The Bigger Picture: Everyone wants peace. More than that, everyone needs peace - not just in our countries and communities, but in our personal lives. Peace is a basic human need, and yet we continue to give the impression we think it is a luxury.
If we don't live in an environment of peace, if our country is at war or our community is in turmoil, it is nearly impossible for us as individuals to escape from chaos inside ourselves. However, long after our communities reconcile, we as individuals continue to suffer. Unless people can find peace at very personal levels, there is no way we will build it resolutely into our lives.
Each of us has the ability to create peace - in ourselves, first and foremost, and then in society. It is inner peace that allows us to generate a society based on peaceful values and principles. Personal peace is something we need, not in brief retreats (as regular as they may be) but as a whole way of being, to generate the energy to live life itself, express ourselves, make our contribution and be healthy.
The route to peace begins with trust, both in ourselves and each other. Surprisingly, developing trust is easier than you'd think. However, it requires focus and a willingness to be challenged, notice our pains, let them go and choose hope.
Crucial to developing trust is having a perspective that allows us to find our intrinsic connections with each other and believe in each other completely.
Two human beings will always have more in common than they will have otherwise. We share our humanity, intelligence, and basic motives to love and protect ourselves and our people. No matter how diverse our actions on these motives appear, these basic foundations will always be in common.
It is useful to notice this intrinsic place where we can relate to and understand each other. It is essential to see in the people we struggle with, a genuine connection to ourselves. And we must practise seeing the best in them and affording them the credibility they deserve - as human beings.
Only when we do this will we be able to make choices that generate peace rather than destruction. Only by doing this will we be able to reflect back to the world that we do indeed believe in ourselves and take ourselves seriously. Given how deeply our society is in the habit of destruction rather than creativity, this requires practise.
We need to consciously focus on and find those places that connect us rather than tear us apart. We need to bring them out into the open where we can see them, and practise looking at and noticing them, prioritising them and believing in them.
We must bond ourselves to each other in this shared and common direction and drive, spending time making this how we are in the world. It is important that we do not simply notice our connection once in rhetoric, and then take it for granted without real commitment. We must allow it to influence our thoughts and actions, shape our reality and become a tangible part of our relationships.
It is from this point that we can hope to listen to each other effectively. And we will need to learn about what it is we each feel is required to achieve our common ends.
This is where things will get harder as gaps arise and we find things most painful and threatening. This is where we will be in most danger of returning to the belief that this other is not of the same substance as us; and that our way is the only valid, correct and even intelligent way to progress.
This is where all our hard work to practise abandoning the prejudices, misinformation and hatred we have learned to hold about these people and our return to truth, connection and common interests will be tested. This is where we will need to reflect personally on what pains we are carrying that our holding us back. This is where we will need to remind ourselves that the context has changed, new things are happening and new things are possible.
From the place where we don't have peace, we must decide that peace is what we want more than anything, and make sure that all our actions lead us to that goal. To achieve peace, we must give more than we feel good about or comfortable with as the road out of turmoil is challenging. And so we must know the value of peace and choose to give it because of what it creates for all those around us and, above all, for ourselves.
Peace is not easy. What it is, is necessary and desirable. Real peace can create, grow and heal anything. Peace breeds love and frees our energies to enjoy our life with each other. While our wounds require attention and healing, they must not be allowed to keep us broken. There will come a point when we must decide to have the courage to put something new into action. That courage can bring us all freedom.
Shalini Sinha has worked as a life coach and counsellor. She presents the intercultural programme, Mono, on RTÉ Television. She has a BA in comparative religion and anthropology, and an MA in women's studies.