Peace Within

Conflict Management Coaching Blog by Cinnie Noble

Being at peace within ourselves, interacting peacefully, caring about peace, looking peaceful and engendering peace. These and other ways of living and embodying peace are ways of being in the world and in our relationships that show we have peace in us. If it happens though that one (or more) of these characteristics falls away when we are in conflict, it is a time to consider how to regain peace within. Otherwise, the inner conflict ends up being both internally and externally harmful.

When this happens, we may say or do things contrary to our values; we might offend the other person; and we may lose perspective, understanding and empathy.

You may be asking, is it possible to maintain peace within when we encounter others’ anger, when we are hurt, or when we become offended and caught off-guard by insults and verbal attacks on our character and things important to us?

This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog suggests the answer to this question is no, and invites you to consider the following:

• As you bring to mind an interpersonal dispute in which you reacted, what was it specifically that unsettled your inner peace?
• How do you usually describe that state of peace inside you?
• How do you usually describe how you appear in your state of peace?
• When your inner peace was disrupted in the dispute to which you referred to above, how did you react outwardly?
• When your inner peace was disrupted, how did you react inwardly?
• How did you prefer to be described at this time?
• What could you have said differently to retain your peaceful way of being?
• What could you have done for yourself to be able to maintain your equilibrium?
• What stopped you from doing the above (in response to the above 2 questions)?
• What might you do differently in the future if you experience your inner peace being challenged? What would you say differently?
• What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
• What insights do you have?

                       

Cinnie Noble

Cinnie Noble is a certified coach (PCC) and mediator and a former lawyer specializing in conflict management coaching. She is the author of two coaching books: Conflict Management Coaching: The CINERGY™ Model and Conflict Mastery: Questions to Guide You. MORE >