Speak Peace in a World of Conflict: What You Say Next Will Change Your World

CONTENTS

• PART I: Mechanics
• What's alive in us?
• How can we make life more wonderful?
• PART II: Apply in ourselves and others
•  Healing Old Hurt
• PART III: SOCIAL CHANGE
• Join forces with others (teamwork)

Healing Old Hurt: Think of a person or event from the past that still brings you pain. What’s alive in you at this moment about that person or event? What may have been alive in the others involved?

• “I’d like to tell you what was going on in me when I did, but I first want to tell you how horrible I feel when I now see your pain.” Go inside and look at what he feels when he sees the suffering of this other person.
• Algeria women: dragged and raped, rescued to Switzerland. "How do you know? That was exactly what he said."
• From the terror in their eyes, he felt that his victims understood what he felt when he was a child and his father had done this to him

Whenever our objective is to get somebody to stop doing something, we lose power. If we really want to have power in creating change—whether it’s personal change, changing another individual, or changing society—we need to come from a consciousness of how the world can be better. We want people to see how their needs can better be met at less cost.

We try to get change, not by destroying existing structures, but by connecting with people within those structures to find more effective, less costly ways of meeting their needs (that meet the needs of others as well)

Gangs are groups that behave in ways we don't like.

• Historical theologian Walter Wink, about eight to ten thousand years ago for various reasons a myth developed that the good life was good people punishing and conquering bad people. And this myth seemed to support living under authoritarian regimes, the leaders of which might call themselves kings or czars.
• G. William Domhoff’s book Who Rules America

Terrorists

• First step: Despair work. Look into your own pain & enemy images. Translate all to unmet needs.

Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other.

TEAMWORK

• What did you want back from the group when you DO/ SAY...
• Think of someone you’d like to connect with, but whom you now consider to be an enemy. What’s the first thing you’ll do to turn that conflict into connection?

FUNDING

• "Hi bro. Where's the money?" What do you need to hear/ know to decide (in 5 mins) whether or not you want to support the change that I’m interested in?
• What do you need to know to decide whether we can work together?

BUSINESS

When the spirituality of the organization is “production over all,”that’s the only thing that counts. Human feelings, human needs, humanness doesn’t matter. Then the company pays for it in terms of both morale and even production, because when you get people believing that their feelings and needs are understood, production will go up.

• Share feelings & needs
• Don't mix up observation & evaluation
• Don’t dehumanize people by complimenting them or praising them. 

PEOPLE

1. Prof Michel Hakeem: limits of pathology-based understanding
2. G. William Domhoff’s book Who Rules America
3. Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and other anthropologists - domination structure not universal
4. Michael B. Katz, educational historian studying educational change, Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools: 20-year change cycle, change dies out after 5 years.
1. Obey authority. Extrinsic reward. Maintain caste system disguised as democracy.
5. David Korten - Post-Capitalism
6.