00:00 

Well, hello there, my friends. Welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 204, "Being a Peacemaker." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Alright, hey, welcome to the podcast today. So glad to have you. If you're new, love having you here. Thanks for coming and I hope that you find things here that will really, really help you. And if you are returning, thank you so much. I appreciate your continued support. I hope that this information is really helping you to make small nudges in your thinking and in your feeling and your behavior so that you are changing your life and changing the relationships that you live in and really cleaning up our relationships. This is one thing I love about this work so much, is it gives me an opportunity to clean up my relationships, to really put them in a good place that feels good to me and that builds them and that helps the other person show up in a better place. And I just think it's so brilliant. So this work is so great and I'm glad that you're here joining me. And I would just encourage you, as you hear concepts on here that intrigue you, talk to your friends about them, have your friends listen to the podcast, discuss it, talk about it and dig a little bit deeper for yourself and in your own personal situations and see what's going on. Or you can go to tanyahale.com. You can set up a free consult and you can set up a time that we can can start working together and help you work through some of these issues that may feel a little bit big for you right now. Because I know that that sometimes situations do, and I have situations in my life that seem big for me as well sometimes and I work with my own coach because this is so important for me to see things that that I don't see. And that's what I get to do as your coach, is help you do that. 

02:03 

So let's jump in today. We are talking about being a peacemaker. So I noticed the other day that I used the term "keeping the peace." And then later I used the term "peacemaker" and it got me to thinking about what is the difference between a "peacekeeper" and a "peacemaker." So I think peace is one of the feelings that most people really strive to have. Like, well, like, you know, like world peace and all that's what we want. But I also think that on a personal level, most of us just really want a peaceful life. And generally that would be described as a space without contention, no disturbance, no fighting, no discord, no anger or frustration or resentment. I think when we give peace this definition and expect to have it all the time, first of all, we're bound to be disappointed, because we are humans, after all. And humans have messy feelings created by messy thoughts. So often we have the thoughts that bring us feelings of anger and frustration and resentment. And we find ourselves at odds with people around us and we can struggle to find a place of harmony. And our different opinions can sometimes sometimes cause us to feel as though we will never get along with some people. So we find ourselves being judge-y of people around us and that doesn't feel very peaceful. 

03:21 

So what is this peace that we're speaking of? So the dictionary describes "peace" as "freedom from disturbance; tranquility, mental calm, serenity." So the first part of this definition talks about outward circumstances of freedom from disturbance. Things that would create a disturbance in our lives would go in the circumstance line. Generally, these are things that we cannot control. Things like wars and contentions and people who yell in anger or fighting, there's high drama, people distancing, avoiding things that generally happen outside of us. The other part of the definition talks about things that are happening inside of us: tranquility, mental calm, serenity. And I think real peace is being able to move into the space of tranquility and mental calm and serenity, even when things like anger and fighting and drama and distancing and avoiding are happening, that we can still move into a space of feeling at peace inside. 

04:29 

Give you an example. So I have a pic of me with my four children when my oldest was seven and my youngest was just a few months old. And every time I see this picture, I just crack up because the oldest and me are sitting there with just these pleasant little looks on our face looking all calm and peaceful. So even though the circumstance was hectic, a lot of kids, I look to be very much at peace with the chaos. Now I will admit though that there are many times that I remember crying kids and I was not able to manage my mind around the noise and chaos and find that space of inner peace. So in those instances, I was not peaceful at all. In fact, I would often add to the chaos by getting upset and yelling or crying myself.  Okay, so being a young mom with young kids is no easy task. Let's be clear about that right? But here's the thing, outside circumstances for sure can test our ability to keep peace on the inside. Okay and also peace on the outside. 

05:36 

I've also found though that in my previous marriage I was fairly good at keeping the peace but not good at all at being a peacemaker. So here's where the difference lies in my mind: I was not good at being honest in my previous relationship. So it's not like I was lying about things, because I'm not really a liar about things. So I wasn't doing that. But I also was not honest about my thoughts and my feelings. And I felt that in order to keep the peace that most of the time I couldn't talk about what I was struggling with. I couldn't share my frustrations. I felt that the best way to keep the peace was to keep quiet. Because if I started sharing my struggles, it seemed we would always end up in a fight and then we wouldn't be talking and that definitely wasn't peaceful even though it was quiet. So and I felt that as the wife it was my job to keep the peace. Okay. Anyone else feel this as a wife in the 90s and the 2000s, the early 2000s? I mean, our ideas of our responsibility as wives to me is I look back and it's just kind of crazy to me that I felt that I was supposed to keep quiet. 

06:50 

So here's the fascinating piece though. Though in that my previous marriage I was keeping peace on the outside by not bringing up difficult conversations, I was most definitely not peaceful on the inside. I would be seething with anger and frustration and resentment and those difficult feelings would sit and fester and grow. So remember a discussion about the tolerable life a few weeks back? This is what my peacekeeping was creating for me: a tolerable life. And the next circumstance would come up and I would keep the peace by not talking about what I felt needed to be talked about and the anger and the frustration and the resentment would grow and on and on it would go, continuing me continuing to hold back and not talk about things, keep the peace on the outside, but the peace on the inside was just mag growing and growing. So pretty soon my heart was so full of anger and frustration, of resentment and anger and frustration that there was little-to-no room left in there to feel any love for my spouse. Resentment has a way of crowding out love. 

08:00 

And then when I was feeling so much resentment, the actions that would come about would be things like shutting down even more, creating impossible scenarios in my brain, creating a story about how horrible my husband was, saying unkind things, becoming passive aggressive or manipulative in an effort to try and control his behavior. I was so angry about not being heard, but I was not speaking up. Crazy, right? And yet I think many of us have gone to this space before. I don't think I'm a unicorn when it comes to this behavior. I thought that by not speaking up, I was keeping the peace. But what I was really doing was creating resentment in my mind. Peacekeeping is about trying to control the outside circumstances and I don't think this is very successful. Because there was outward peace, but inwardly I was absolutely not at peace. But if peace is not about keeping quiet so that we don't instigate a fight, what is peace about? 

09:04 

This is where I believe the difference between being a peacemaker and keeping the peace come in. I like to describe "keeping the peace" as doing what it takes to avoid a difficult circumstance, because if I avoid it then no angry words will be spoken. But then nothing gets resolved either and you end up feeling unseen and unheard. Lack of contention on the outside does not constitute peace on the inside. Being a peacemaker requires something very different if we're going to make peace. That is not passive action. It's active action. So it's not about shutting down and not speaking up. It's not about avoiding the difficult conversations. It's about doing what it takes to create peace on the inside first. It requires us feeling peace on the inside and then showing up in the most helpful way on the outside. And this requires being heard, but not by screaming and yelling and forcing your opinions on someone else. Being a peacemaker means that we are working to turn conflict. Let me remind you that I like to define that as two people having different opinions Okay? We're working to turn conflict, two different opinions, into connection rather than contention. 

10:30 

We do this by having honest and open conversations about the struggle. Ignoring the struggle, pushing it to the side, just exacerbates it. Holding it in for the sake of keeping the peace only creates inner turmoil and contention. Not speaking our piece right now may keep things quiet for the present, but it creates long-term harm. Being able to make peace means that we are actively resolving concerns and seeking understanding. Really being at peace is something that happens inside of us way more than what is happening outside of us. We can have a life that has a lot of external chaos going on. We may have an unsupportive spouse, children who push against every boundary or challenging work situations, like a to-do list that's longer than our arm, right? And yet we can still be very much at peace. 

11:29 

Remember that peace is a feeling and feelings are caused by our thoughts. So when we can learn to manage our thoughts around many of these more challenging circumstances, we can still have peace on the inside. And if the circumstance requires a conversation to be resolved, we are willing to step into the discussion. We realize and understand that true peace sometimes requires walking the path of discomfort. It requires that we talk about the difficult things. It means that we must step into the arena and face the challenges that await us there. And these discussions can sometimes be scary and sometimes it can feel as though things will get worse before they get better. 

12:13 

And maybe that's the case. But being a peacemaker is about looking at the long-term picture. What will it take to create inner peace? What is the best solution in the long-term? What will it take for me to feel really good about how I'm showing up and feeling, as though I'm being both seen and heard? Being a peacekeeper is about doing what it takes to end the discomfort right now, ASAP. Being a peacemaker is about creating peace at our core on the inside by being really happy with the direction we are ultimately headed. 

12:53 

So this week, I would love for you to take a look at whether you're showing up more as a peacekeeper or more as a peacemaker. Really look at yourself honestly and identify what's happening in your head. If you use phrases like, "it's just not worth the fight," "I'm fine, it's fine, everything's fine," "I'll be okay, I just need some time," "Really, really it's okay, okay?" These might be indications that you are stepping into being a peacekeeper because look how all of those just back off and don't engage in the conversation that needs to be had. And when we're stepping back to avoid being seen or heard, we are not at peace on the inside. 

13:40 

Something that I really love about my relationship with my new husband is that we have this "no back burner issue" rule in our marriage. If something feels off, if it doesn't feel good, if either of us feel we aren't being seen or heard, if there is any concern at all, it's a rule that we have to talk about it. We have to no peacekeeping. No stepping back and not speaking up because we want to keep the peace. Just not an option now. We also have rules of engagement as well, so that we don't engage in blame and accusation and just whining. Okay, so the first and one of the biggest rules about this is that we own our own. This means that anything that is brought up is done so with owning our own thoughts and feelings about the situation. 

14:27 

So here's what that's going to sound like: "When you (and then you're going to name the behavior), it makes me feel (name the feeling) because I'm thinking (name the thought). Okay, so let me let me give you in real words what that means. So here it goes: "When you keep checking your phone during a meaningful conversation, it makes me feel unimportant to you because I'm thinking that you're not really interested in what I have to say." Alright, so again, that pattern is when you name the behavior. It makes me (feel name the feeling) because I'm thinking (name the thought). So this is what I call owning your own. I'm owning my own thoughts and feelings about the experience. I'm not blaming him for how I'm thinking and feeling. So if we put it in the thought mode, l if he's checking his phone during a conversation that is a neutral circumstance, it's not positive or negative. It's just an action. It's my thoughts that make it negative and my thoughts create my feelings. My thought "he's not interested in what I have to say" creates the feeling of being unimportant to him. When I can own up to what I am creating with my thoughts, that makes all the difference. Conversely if I were to say "gosh, you're just so insensitive and rude because you're always on your phone," there is this huge space for defensiveness to show up. Okay? When we own our own, it places the impact on "I'm having these thoughts and I'm having these feelings. I feel unimportant." That's the potential for that to come across more softly and to have the other person we're talking to feel compassion or concern for us is way more than if we start blaming them and telling them where they're wrong. When we blame and tell people how they're wrong, it's so easy for defensiveness to show up, because we've stepped into blaming and blaming accusing, which doesn't generally go over very well. 

16:43 

So if you find yourself wanting to go into peacekeeping mode this week, I want you to stand back a bit to identify what the circumstance is, what your thoughts and feelings are, and then courage up and take an opportunity to approach the situation in a loving and kind way. When I first started dating and started using this idea of owning my own, it took me a ton of courage to step into this because I had 24 years of being married and not stepping into this. Those patterns of behavior  were embedded deep in my brain, but I started doing it. When I was dating, I started learning how to speak up more and how to own my own about it, and how to do it in a loving and kind way. And it has made all the difference in the relationships that I had and in my current relationship with my husband. It's just amazing to me how much this owning our own creates a safe space for each other. And that safe space allows us to have tough discussions and know that it's okay. Like, we know that the other person's not going to attack us for for sharing how we think and how we feel. So anyway, just wanted to share that with you today. Let's make some peace in our lives. Let's not keep the peace. Let's create peace. We are so capable of doing this, my friends. 

18:24 

Okay. If you left me a review yet, if you're a fairly consistent listener, or even if you just listen to one or two and you go, "wow, I like this," I would love for you if you are an Apple or Spotify to leave me a review. You can do it in two or three minutes is all. It doesn't take very long. You could do it right now. And that would be fabulous. I don't know how to do it on Spotify, because I don't listen on Spotify. But if you go to Apple, you can click on my podcast, you can scroll all the way down to the bottom. And there's a place where you can give me stars. And then you can write a review and it does not need to be super long and flamboyant, but just something that would help other people find this, the more reviews I get, the higher it bumps it up so that other people can find this when they're just searching for basic information. 

19:13 

So my friends, thank you for being here with me today. I love this time that we get to spend together and I really, I just love this content. I love the impact that it's having in my life and it does great things. This work is amazing, and is it hard sometimes? It absolutely is hard. I have stepped into more courage in this last year than I think I ever have. And courage is my word for this year and I'm doing it. I'm stepping into some really tough situations that are requiring a lot of courage for me and I'm really proud of myself and I hope that you are willing to step into some courage as well and to have some tough discussions and to learn how to have them in ways that create greater connection instead of contention. That's what we have the option and the ability to do here. Alright, my friends, that's going to do it. Have a great great week and I will see you next week. Bye! 

20:19 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!