How to Experience Peace as a Living Reality in Your Relationships

Peace is not an abstract concept. It’s a visceral, palpable experience.

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PHIL: Peace is a central feature of our relationship. Maybe it arises from the way we relate to each other — the individuality and acceptance we have spoken about so often. Or perhaps it’s the other way round and peace generates that individuality and acceptance. Or maybe both are true; they go together like ingredients in a cake, and the cake is only the way it is because of everything in it.

Peace is sometimes regarded as an absence or a state of inertness, like the peace of the dead, but thinking that way obscures that it is an actual experience like many others. Just as you can be in a state of agitation or worry or panic, you can also be in a state of peace. It’s a sense of not being pulled in any direction, of contentment, of tranquility. It’s very much connected with being present because when you’re thinking about the future, you’re planning to change something or be somewhere.

Peace is a state you can reside in, once you have recognized and experienced it. It comes down to having an intention to be that way, and the more you have the experience of being in that space, the easier it is to find and remain in it. Of course, you can’t reside there permanently; at least, I can’t. A few weeks ago, I was walking to the store when a homeless person rode his bike at me on the sidewalk saying “Get the $#&@ out of my way.” I jumped aside, and for days, the fantasy of pushing him over as he passed me came to mind. But events like that are the exception in my life.

Maude and I recognize this sense of peace in each other, and that recognition is a strong part of the relationship. And if we can see it in each other then, if I may be so bold, surely others can see it in us, and if you inhabited that space of peace, then other people would see it in you, and that is the way that peace can spread across the world — one relationship at a time.

MAUDE: Given the tensions in the world at this time, it is clear that it is even more important than ever to talk of peace. All our writings, books, and blogs are directed toward one thing: spreading peace one relationship at a time.

We write of this not as an abstract concept, not as a theoretical possibility, but as a visceral, palpable experience that we have and that we know is something you all can experience. And that experience can be right now, in this moment and in every moment with every one of your relationships.

A precursor to living in peace is having the intention to do so, and the developing of your appetite for peaceful harmonious relating. Not just an interest but an appetite that pulls you in that direction like the voracious hunger for a long sought-after meal. This is strengthened by the understanding that relationships are cooperative, not competitive.

Once that driving desire is there, it becomes a matter of how to achieve it. We have identified four main areas of practice that are the underlying foundation of peaceful relating:

These factors all underlie living peace within your relationships. You can have this if you choose in all your relationships! This is not a peace of thoughts and words, but an actual experience; a feeling deep within that brings with it calm, clarity, and an ecstatic freedom of being.

Photo credit: Rita Gelber, the graphic designer for #IDWP.
Photo note: I Declare World Peace is a power-of-intention worldwide art experiment that seeks to spread the phrase “I Declare World Peace”.

Originally published at https://philandmaude.com on November 26, 2023.