In the midst of all the pain, sadness, and despair going around these days I’ve been working hard at creating a specific remedy—a healing process that can be made available to any community interested in transforming conflict into real peace and justice.
I call it the Community Healing Circle Process and it’s grounded in the principles and practices of restorative justice, Nonviolent Communication and present moment awareness (mindfulness) techniques. It is a heart-centered process designed to bring out the best in people, while also keeping it uncompromisingly honest and real. It can be used to address any kind of social or environmental harm.
I see this as the “best available technology” for making peace at the community-level. I imagine people stepping up to say enough of the violence and injustice and enough of approaches to addressing violence and injustice that SIMPLY DON’T WORK—that don’t go deep enough, that don’t address the root causes and don’t change the systems!
It’s not the easy path. The easy path is going with the habitual patterns of thinking and behavior—the good/bad mentality, the resentments, the belief in separateness. The process I’m offering and wanting to train people in is paradigm busting and if that were easy we would have already done it.
You be the judge. Have a look at the two-page overview I’ve written and let me know what you think. If you like it you can help by spreading the word and connecting me with community leaders I can explore this idea with—youth leaders, people of color, socially engaged clergy, city council members, police chiefs. I’m looking to generate letters of interest so that I can raise money to be able to spend enough time in a couple of communities to demonstrate that this can work and that it’s a better way. Maybe your community will be the first!?
Please also consider participating in the upcoming Courage, Healing and Effective Action webinar and think about others who might benefit. It’s clear that the people who’ve taken this in-depth journey with me are well positioned to put their good intentions into practice in every aspect of their lives. You can read testimonials here. I have a flyer I can email you if you’d be willing to help me promote the webinar in that way. As always, your support is needed and appreciated!
Many blessings,
Scott Brown