10 Steps to Peace

I like this excerpt from the website of The Center for Nonviolent Communication.

10 Things We Can Do to Contribute to Internal, Interpersonal, and Organizational Peace

1. Spend some time each day quietly reflecting on how we would like to relate to ourselves and others.


2. Remember that all human beings have the same needs.


3. Check our intention to see if we are as interested in others getting their needs met as our own.


4. When asking someone to do something, check first to see if we are making a request or a demand.


5. Instead of saying what we DON'T want someone to do, say what we DO want the person to do.


6. Instead of saying what we want someone to BE, say what action we'd like the person to take that we hope will help the person be that way.


7. Before agreeing or disagreeing with anyone's opinions, try to tune in to what the person is feeling and needing.


8. Instead of saying "No," say what need of ours prevents us from saying "Yes."


9. If we are feeling upset, think about what need of ours is not being met, and what we could do to meet it, instead of thinking about what's wrong with others or ourselves.


10. Instead of praising someone who did something we like, express our gratitude by telling the person what need of ours that action met.

At this moment, the most challenging advice on the list, for me, is Number Three. Of course I subscribe to that value ....... in theory. But talk is cheap. Whether or not I walk my talk is the test.

Making peace with men

It was serendipitous that my visit to the Royal British Columbia Museum took place at a time when I was re-reading a marvelous book, Iron John by Robert Bly.

Although the museum collection caused me to recall the suffering to which "progress" and "development" have subjected hunter-gatherers, our modern way of life has created challenges for contemporary men too.

As Bly states, the relationship that has been most severely damaged by the Industrial Revolution is the one between father and son. During our hunting-gathering days and even during our agricultural days, fathers and sons used to work alongside each other. Think of the farmers, blacksmiths and carpenters who passed on their skills to their sons.

In an agricultural society, fathers work close to home. They return to their houses for lunch. Their wives and children understand what they do for a living and interact with them a lot.

But that changed for us when men went off to work in distant factories and mines, and later in offices. Their work became specialized, their family members no longer understood what they did for a living, and their wives and children saw much less of them.

Some men, who were forced to work punishing hours, were exhausted, and behaved like jerks.

Women resented being less powerful, but let off steam by disparaging men. One of the rhymes that I remember my mother reciting was:

Girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice.
Boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails.

Once we were both middle aged, I told one of my brothers that I felt uncomfortable about having been elevated at his expense. I asked him how he had felt when he had heard those words. He said, "Like a piece of shit." I felt so sad when he shared that with me.

We see variations on this theme all over the place. For example, television ads invariably portray the dad as the resident idiot who doesn't have the first clue about cold medicine. Then the mom rolls her eyes before revealing the magic elixir that will fix everything.

I am sorry to report that there was a time when I was that smug mom. But I like to think that I have outgrown that attitude.

I know, from first hand experience, that some men behave badly. Yet, with that having been said, I am finding it deeply rewarding to be gaining a new recognition of the gifts that men have to offer the world.

The society that I want to nurture is one that is supportive towards men, women, children and, indeed, our planet. My membership of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community is central to that commitment.

More Flying Toys

In an earlier blog post, I stated that I was angry and felt like throwing my toys out of my playpen.

Unfortunately, when people throw their toys out on a larger scale, it creates enormous suffering. The news story of the moment is Gaza, but this year tragedies also have unfolded in Sudan, Chad, Zimbabwe, Congo and elsewhere.

It is my dearest wish that humankind would create peace.

I don't know how to persuade people in far away places to do that. The only thing I know how to do is to spend each day learning a bit more about compassionate communication and implementing it right here in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. My primary vehicles for that are my membership of Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community and use of our consensus decision-making model.

As Gandhi said, Be the change you want to see in the world.

Want to throw my toys out my playpen

Sometimes unwelcome things happen in my cohousing community, and I feel angry. This is one of those days.

That doesn't change the fundamentals of my situation. I'm still incredibly grateful to have chosen Nanaimo as my new home, to have joined Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, and to have formed wonderful friendships in a surprisingly short time.

But, with that having been said, I want this blog to be authentic. Being a coho [member of a cohousing community] may be a predominantly joyful experience, but it is not a constantly joyful experience. At least it is not for me.

This is where I'm finding it useful to be learning skills in the area of compassionate / nonviolent communication.

To my mind, our families and our communities are microcosms of the larger world. My belief is that, if I want the world to be at peace, I have to create peace right where I am, right now.

This was the overriding reason for my joining a cohousing community. Yes, there were a zillion other reasons too. But, if we cohos went around in a circle and each had to name his/her primary motivation for joining, that would be mine.

So I will refrain from throwing a tantrum. I will find a constructive way to share my feelings and to help to make it safe for my fellow cohos to share their feelings. Then, together, we will chart a way forward.

Walking the talk

Yesterday I visited my ex-Calgary friend, Christina, at Creekside Commons Cohousing in Courtenay, BC (100 km or 60 miles north of Nanaimo).

We were saying how much we loved being involved in cohousing and comparing notes on what it was about it that enchanted us.

We both agreed that our fellow cohos were nutty as fruit cakes (and we allowed as we might be just a little off the wall ourselves).

Christina said she thought cohousing was much more like an extended family than a community. She said that, in all the other groups to which she belonged (her professional association, hobby circles, etc.), there was a self-selection process that ensured that people were pretty similar. But in cohousing peoople were much more varied, and we had to figure out how to live with them, warts and all.

Now that I think back on what she said, she was onto something, but I think there's more to it than that. I don't think it's that people in cohousing are more varied than they are in Christina's professional association or hobby groups. In fact, buying into a cohousing community is a self-selecting process too. Cohousing doesn't appeal to everyone. The very act of joining a cohousing community parachutes you into a group with which you share some broad values.

I think what it is about cohousing is that more aspects of your lives intersect.

If you're involved during the planning stages, you have to make some tough decisions. Financial constraints often force you to choose amongst priorities. You have to decide which socially supportive and environmentally-friendly design elements are non-negotiable and which you are willing to drop.

Once we at Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community are living in our strata complex, we'll be cooking and eating communal meals in our common house a couple of times a week. Some of us will be doing organic gardening together. Others of us will run a car sharing club. And on and on.

What I think Christina was trying to say, and almost put her finger on it, is that the cohousing lifestyle is as encompassing as extended family life is.

Extended families who are united by blood and marriage enjoy varying degrees of success when it comes to love and tolerance towards each other. In Christina's and my experience, cohos are extraordinarly committed to the ideal of community and towards the individual members of their communities.

They may have deep disagreements at times, but they'll go to the ends of the earth to understand where someone else is coming from and to find a creative solution that caters to individual idiosyncracies.

I probably could draw up a list of 300 reasons why I joined a cohousing community and why I love it. But, if I was forced to give you only one reason for joining, I would say it was to engage in peace making. In the past I had participated in political activities that promoted peace and opposed war. But I started to feel like a fake, because I wasn't that good at getting on with the people immediately around me. I was haunted by Gandhi's words, "Be the change you want to see."

Waking up in the morning, knowing that, before I've even lifted my head off my pillow, my life already is more congruent with my values, makes a world of difference.