How to Apply Your Intention Toward Peace in All Your Relationships

MAUDE: The road toward peace within all your relationships begins with your intention to have this experience. It comes from a strong attraction to it that starts to replace old habits of interaction. Often, we develop this intent without knowing how to bring it to life in our connections, or what that intention will be like when we apply it.

To move toward such an intent, begin wherever you are in understanding what it might look like in practice. First, look inside at your images of that kind of peace. What do you see? We all associate this with different ideas and actual experiences. Some see it as an absence of elements: discord, division, unease, anger, being triggered, misunderstanding, separation, distance. Some of us see it as the presence of a deep sense of calm, balance, naturalness, contentedness, presence, trust, safety, ease.

Whatever comes up for you, reach into it, picture it, become familiar with how it feels to you; taste it, smell it, bring it to life within yourself. When you select this as your intent, you make a choice. This is what you want; this is the place where you want your relationships to dwell. That choice becomes a core value, residing centrally within you. Such an intention toward peace is powerful and grows ever stronger as you feed it. You feed it with that choice, and turn to it whenever there is a disturbance in the force.

When you are confronted with interactions that don’t fit with that sense of peace, or that trigger reactions within you that disturb it, Pause, with a capital P. You are seeking to respond to the choice you have made, not react to old stuff or fears. You are going to bring your intention into action by responding from that place of peace that you have chosen. This does not apply to situations that are an actual threat or require a different kind of response. In either case, you want to take enough time to assess and make a choice of how to respond, not be driven by instincts or old stories. It is best to practice this within your deep and developed relationships first.

Peace is a dynamic, living reality. It is something that can be experienced between people who have made a choice and come to a decision about where they are going to give their energy. It starts within you and spreads to each relationship you have. For me, it is full of joy and an inner sense of well-being. When it bounces back and forth between people through the sharing of love and a true sense of kinship with each other, miracles become possible.

PHIL: We talk about relationships and draw on our direct experience, but that can give the impression that we are writing exclusively for couples, which is not so. The peaceful quality we have is something that can be sought with any other person. We take the feeling that we have and approach everybody the same way. It will not always be recognized or reciprocated, but I strive to maintain that equanimity. I used to use Dick Cheney as my ultimate challenge; now it is a different cast of characters.

So I want to speak about how we have a peaceful relationship, and one thing that stands out for me is that it has been consistent from day one, and can this be a happy accident? No, it has to be something we actively do; there must be an intention there. It might seem strange to be inferring this, because most intentions are explicit: I intend to clean my desk, etc., but this intention is hard to see in action. It manifests whenever we take different courses on something that affects both of us. I can argue my case, but also look at it from Maude’s viewpoint, and we are always able to find some middle way. That’s a story all by itself; the point I want to make here is that neither of us chooses to squabble, and there — in that choice — is the intention to live harmoniously with each other.

I will add that for this to be possible, it is necessary to be aware that something is happening, rather than simply reacting. You have to pull the two apart, making a space between the action and the response, so you give yourself a chance to have a response rather than a reaction. For me, that doesn’t always happen immediately, but usually fast enough that I am not drawn down into the maelstrom.

I think additionally that I need to say something about the state of peace, because if you don’t recognize and appreciate it, it’s hard to have the intention of being peaceful! For me, it is a natural state of calmness, of being rather than doing, a centered feeling of being myself. Obviously, nature didn’t design us to be this way at all times; survival needs self-defense at the least. But let me suggest that it is our natural state, and if we are not there much of the time, something is wrong with us, our lifestyle, or our culture. And to be that way requires intention.

Here are some other posts that talk about the role of intention toward peace in your relationships.

How Conscious Intention Can Lead to Peace in Your Relationships “When you are on guard or defensive, reacting from triggers often implanted long ago, you are already bringing barriers into the exchange. In your partnerships and friendships, you hopefully share core values, and although each other’s actions and words may seem quite different, they reflect the unique quality of each rather than true clashes. So how can a conscious intention help when you are feeling angry, frustrated or alienated in a relationship? It reflects a choice that you have made about what your motivation will be in your responses and viewpoint. If these feelings are not reflective of your choice, you can remind yourself of your true intention. This is a way of aligning yourself with your choice. The more you become conscious of your intention, the more powerful it will become. Every time you can step out of a response that doesn’t reflect your choice, you gain a bit of distance, and are a step closer to living that choice. In a most basic way, the decision is whether to come from love or fear. Fear rears its head in many manifestations, and when it is the underlying driver of your responses it will always lead to feelings of distrust, separation and often violence.”

Why it is Important to Set an Intention for Peace in Your Relationships “Just as this project of intention works on a global scale, many of us have a number of practices that bring the intention for peace into our daily lives: some meditate regularly, some write intentions in journals, and some do affirmations of gratitude each morning. These help us to manifest our intention. Great quotes with which to start each day in a calm peaceful frame are:
This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before. — Maya Angelou
It’s morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it. — Mary Oliver
This need for a peace intention on a global scale, as well as for our individual selves, holds the same importance in our relationships. Whether you are developing a new relationship or wanting to improve a long standing one, an intention for peaceful loving interactions is the place to start. And yet, people so often don’t see this as realistic, and fall into different habitual patterns of behavior. The good news is it’s never too late. With the awareness that there are better possibilities, you can start anytime to apply an intention of peace in your relationships. It starts with accepting that the other person is who they are. What they do and say is their choice. You shouldn’t interfere in that. (You’ve probably learned that you can’t change people, anyway.) You don’t have to like it, either. This is where the work begins. Does that dislike come from within you, or is it really something unacceptable about the other person? That’s certainly possible, though unlikely because most people are doing the best they can.”

How To Create A Peaceful Relationship In A World That Says It’s Impossible “ Peace is a choice, as are peaceful relationships. It came to me this morning that, in the same sense, peace is a verb. Being at peace and bringing it into your relationships takes action. It starts with intention and belief. It is necessary to want to be peaceful, to intend to have peaceful relationships, and to create and maintain them. It can be a challenge to imbue your relationships with the belief that they can be peaceful and loving. Society encourages the opposite viewpoint, pushing a belief that conflict is inevitable. Phil and I have the experience that it is possible, with intention, to find other ways of being. When core values are shared, there is a path to mutual solutions for differences and disagreements that does not involve conflict, separation, or distancing. All my deep and intimate relationships are built on this belief and intention. I am active in finding paths to peace when relating. This also means working on my own inner peace. Regardless of the practice, whether it be through meditation, mindfulness, walking in nature, or becoming aware of the love that surrounds me, I am actively engaged in growing toward inner peace. From this direct experience and its quest, I approach my relationships. What are the actions I can take to manifest this way of being together? Foremost are the actions of truly being with the other person. These involve awareness of the person, interest in them, and offering myself and my presence. It means paying attention, looking upon them with openness and loving kindness, without fear or defensiveness.”

Originally published at https://philandmaude.substack.com.