5 Steps to Increase the Peace at Home

We all have moments when we feel overwhelmed, when we can feel that fuse get suddenly short, when we feel like hitting someone, or even screaming at someone.  These are some simple steps to remember in those moments that can help us avoid saying or doing something harmful to another person.

1. Schedule a Moment of Stillness

Sometime during the first hour of each day, find a few minutes to simply sit and be still.  This will allow you to access the place of peace deep within you, your true nature.  You can begin by practicing five minutes each morning and let the time increase with your appetite for more.

 It helps to sit in the same place and at the same time, and to create an altar with a few objects or photos of meaning to you, and with a votive candle to light.

 The peace you establish at the beginning of each day has a way of carrying and sustaining you throughout the day.

 2.  Keep Company with the Words of       Peacemakers

We all need inspiration and models to go by.  Read a few words each day from the writings of peacemakers.  And when you find a quote you love, carry it with you or memorize it.  Check out:

 “Creating True Peace,” by Thich Nhat Hanh:  “We can stop the war where it begins, in our minds.”

“Peace Is The Way,” by Deepak Chopra: “Although humankind, explicitly or implicitly, seems to believe that violence is more powerful than love, this is the same as saying that death is more powerful than life.”

“Practicing Peace in Times of War,” by Pema Chodron: “As long as we justify our own hard-heartedness and our own self-righteousness, joy and peace will always elude us.”

“Testimony,” by Daniel Berrigan: “You are not helpless, you are not objects of fate, you are not dead.  Your despair is to your shame.”

 3. Take up Gestures of Solidarity

Personal peace is hard to come by knowing that the comfort we enjoy today is often paid for by the debilitating want of others.  We can begin to address our complicity through modest acts of solidarity.  Be creative:

•   Buy a cheaper car and donate the difference to a promising student who cannot go to college without a caring sponsor.

• Send a book or two each month to an elementary school in a third-world country.

• Fast one meal each week in solidarity with those billions of people who hunger each day.

• Wear a black arm band one day a week to express your grief for political prisoners held and tortured in countries throughout the world.  Know the names and life story of a few of these prisoners.

• “Live simply in order that others may simply live.”  (Gandhi)

4. Pursue Forgiveness

The lack of forgiveness toward those who have injured us, imprisons us and does not help them to change.  There is no peace without forgiveness.  The steps to forgiveness are simple, but hard to muster.  They need not be hurried:

•   Place yourself in the other person’s shoes.  Begin to understand their reality, their woundedness, their salvageable humanity.  See that they are so much more than that which injured you.

• Hold the offending person with gentle thoughts.  Imagine their healing.  Wish them well.

• Send or say to the offending person a word of honest forgiveness, and ask their forgiveness.  Your vulnerability is your gift.  Require nothing in return.   

 
5. Practice Intimacy with Those Closest to You

The enjoyment of peace each day is dependent upon the health of our relationships with those with whom we live and share our life.  Too often we feel at odds with those whom we say we love.  Silences grow.  Spontaneity diminishes.  Routine prevails.  And Joy escapes.

In order to avoid this diminishment, we must practice intimacy.  This means seeking, in things large and small, to always do the more perfect thing.  To forgo the easy, expected criticism.  To apologize first.  To be quick to pour the last of the wine in the other’s cup.  At the end of a tiring day, to run the other’s errand.   

It also means giving one another space and alone-time.  And, it means creating time together.  Such as,

• Practicing yoga or meditation or devotions together in the morning.

• Holding hands for a minute or two in silence before parting for the day’s activities.

• Sending surprise postcards expressing love, congratulations, or to share a quote.

• Taking a class or learning a new skill together.

• Establishing a family meeting to review the week and air gripes and gratitudes.

• Choosing a book to read out-loud together.

• Keeping in mind psychologist John Bradshaw’s question: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be loving?”

Meditations to Practice Anywhere

The most important element of meditation is mindfulness—that is, paying attention to the present moment.  Particularly in industrialized nations, people are constantly projecting their attention on their schedules, on preparing for the next task, on just about anything except where they actually are… here and now.  Knowing this, we can practice meditation simply by bring our full attention to whatever it is we’re doing.  Washing dishes, for example, can be a beautiful form of meditation, as can playing with your children—this last one is a personal favorite.  Any kind of mundane chore, which we might usually treat as something that takes away from our existence—even scrubbing toilets!—can be transformed into a powerful tool for living peacefully simply by thinking of it as a practice of mindfulness.