learn more along the way. That is for the starting point for the rest of our journey. Happiness is the goal that we all seek, although some people may refer to it as ‘peace of mind’ or ‘having a sense of security.’ To complete the plan we need to choose a path to the destination and pack a compass to keep us on track when we can’t see our way forward.

Fortunately, nature has installed a belief deep within all of us that will take us to that destination but since we have freedom of choice, it’s up to us whether we go that way. The compass that comes with that choice will show us the way through, over, or around problems and conflicts, and help us to avoid creating new obstacles. However, it only works if we practice using the many tools that come with it. ‘The equality of all people’ is the name of the road to peace of mind, and ‘nonviolence’ is the name of the compass that keeps us on the road, or shows us the way back to the road if we wander off it.

I began consciously using the tools of nonviolence as an honorary probation officer, and managing a youth centre, where many opportunities arose to help angry youths and adults resolve disputes. But the big test came as the supervisor of a non-government residential facility for teenagers who, for various reasons, were labelled ‘homeless’ and/or ‘uncontrollable.’ The young people in our care constantly tested and questioned society’s values, beliefs and rules, and for what seemed like a long, stressful time I went along with the general community’s expectation that the staff of the facility should control these young people. The reality was that it was often a ‘them and us’ power struggle that no one really won, partly because we represented the social system that had failed to meet the needs of the residents, and then put the blame on them.

Anyone who looks back can probably see a pattern in their life but I believe the experience of working with the residents, the parents of residents, and the staff of the facility strengthened a subconscious belief I already held that ‘the equality of all people’ is the base for resolving relationship problems. The equality of people is what I now try to ground my thinking in, because I can see how it has strengthened and guided me through some stressful times. I can also see how much strife I got into, and how much strife I caused, when I failed to act in accordance with that belief.

Most people intuitively know we are all equal, and this is why being made feel inferior is so stressful.  The intuitive sense of equality persists in spite of the huge differences in wealth, power, abilities, knowledge and health between people in the social systems we created, and that we may well pass on to our children.

We don’t usually think of people as being part of nature, probably because we inherited age-old beliefs and traditions that portray us as constantly fighting against nature. In recent years our awareness of climate change, and the threat it poses for life on earth, makes it obvious that we need to cooperate with nature if we and the planet are to survive. As part of nature, humans are subject to the natural law but, over time, we came to believe we are superior to all creation and set up social systems to control and exploit the earth to meet our needs. However, to nature we are still all of equal value. The rain falls on everyone and the sun shines on everyone. A tsunami sweeps rich and poor from the beach, and an earthquake takes no notice of a person’s social status. Nature doesn’t make one person more important than another, people developed social systems, so it was people who decided:

• who is important and who isn’t;
• what is important and what isn’t;
• who has power over others;
• and how people should behave.

Accepting that people are part of nature leads to the thought that, If I were in harmony with nature, I would not only be in harmony with the environment and other people, I would be in harmony with me, and to be in harmony with oneself is to have peace of mind. Fortunately for us, peace of mind doesn’t only come when our relationships are equal. If it did, we would probably never have peace of mind, or peace would be a fleeting experience, because of all the inequalities, disputes and conflicts in daily life. We can have peace of mind amongst all of that by actively responding to inequalities, disputes and conflicts in a nonviolent way. And as we persist in experimenting with creative ways to use the tools of nonviolence, we are already in harmony with nature. The magic of our compass is that equality, nonviolence and peace of mind are names attached to the many faces of the same thing.  

Although we live in a violent world, most of us believe we are nonviolent and seldom experience violence. When asked to give examples of violence, most people refer to the physical harm caused by bashings, guns, knives and bottles but the great majority of violence between people in everyday life is emotional violence, delivered personally or increasingly via cyberspace: hurtful rumours, putdowns, insults, and the like. The effects of emotional violence can be devastating and has resulted in suicide.

One definition of violence is: ‘any verbal, nonverbal, emotional or physical behaviour that dominates, divides, diminishes or destroys ourselves, or others’ (From Violence to Wholeness). All these behaviours harm or weaken relationships, so a shorter definition of violence is ‘any behaviour that harms or weakens relationships.’

Violence can also be just part of a system, such as family, community or nation, if the rules favour one person or group of people at the expense of others. An example of systemic violence in a wealthy economy such as ours would be when the laws ensure that certain groups of people will remain in poverty.

  Competition, domination and inequality.

Most problem relationships, even in families, are affected by one of two things, either competition or domination. A conflict does not become harmful until either competition or domination creeps into it. Both of these cause inequality by putting distance between people. Our culture puts great pressure on us to follow scripts involving competition and domination every day of our life. The urge comes from within us but is made ‘normal’ by:

·         the fear of losing face or being judged as ‘not good enough;’

·         clever advertisers getting us to judge ourselves by our possessions; and

·         the level of competition and violence in our entertainment and socialising.

The pressure from the influence of competition affects how we respond to differences with our loved ones as well as with those we don’t like. Competition is present when we feel a need to win, or to at least save face, and makes it difficult to sort out differences without getting into a harmful conflict or giving in.

 It’s natural to want to achieve. However, what we try to achieve and how we measure success can cause problems. Unfortunately, ‘the need to achieve what I am capable of achieving,’ has become ‘the need to win’ which means to be better than other people. Competition is now so much a part of our culture that it is regarded as part of human nature. Winning has become the main goal in so many things, boosted by the wide-spread belief in the myth that competition is necessary for advancement, development or progress. For people who shun competition and simply give in, life can be very difficult.

Competition is one way but there are other ways that non-competitive people can learn about. Cooperative achievement is one alternative to competition, consensus and a method inspired by Gandhi called truth-seeking are also available. Open Space Technology is yet another alternative. Alternatives like these have been around for a long time and work very well but are not widely taught. However, if we are to solve the problems and conflicts unique to this century, the alternatives to our adversarial ways need to become part of the culture our children and grandchildren live by.

That’s why parenting is an important part of discussions about conflict resolution. It’s said that the only certainties in life are taxes and death, but there are two more.

• Family life is where we mainly learn how to resolve conflict because healthy conflict occurs in all families.
• Healthy conflict can become destructive when we follow the urge to win, or the urge to dominate (control or punish).