If you’re like me, you’re living another beautiful day or evening as you read this. Your life is full and you feel safe. Because you’re aware of the turmoil and suffering in the world, you do your best to stay awake to your privilege and how fortunate you are. And in the midst of it all, questions arise about how to best respond to the personal and collective challenges.
Because so many of our deepest needs and longings are relational, the best answers to a lot of the most personal questions have to do with building and strengthening relationships and our sense of ease and belonging with other people. And that starts with seeing ourselves and others more clearly.
A lack of relational skills and capacity is also at the root of incivility and divisiveness at the level of local, state, and national politics. This also boils down to the failure to see others and our shared predicament clearly.
And in the international arena — injustice, violence, and suffering originate in the woundedness and traumas that keep individual decision-makers, and groups of them, locked in the illusion of separateness, self-interest, and toxic nationalism. The U.S. is the poster child for this, with most references to “national security” ultimately being about U.S. dominance and protecting corporate interests — not the population at large, not with a long-term view, and not with sincere interest in addressing the root causes of war, conflict, and suffering.
So what does all that point to? I mean that as a real question that you can ponder for yourself, while adding your own nuances.
The Relationship Challenge
For me it points to an urgent need to rise to the relationship challenge. It’s a challenge the universe laid down for me 20 years ago and it took a divorce to make it very personal and immediate. It’s an ongoing challenge and I’ve learned to relish it because the payoffs have been so huge. Primary among those, is the sense that when I lean into relationships rather than disconnecting, stay more conscious and break old habits in the process, I’m contributing something fundamental to healing virtually all of our social ills.
Along those lines, I’m now offering training in five foundations and the mindset that supports the shift to a truly relational and regenerative way of being, and which in turn, are key to navigating the collective challenges ahead and those that are already here.
These are foundations that lead to the kinds of benefits I’ve experienced personally: more self-awareness and self-acceptance, more humility, better listening, more satisfying relationships, more resilience and capacity in the face of conflict, deeper understanding of why people are the way they are and why the world is the way it is, and clarity on meaningful ways to contribute.
This is where nearly 20 years of training and practice and working the theme of Active Peace has led, and I’m happy to be playing my small part in this way! I hope you’ll consider joining me for the upcoming series, Rising to the Relationship Challenge: Foundations for Personal and Collective Healing. Learn more and register here.
Photo credit: Mario Purisic via Unsplash