So, why peace?

The real value of peace is that it opens the space inside us essential for being fully present with what’s in front of us – right now: Expanding bandwidth. Building capacity. Meeting complex challenges and rapid change in our world today -effectively, sustainably, creatively.

The Nine Days to Peace program changed my life. I entered the program doubting my ability to be effective in my job; that doubt is gone now. The sparkle in my eye is back. I feel as if I’ve re-found myself. 

Rebecca D.

One of the things I’m taking away is that things don’t have to be as hard as I’ve been making them. I definitely have a different approach now.

Kelly S.

As a primary caregiver for an Alzheimer’s patient and an employee in an emotionally charged environment filled with chaos, negativity and uncertainty, I felt swamped and buffeted by storms around me. By the end of the program, I was able to be present without being consumed by the negativity. I no longer feel shaky inside

Julie C.

Let’s build the capacities needed to get you, us, where it’s time to go. To live. To thrive.

When Nine Days to Peace first showed up for me, I thought it was about manifesting the changes I wanted in my life: New clients. New car. New love. More contentment with my home….just to name a few..

As you may know, at that time I was experiencing deep emotional pain, confusion and a world-shattering crisis of faith – in myself, my choices, my ability to create resourcefully AND in That Which Is Greater Than We Are. It worked really well.

What you may not know is that in the 20+ years I’ve been working with the process in my own life and sharing it with others, the work has shown me it is about much more than manifesting.

Or perhaps I should say: It is about more than manifesting situations and conditions. It is very much about cultivating desired  – and oh, so essential – personal capacities.

Why is this important?

As it turns out – and this may not be a big surprise for you, but it’s something I wrestled with for quite some time – the human experience is full of challenges.

Big ones, little ones. Out-of-the-blue, take-your-breath away challenges. Challenges that go on and on. And on. Recurring and chronic. One after another after another.

 Sigh.

 I know. Over-statement of the obvious.

But this has been a really tough piece for me to accept. I actively fought it for a long time. 

You see, like many people, I took on the message from different spiritual teachings that tell us: When we get it right, the pain and struggle will go away. Elevating your consciousness will take you above the petty human reality that is fraught with challenge.

And that school of thought? Is crazy-making.

That message tells us if we’re “doing it right,” we won’t have challenges.  What it does is have us make ourselves wrong when we encounter challenges, especially if we can’t easily (ahem) overcome the challenge, or control the circumstances surrounding the challenge in an attempt to prevent it from occurring at all!

The truth is, there are some challenges that aren’t going away. That we can’t overcome, or even prevent through our attempts to control. That no amount of wishing, chanting, affirmation or even prayer will erase.

This flies in the face of what the dominant Culture tells us: Overcome at all costs or you are a failure. Or a fraud. Or both. Ouch. Enter…

What I’ve learned in over two decades of working with the Nine Days Process is that, yes, sometimes it helps us eliminate or get past or successfully navigate our way through a challenge.

But what about when the challenges keep coming, one after another…after another? What about when we live through a series – or even a Season of Challenge?

When we meet those times that the challenge is simply so big, so shattering, so ongoing, if we’re still living from Culture’s mandate to Conquer All, it sets us up to feel helpless and hopeless. To feel like a failure.

To lose faith – in ourselves and That Which Is Greater.

From within that helpless, hopeless space, we experience diminished capacity. Literally. Our ability to create resourcefully goes offline amidst the backdrop of emotional reaction and noise, and an over-stimulated (and exhausted!) nervous system.

It’s a very isolating space so we feel disconnected, including from Self.

That’s a really tough place to be.

But this isolated, disconnected feeling is also something else: A call to build capacity.

The Nine Days Process, as it turns out, helps us meet challenges from a space of personal agency instead of desperation. That’s capacity.

The Process helps us reconnect with Self and possibility. This is resilience, which is based in capacity.

As we regain resilience, confidence and self trust begin to blossom, restoring faith in Self and More.

What all of this translates to – and this is huge – is:  The ability to continue thriving when, frankly? It would have been easier to give up and give in completely. When it would have been logical to get caught in survival mindset as my mortality confronted me in ways surpassing what I ever anticipated.

In the face of some of the biggest and most painful challenges in my life, did I still have Very Human Moments? Of course I did. And do.

Was I ungraceful at times? Were my needs higher than usual? You betcha’.

But – what shone through the darkness was a solid connection to my own resourcefulness, which meant I have been able to access much needed resources from a place of clear, determined intention not diluted by desperation.

 What the process has given me is a clearer line of sight to whatever was needed each step of the way in this journey. And a much deeper faith that resources would be available along the way, an active living of being supported in ways I could not have imagined.

A pandemic rages across the globe as we face, perhaps more directly than ever before, the need to dismantle and grow beyond cultural systems entrenched in misuse of power.

We watch and wonder as leaders politicize and, in so doing, trivialize the depth and breadth of challenge so many of us are facing in these times, and the challenges some have faced all of their lives.

We are uncertain about public health and safety, and the capacity of medical systems to successfully meet this situation, now and going forward. 

We are uncertain about where economies are headed and what “normal” will look like in the coming weeks, months, years. 

We are uncertain about how to resolve societal schisms, rectify social injustice and speak truth to power that does not want to hear OR about how to navigate this unfolding OR about what Life may look like on the other side of current disruptions.

We live in an age of unprecedented uncertainty, at least for many of us. Add to this the fact that living with uncertainty will not be going away any time soon:  Futurist David Houle predicts we will see more change in the years between 2020 and 2037 than ever before in human history. 

So, my friends, Life is telling us this is the Now that demands greater capacity, broader resilience and a deeper, actively-lived personal peace than ever before. We need all of the bandwidth we currently hold in our Beings and our Biology — and we need to build on that to carry us forward. The luxury of status quo? Is over.