The Practice of Maintaining Peace

It's a fact of life that not every moment will be filled with happiness. Every person faces moments of difficulty, frustration, and pain at different times, which is normal. Sometimes it's something big that gets to us, and sometimes it's something as small as a spilled coffee that can get into our heads and affect our sense of peace all day. While the source of our frustration is what we often think is the reason for our loss of peace, our reactions to these situations play a significant role in causing us to feel joyless.

Karen McMahon of Journey Beyond Divorce believes that we often live in our thoughts, unable to let go of the negative feelings that stem from the upsetting moment. "We actually stop living in the moment choosing instead to keep RE-LIVING the thing that is displeasing to us," she explains. When we cannot escape that memory, we allow ourselves to let it take over our sense of peace and ruin our day, our week, or even more than that.

These circumstances are prevalent within our most complicated relationships. Take co-parenting, for example. You are raising your children with your former spouse or partner, and this person is likely to stir your emotions unlike many other people in your life. If issues surrounding miscommunication are common in your co-parenting situation, you may feel your sense peace slipping away and frustration taking over. These moments of disconnect can create anger and annoyance are often hard to just shake off or let go. The problem here is that when your frustrations lead to rash actions or costly court appearances, you might end up losing more peace than you expected. Worse, your own tension might end up affecting your child's sense of peace.

These moments may be the source of our loss of joy, yet the practice of maintaining peace begins within ourselves. As Karen explains, "When something occurs, we may well experience an automatic upset. It is about NOTICING the upset and the thoughts that begin as a result of the incident AND THEN letting go." In this article, she explains how so much of our energy is taken away when we resist what life brings us. She says it's all about the practice of paying more attention to our own thoughts instead of the actions taking place around us. "When we practice noticing our thoughts and letting go, we engage in a powerful, productive practice, leading to joy," she says.

Getting past frustrations that stem from moments of miscommunication or co-parenting disputes will be made easier by keeping up with the practice of maintaining peace, but the use of tools that promote clear, unambiguous communication can help as well. OurFamilyWizard®is designed to give co-parents a neutral space to communicate about everything related to raising their children. Features prompt co-parents for complete information to be shared in a timely manner, helping to avoid confusion and unnecessary disputes. It also keeps your co-parent communication separate from all of the other communicating you do throughout your day; this allows you to have a better chance to really focus on parenting issues as the arise without letting it seep into everything else you have going on. Best of all, communicating using OurFamilyWizard® helps co-parents to better protect their children from losing their own peace due to being place in the middle of conflict and disputes. 

Maintaining a sense of peace in your co-parenting doesn't need to be so hard. Give OurFamilyWizard® a try and see how it can improve your co-parenting communication.