Can Three Feet of Peace Change the World?

By Deborah Greene

After 9/11, I traveled up and down the west coast with a small film crew to talk with high school students and see how they were handling our new world. One question rang out, “How can I as an individual possibly save this mess? World peace is unrealistic.”

Years later, I would take to the road again, this time with a desire to meet my whole country. During the summer before our last presidential election, I drove 9,000 miles through 40 states over five months, filming hundreds of interviews. Thus began the theory of “3ftofPeace,” or what’s possible when each of us begins to claim dominion over our own state of peace.

Theory of Three Feet of Peace

These discussions created the theory. How do we each create a peaceful existence, and aren’t we more likely to come to each other in peace if we are experiencing more peace individually? The three feet of peace speaks to our own personal three-foot circumference. We spoke of paradox; the woman who cuts you off in traffic because she is late for yoga, the father who interrupts his own meditation to scream from his room when he hears a glass drop in the kitchen, the parents who restrict their children’s television consumption but are permanently affixed to their IPhones.

What if you were calm, and I was calm, and she was calm, just for a moment… What if we do it in the next moment and the next? Okay, well, maybe not this one, but how about the next? If I can create a peaceful world, and she can create a peaceful world, and he can create his peaceful world, maybe we will be less likely to blow each other apart in all the small daily ways as well as the earthshaking, truly soul shattering, literal ways.

Deborah filming at Standing Rock, 2016
 

Shakespeare and Meditation in Jails
Back in the ’90s I had an idea: I wanted to work with gang members using Shakespeare to talk about their crimes. The opportunity came over a game of pool in L.A., when I met Ish Moran, Head Probation Officer at the maximum-security juvenile facility in the area. He is a striking man. He stands well over six feet tall, a mix of histories and ethnicities, with hands that can rival Wilt Chamberlain’s. All this packaged with a large brimmed cowboy hat, spiritual totems around his neck, and large rings whose origins seem to come from all over the world.

During my first class, I would see him walk across the yard in the jail with a distinctively measured gait, carrying with him a large stillness. And there I stood, in the frame of the gymnasium door at his facility with the four teachers I had hired, and watched as a line of extremely large young men crossed the yard towards us in formation, hands behind their backs. I thought, “Good God, I hope I know what I’m doing.”

As they approached, I could see the reluctance in their eyes, already suspicious. I instinctively reached out my hand to shake the hand of the first man as he approached. The line came to a halt. I asked him his name. He gave me his last name. I asked for his first name and gave him mine, shaking his hand as he entered. My well-trained but green-like-me teachers stepped into line behind me, following my lead. First names exchanged and contact made. I was unaware of how many protocols I had broken and how significant it would be that I had done so. At the end of the first class they lined themselves up again and wanted to repeat our greeting on the way out, shaking each teacher’s hand. This became our own private protocol.

We were in a setting where there was no hope for ownership of your three feet of peace and therefore critical to learn to create within, an internal place to land and find comfort. Over time the handshakes became hugs, which periodically were shared among their peer group even between otherwise rival gang members. As they left each class, the ritual continued, and each time I would watch their bodies shift, contort, and re-assimilate in structure and energy to create their façades as they entered the yard, which required a tighter hold for survival.

Deborah with students, 2001
 

Respect
The greatest lesson was about the need to express, be heard, and to feel respected as a human being. I remember a specifically pointed conversation about the feeling one student had when holding someone at gunpoint. He expressed a feeling of being respected. He spoke of how, for that moment, he had the complete attention of someone who otherwise might never have looked him in the eye. I took a risk and told him if he had held me at gunpoint, he would have indeed had my attention and momentarily held my life in his hand but my attention would not have meant my respect.

I realized how critical our first meeting had been. My immediate desire to look them in the eye, ask their name, and shake their hand was the move of a self-possessed person choosing to meet another as a self-possessed person and honoring the interaction, which allowed a space for respect to grow. We had huge differences but that didn’t create a chasm of assumptions or a stance of permanent retreat.

Three Feet of Peace
Most of us have experienced a cage of our own making. The psychic cost of compressing ourselves and limiting our expression into those harnessed but safe dwellings has a global cost as well. When in this state, it is nearly impossible to grow, to be open to the unknown or unfamiliar, or to challenge our beliefs.

For me, peace comes when I feel at home within myself, without the feeling of constriction provoked from the outside or pre-instructed from within. When I do so, I add my three feet of peace to the larger world.

These collective three-foot increments can significantly alter our world in ways we may not fully comprehend. They are like seeds dropped on a path. We do not always see the bloom, but it is enough to know that it will sprout. This is the next evolution.

Change occurs within your next choice. What will you chose? May it bring you peace.

Deborah and her niece Emma at the Women’s March in Washington D.C., 2016
 

Based in the Bay Area, Deborah Greene has a long history of creating award-winning programs in diverse sectors, working with corporations, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, educators, and media of all kinds. She is the Founder of LiveaMoment, which has just released a first-of-its-kind app designed to help people create their own 3ft of Peace, connect with others around the world, aid in the teaching of emotional intelligence, and raise money for a cause or nonprofit of their choice. Deborah has also created the Our State of Peace Project, a documentary series that emerged from interviews with hundreds of people around the world.

To watch short videos about LiveaMoment, click here and here.