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You may have heard the saying, “Peace begins at home.” In the age of physical distancing when many of us are spending more time at home and with our family members, this pearl of wisdom could not be more true! While The Peace Center’s peacemaking in classrooms, schools and other public venues may be on hold at the moment, we are going to help you create peace in a very important space: your own home!
This video is the first in a series of tips and tools to help you create a peaceful space for yourself, your family, your roommates and whoever else may be in your sphere of closeness. Each video will offer you a new tool, culminating in how to hold a circle process if conflict does arise.
Remember: conflict is an opportunity, and more than anything, and indication that we are in fact connecting with each other! We hope these videos will help you respond to conflict rather than react to it, and create more peaceful relationships in your own home and in your life. We are all in this together!
This week, our Peace Begins at Home video series is all about emotions! Especially when faced with conflict, our emotions can be tricky to handle, but none of them are bad. In fact, understanding emotions is a wonderful way to connect more with ourselves and each other.
Our second video teaches you how to do an emotional check-in with your family. This is a tool we use in many Peace Center programs to help build trust and communication; we think you will find it becomes a treasured part of your day!
Our third video in the series introduces you to the concept of the “emotional cup,” and how we can manage our emotions when things get tough.
Enjoy practicing these new tools, and please share with anyone you think might enjoy them as well! In addition to our emails, you can find these videos on our Facebook page each week.
As we head into the weekend, we are excited to give you all a new peacemaking tool: “I” Messages! This is a powerful & peaceful way to communicate your emotions & needs during a conflict without using shame or blame. Try it out & let us know how it goes!
Our new episode of Peace Begins at Home is all about listening! One of the most important parts of peacemaking, listening is something we think we do often, but are we doing it as deeply and intentionally as we want to? This video will give you some tips on how. Happy listening!
Our new Peace Begins at Home video will guide you through how to hold a circle process with your family! Circles focus on repairing harm, ensuring accountability, and moving forward with solutions that everyone can agree to. One of The Peace Center’s specialties in schools, circles do more than just resolve conflict: they empower us to work through the conflict together as a community. We hope this will be a valuable new tool in your toolbox!
Thank you SO much!!
Photo credit: Living Justice Press
Our newest Peace Begins at Home video offers a fun and easy project to help you get through the tough days: creating a self-care basket! Think of this basket as a bad day “emergency toolkit”, a place where you keep a variety of objects and reminders for what you can do when you’re feeling down.
Some of the items in our baskets might be:
– A coloring book
– Headphones for music
– Candy or tea bags to treat yourself
– A list of people you can talk to
– A journal
– A list of activities you enjoy doing
While we often don’t hesitate to take care of the people around us, it can sometimes be hard to remember to take care of ourselves. This basket is your reminder to “empty your emotional cup” and give yourself some TLC when you need it! Peace begins at home – and within each of us.
