Choosing Peace

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Choosing Peace: New Ways to Communicate to Reduce Stress, Create Connection, and Resolve Conflict is about creating inner peace, and from that creating peace with others. In it, we give the reader concrete tools with which to do this.

It is a very practical hands-on book, a relevant and accessible tool for readers no matter their prior familiarity with our work, or Nonviolent Communication.

Choosing Peace: New Ways to Communicate to Reduce Stress, Create Connection, and Resolve Conflict is the first book in the Mediate Your Life series, A Guide to Removing Barriers to Communication and is available for purchase at Amazon (Paperback or Kindle).

Praise for Choosing Peace

“Clear, thoughtful, important, this book invites you to reconsider the way you move through the world.  Accept the invitation, welcome the work, engage the process, it has great potential to transform your life.”
—Valerie Rose Belanger, Managing Director, Yale World Fellows, Yale University

 “Read it. Practice it. Live it. Practical and poignant, Choosing Peaceoffers a storehouse of tools for making life more satisfying emotionally and concretely. Filled with stories that inspire and chapters that teach a new way to be in the world, getting what you want and giving to others takes on a whole new level of relationship and do-ability. For home or business, this book could change the way you interact forever. We’re recommending it to our business and nonprofit clients!”
—Gregg Kendrick, Speaker, Consultant, Workplace Mediator, and Certified Trainer – Center for Nonviolent Communication and IC Globally Team Member at Basileia, LLC
—Marie Miyashiro,Author of The Empathy Factor and Workplace Consultant, Leadership and Whole System Facilitator, Speaker and IC Globally Team Member at Elucity Network, Inc.

“John Kinyon and Ike Lasater’s book, Choosing Peace: New Ways to Communicate to Reduce Stress, Create Connection, and Resolve Conflict, is a fresh approach to meeting conflict with an eye on peaceful resolution; and, how doing this changes everything for everyone involved.  Their blending of the Nonviolent Communication model and traditional mediation practices offers a process to cut through anger, resentment and miscommunications—thus, setting the foundation for inner peace and peace in our relationships.  No kidding.  It’s like magic—so clear and simple and transformative.”
—Mary Mackenzie, Author, Peaceful Living: Daily Meditations for Living with Love, Healing and Compassion; Co-founder, NVC Academy; Executive Director, Peace Workshop, International; Certified Nonviolent Communication Trainer; Mediator

“The warmth, wisdom and clarity of the authors clearly comes across in this book. I really enjoy how they make conflict a normal everyday thing that happens to all of us, and suggest that we can learn how to handle conflict rather than seeing it as a sign that something is wrong. Use Ike and John’s way of dealing with conflict to harvest the means to achieve internal and external peace.”
—Liv Larsson, Mediator and author of A Helping Hand, Mediation with Nonviolent Communication and Anger, Guilt and Shame—Reclaiming Power and Choice. 

“Gandhi said, ‘In a gentle way you can shake the world.’ Choosing Peace offers radical, yet practical instruction to do just that. Don’t merely read this book. Practice the wisdom you discover in it to harness the transformative power of choice that resides within every conflict. You will be astonished.”
—Christine Flaherty, Healthcare Executive, CNVC Certified Trainer

“I used to avoid conflict at all costs and consequently would sometimes not be able to live my deepest values of telling the truth and living an authentic life.  Through trainings with Ike and John I learned precious and valuable techniques for staying present with people no matter what they have to say.  Now, I not only tolerate conflict better but am even  excited to be in situations of conflict because I have learned that they can often lead to deeper honesty and  connection.  I am happy to recommend this clear, practical and deeply inspiring book so that even more people can learn these ways of being that our world so sorely needs.”
—Marcia Miller, Owner, Yoga On High

“John and Ike take Marshall Rosenberg’s work to a whole new level—they have unpacked the components of NVC and placed them into small understandable nourishing bites, incorporated the fight-flight-freeze dynamic, offered an invitation to practice these skills throughout the book and intertwined from beginning to end, they offer exciting real-life examples highlighting a cast of characters as they learn, grow and practice the skills and techniques of Mediate Your Life. A powerful book that will have you waiting anxiously for the next in their series to be published.”
—Sylvia Haskvitz, MA, RD, Author of Eat by Choice, Not by Habit

“Choosing Peace is a remarkable contribution to the world of mediation and peacemaking.  The book is both eminently practical—how do I convey what is going on in me clearly and without offense?—and deeply inspiring—how can I use my new understanding to create a harmonious world? The writing is crisp and the stories compelling.  Most of all, Ike and John have reduced the complexity of peacemaking to the comprehensible—not an easy take. I have been a full-time mediator for more than decade, and have helped many hundreds find peace and resolution.  I would credit Ike and John above all others in offering me the intellectual understandings and the practical tools necessary to make this a reality.  Choosing Peace is simply a continuation of their outstanding work.  I hope the whole world reads it.”
—Larry Rosen, Attorney-mediator, founder of Through Understanding

“Ike and John write with open hearts about the purpose of NVC. In a motivating way, they break down the components of NVC and highlight them with real-life examples. This clear step-by-step structure makes it easy to understand how to apply NVC in various settings. Follow what’s in this book and you will be on your way to resolve conflicts in a deeply satisfying manner!”
—Towe Widstrand, CNVC Certified Trainer, CNVC Assessor for Certification, Former CNVC Board Member and International Project Coordinator, Stockholm (http://towewidstrand.se)

“Choosing Peace explains in simple, high-quality language the potential of Nonviolent Communication. I felt taken by the hand and, in a pleasant way, led through highlights of our daily communication pitfalls. With powerful imagery Ike and John succeed in drawing a picture of the theoretical model of NVC and bringing it within reach of everyone—whether new to NVC or already a skilled user. Beginners can get right to work and the more experienced practitioners can test their own insights or deepen them. Using recognizable family situations, the reader is introduced to the four basic steps of NVC and can therefore easily identify themselves with similar situations in their own personal or business environment. This makes the learning threshold very low. The unique approach in this book is a must for anyone interested in giving his own communication the necessary connectivity twist.”
—Harald Borjans, Owner of Daimoon BV, publisher of NVC-related books, the Netherlands (www.giraffendroom.nl)

“The information in this book can change your life, as it did mine! After practicing the principles in this book I feel much more at ease with the way I handle myself in everyday life and in relation with others, which gives me both meaning and inspiration. I’m now applying these skills in my work life as well with amazing results, from coaching and educating organizations in soft skills, to helping prevent people from committing suicide in a chat support hot line. It takes some practice to learn these skills but believe me, it´s worth it!”
—Ola Tornberg, Trainer and soft skills specialist, Sweden

“In their book Choosing Peace, Ike Lasater and John Kinyon have brought a fresh approach to conflict, describing simple steps that lead first to a heart connection between the people involved, then to lasting solutions that work for everyone. The book gave me tools I now use every day, and showed me how to practice them until they became habits. Practicing is where the surprise came: I tried out these skills using my life’s most mundane conflicts as material. Start simple and safe, right? I began noticing big shifts in how I was feeling, even without tackling any big issues. My relationships began to flow more smoothly. I am holding my temper more easily and feeling stressed less often. I’ve even started mediating between different aspects of myself. Now that I’m ending wars and settling scores within myself—choosing peace—I am finding that I like myself better and better each day.”
—Ed Niehaus, Chairman, Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc.

“There is always the danger that communication could become a technique and become mechanical.  But Choosing Peace is distilled from long and committed experience of mediating conflicts.  The way it is presented through a story adds flesh and blood to the practice.

When you reach this shift in perspective, you do not let go of the stories or the judgments—they let go of you. The thoughts that were making you so miserable no longer have you in their grip.”  Reminds us of the higher goals of the practice. The very title chosen for the book indicates something beyond lies tangled in the present messy sticky living. “Practice Pause” is a useful device that keeps us at the same time glued to the practical aspects of the process.

The authors have followed their initial inspiration that led them to Peshawar and guided them through long years of dedicated research and teaching of the process of choosing peace. I am confident that serious practice could lead the practitioners to a radical change.
—Christlin Rajendram, Jesuit Priest, former Rector of Trincomalee Campus of Eastern University, Sri Lanka

 

CHOOSING PEACE RESOURCES (As referenced in book)
Choosing Peace Summaries
Choosing Peace Techniques
Expressing Receiving
Feelings vs faux feelings
Feelings
Needs

CHOOSING PEACE BOOK TRAILER*

*Video Credits:

Design and Creation: Ezra Barany, Barany Consulting
Photos (used under Creative Commons license, in order of use):
1. Geoffrey Whiteway on Stockvault: http://goo.gl/pp3nEe
2. Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash: http://goo.gl/1Enr1Q
3. Michael Mandiberg on Flickr: http://goo.gl/m9gsaL
4. Emergency Brake/Evil Erin on Flickr: http://goo.gl/Zsd6gD
5. Ernie on Flickr: http://goo.gl/t1A0gu
6. Ed Yourdon on Flickr (used with permission): http://goo.gl/dQPKye
7. Sean McGrath on Flickr: http://goo.gl/U2YEho
8. Michael Krigsman on Flickr: http://goo.gl/FWUK0O
Creative Commons Music by: Kevin MacLeod

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