Focus on creating peace alleviates violence

Thanks Eddie Kopp on Unsplash

Since I’ve started the Peace Fellowship, I’ve been surprised by how much we speak about the symptoms of conflict.  “Why,” I asked a while ago.

-       So that we can understand the disease.

-       And why do we need to understand the disease?

-       So that we can define a treatment.

I see the same thing at Donovan:  The prison system measures negative incidents – rule violations, assaults on officers, self-harm events…, i.e. the “disease” – and of course looks to reduce these.  And maybe most of us spend a lot of our energy reducing negative effects.  In this paradigm, success is measured by the reduction, or ideally elimination, of conflict and violence.  Which, for the curious among you, I learned is called “negative peace.”

But, let’s think about it, achieving this goal of reduction of violence doesn’t actually create a peaceful, respectful, dignified, health-full space.  It simply means people are no longer hurting themselves and each other in the measured ways.

What if, instead of focusing on the disease, we define a wholesome, fulfilling, healthy life and work towards this vision?  This, in turn, is called “positive peace,” defined by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) as “the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies.”  And it turns out, it’s how we run our programs.  In our Brilliance Inside spaces, we define the world in which we wish to live – its norms, values and codes of conduct – and, from there, we work every day so that all of our thoughts, words and actions align with this vision.  Since our goal is well-being and wholeness, the reduction of violence is a necessary consequence and happens effortlessly on the way to our greater vision of wholeness.

From my experience, this approach produces more well-being, joy, community and – as has been proven multiple times in our programs – incredible innovation and all the qualities of a high-performance team.

So, in your life, do you focus on reducing the negative (negative peace) or on growing towards a positive (positive peace)?  While it’s usually harder work, I invite each of you to experiment with defining a peak state, explore what conditions and way of being create this, and then work towards this.  This can be done even at a small scale:  explore the difference between preventing yourself from eating “bad” foods and then allowing yourself to create the meal that makes you feel well and whole.  See which one motivates you more, brings you more joy, and creates greater and more sustainable success.

Our weekly experiences in Donovan give me a hunch into the outcome of your experiments.