Happy World Peace Day! Can there be peace on earth and if so, how? I’m Hannah Telluselle and this is The Source Podcast, your source of inspiration and good things. Today, we’re focusing on making peace.

Peace is a state of mind, body and heart as well as a state of the many. To understand inner peace, find a sense of stillness and serenity. You can do this through many ways, such as through meditation, relaxation and praying. Or going for a walk in beautiful nature or sit and journal. Maybe take a nap after a meal. 

Peace finds you when you acknowledge what is in your control and what isn’t and when you have your needs met and feel grateful for that. I would suggest that peace is our original state of being. By removing everything and everyone in its way, we also find peace. This isn’t always possible though and to make peace, it’s often a matter of solving a conflict. 

The best way to solve a conflict is to see to, that both parties win something, or get to keep their peace, by ending the argument. This is why it’s so important to honor our human rights. Instead of getting into a battle of egos of who has said and done what – which might have to be decided by a court – get into the awareness of what is the real win and lose. 

What do you personally lose by stopping someone else from going to their job? To have their spouse and family? To socialize with their friends? To express themselves through art and creativity, and in media? To find faith in fellowship? To have their physical needs met with sleep and food? And to have their own home? Nothing!

And the opposite is true as well. What do you personally win by stopping someone else from going to their job? Do you make more money then? To have their spouse and family? Are you going to have two husbands? To socialize with their friends? Are you going to be alone? To express themselves through art and creativity? Are you losing your blog for example? Or will you lose followers and not be interviewed in media about you, if you let someone else have their say about themselves? To find faith in fellowship? Are you losing your ability to go to church if you let someone else do too? To have their physical needs met with sleep and food? Will you have your food taken away if you let someone else go and buy their own? Will you lack sleep if you let someone else sleep at their preferred hours? And to have their own home? Will you lose any of your houses and apartments by letting someone else have their own? What do you then win? Nothing! Do you then need to take this from that person and create this conflict? So, if any of this fits into your situation as it does for me, you now know it can be completely avoided, without smearing neither my name nor yours. And without taking anything from me or you. Have you?

Then it’s the matter of making peace with our past. And here, the art of forgiveness is what is the remedy. If you can meet with your adversary and express yourself honestly and authentically and describe how you feel and how the other person has contributed to that by his or her decisions and actions, you can demand an apology and a correction. But you also need to see what it is in your own patterns of behavior, whether being part of your personality or coming after years of conditioning and surviving childhood traumas, and take responsibility for your own reactions stemming from this. You too need to apologize. If this isn’t possible to conduct such a meeting, write a letter, even if you don’t send it.

Then it’s time to find forgiveness through compassion. Forgiving yourself through self-compassion and forgiving the other through compassion of him or her. It’s said that only hurt people, hurt others. So how hurt isn’t the other?

As you can see, this is a process that can be used again and again, whenever your relationships take you into a conflict, just as you can become more aware of when you’re instigating one yourself. Unfortunately, some people see hurting others as their entertainment or totally lack self-awareness, which then becomes a call to avoid completely. To walk away and cut off. To keep your peace.

I once had a good friend in advertising, who told me that not all balls need to be caught. Some can just be ignored. So, which ball have you caught or need to deal with? Which ones can you ignore? Are you harming someone or have you become harmed? Are you honoring others’ rights?

The next episode of The Source Podcast is published on September 23^rd, to celebrate the Fall Equinox. Tune in on September the 23^rd, to get a life coaching tip about transitioning into a new season. 

To listen to this blogpost as a podcast, find The Source Podcast on Spotify, Apple and YouTube.