Peace Is Possible

Conversations with Cinthia

Have you ever thought that relationships and drama have to go together? That shouting matches and stand-offs are simply the price you pay to have any kind of intimacy in your life? It is true that relationships require effort, but work and drama do not have to be the same thing. Today Cinthia discussed her book Wars to Peace: When Relationships Go Nuclear, explaining that peace in relationships can be our default mode when we learn to control ourselves and act like adults. We can choose our battles and go to war honorably and occasionally. In short, she said, peace is possible.

Cinthia wrote Wars to Peace to explain a set of ideas she has learned in her own life and used with clients for years with many, many beautiful results. The book uses the DEFCON scale and the practices of first responders, soldiers, and others who have to remain competent in high-stress circumstances to explain how we can all learn to manage our own emotions and behaviors instead of living at the mercy of other people’s feelings and decisions. This model acknowledges that there are times we will need to “go to war” relationally, confronting serious offenses more intensely, but emphasizes that we do not have to live in relational war most of the time, and that, when we do “go to war,” we can do it well.

Many of the tactics described in this book involve managing one’s own inner world first. When we know our own beliefs, control our own behaviors, and monitor our own thoughts for truth and helpfulness, we stop participating in the sabotage of the relationships we most value, as well as the general chaos around us. We decrease our reactivity to the slights and offenses of others, actually choosing how upset to become in various situations. While this kind of self-management takes a lot of work, it comes with the pay-off of increased peace in our own internal worlds as we learn how to be okay whether or not other people change. It also enables us to spend far less time regretting our own actions and sabotaging the legitimacy of our own hurt by losing control of our behavior and becoming part of the problem instead of the solution.

None of this means that we will be without emotion in response to the world around us or that we will never need to take a hard line about anything. Some things are worth fighting for; some things are worth dying for. But the dirty socks beside the hamper are not on those lists, even when we consider all the emotional meanings that can be overlaid onto simple things by our relational histories. We can make choices about how “big” to get in response to our circumstances, including those caused by other people’s choices. We can decide when to “go nuclear” because it is the right thing to do in a few circumstances, but not to use it as a release valve simply because we are experiencing uncomfortable feelings. We can manage our own feelings (which is different than dismissing, denying, or belittling them) and measure our responses to each situation instead of being at the mercy of our own emotions and the emotional rise and fall of those around us.

Once we are engaged in managing ourselves well, we learn to engage with others in ways that actually help to create peace. While we do not change or control others, we do influence one another. Being people of peace makes us more able to create that peace in our relationships, at least as far as it depends on us. And sometimes it is surprising how much power our own responses really have to do things like defuse a tense situation, minimize the possibility of physical or emotional fall-out, etc. Again, this does not mean that we can control other people or that we take responsibility for their actions. There will be times that others make poor choices no matter what we do, and we will have to decide what to continue to tolerate. But we can make those choices much more calmly when we stop getting caught up in the shouting matches and stand-offs and emotional games.

It is important to understand that this is a process that requires work. Melting down whenever we feel like it is easier. But this is what it means to be an adult, and it is what enables truly adult relationships. The process starts when we take a deep look at ourselves and get to know our own relational toolboxes, learning how and when to use our tools well. We learn to differentiate between discomfort and actual threat. When we manage our own emotions and do not depend on others to make us internally peaceful, we can save the adrenaline-inspired responses for times we encounter serious things – things that are illegal, immoral, unethical, or dangerous. We can use our adrenaline to fuel productive responses instead of throwing emotional gasoline on the fires around us. We are less easily manipulated.

Wars to Peace also offers tools for learning to understand others better than we did so we can interact with them appropriately. People are different from one another, and learning to adapt our approaches in the face of differences in gender, personality, and temperament helps us relate better. As Cinthia says, we learn not to “pet the cat backwards,” even though the dog would not mind. This does not mean tiptoeing around others or being ingenuine; it means acknowledging that people process things differently and will hear us better if we communicate in ways that make sense to them. We will also be less likely to misunderstand their communications to us when we understand their communication styles and our own ways of hearing. We can refuse to pay attention to these differences or to accommodate them in any way, waiting instead for others to accommodate us, or we can use the tools that are available to maintain ourselves and communicate well with others. It also turns out that people who use their own relational and emotional toolboxes well tend to attract other people who do the same. People who do not go around complicating everything tend to be more attractive to other people who do not go around complicating everything.

Life is hard, and relationships require work. But we can make our work more productive and satisfying when we point it in the right directions instead of staying on the treadmills of drama. If you are looking for tools to increase your own relational and internal peace, Cinthia’s Wars to Peace has much to offer.