Building Relationships Rooted in Listening and Care
In May, the Peace Practice Alliance turned toward the second realm of peace leadership, Interpersonal Peace. This part of our journey centers on relationships, how we speak, listen, express emotion, and make meaning with one another.
Participants engaged with questions that invited deep self-awareness: How do I show up in relationships? What roles and identities shape how I relate to others? What emotions arise in connection, and what are they pointing to? Together, we explored emotional literacy and nonviolent communication as a pathway to clearer communication and deeper empathy. Through listening partnerships, empathy exercises, and storytelling, participants found ways to honor their own truth while holding space for others. These practices encouraged us to approach one another with curiosity, humility, and care.
A central theme throughout was listening as a peace practice—listening not only to understand, but to connect. Listening with the heart as well as the ears. This truth resonated deeply in Madochée’s experience from Haiti:
Module 2: Interpersonal Peace Practice hit me like a warm breeze in the midst of Haiti’s storms, speaking straight to my heart as I navigate the chaos of ‘territoires perdus’—places where gangs burn homes and steal lives, leaving families to flee in search of safety. The module’s focus on cultivating inner peace to create spaces of trust and connection felt like a mirror to my work teaching English in Port-au-Prince. As I shared in my speech, ‘Listening: A Refuge in the Storm,’ asking ‘How are you today?’ and holding space for the answers transforms my classroom into a sanctuary where students can exhale their fears and dreams. The module’s teachings on active listening and nonjudgmental presence gave me new tools to deepen this practice, reminding me that peace isn’t just a dream—it’s built in the quiet moments when we truly hear each other, defying the violence outside.
This lesson became painfully real as I thought about the students who’ve become like family to me—not by blood, but through the bond of survival. People like Emmanuel, a young man who fled Carrefour Feuilles after gangs torched his neighborhood, now find refuge in my home. Amid my own struggles to find calm in Haiti’s relentless crises, I strive to embody the inner peace Krista encourages in Module 2, sharing it with these exilés through open ears and an open door. Christopher once told me, ‘Madochée, your listening makes me feel I’m not invisible.’ His words echo the module’s call to live peace inwardly so we can radiate it outward. By offering a shoulder and a safe space, I’m weaving a nest of hope, ‘piti piti,’ as the Haitian proverb says, one story at a time.
Stories like this remind us that interpersonal peace is lived. It’s built moment by moment, in the way we offer presence, ask questions, and stay attuned to others. The tools we explored this month offer gentle guidance for those moments: practices that bring clarity, foster understanding, and help us show up with integrity in our relationships.
As we look ahead to Module 3 on Community Peace, we carry with us the deep understanding that peace lives in the space between us, in every act of care, every word spoken with intention, and every silent pause that honors another’s humanity.