A 16-Week Virtual Certification Program
March 7, 2012 - June 6, 2012
 
[faculty]
 
Ervin Laszlo
Barbara Marx Hubbard
Swami Chidanand Saraswati
Sharif Abdullah
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Dr. William Ury
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Kimmie Weeks
 
 

Watch and listen to Philip Hellmich, The Shift Network’s Director of Peace,
share passionately about the Peace Ambassador Training experience:

 

Calling all change agents who are READY to explore profound inner peace and learn the leading-edge practices to truly create peace in our families, communities and our world:

You now have the rare opportunity to access the world’s leading peacebuilders and their step-by-step approaches to navigating conflict and building peace, so you can heal yourself, your family and the world, NOW, when the world needs us most.

We are clearly in a time of the most accelerated changes in history. The skills of defusing and transforming conflict and healing social wounds are at the core of whether we can create a healthy, vibrant, peaceful and sustainable world.

You CAN make a profound difference and truly be part of the change our planet needs - and you can learn to do so effectively with tools and strategies from world-renowned social healer James O’Dea and more than a dozen of the world’s most respected peacebuilders.

We’ll show you how with this 16-week advanced course designed to take you along the peace continuum, from inner peace to international peace. First, we’ll take you into the heart of peace on an inner dimension - both from a scientific and spiritual perspective - and then across the continuum to the practical approaches of transforming conflict on the interpersonal, community, national and international levels.

Watch this short video of Peace Ambassador graduate Erik Kasum describe how the Training changed his life, helping him create a national peace conference and think tank on peace:

Led by James O’Dea, the former President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the former Director of Amnesty International in Washington, DC, you’ll learn from someone who combines a deep understanding of the emerging “science of peace” with a depth and breadth of practical field experience in addressing human suffering of all kinds.

The transformation that comes from peacebuilding can also liberate your heart, mind and soul from negative patterns, resistance and fear, allowing you to become a more radiant and effective light in the world.

Therefore, it’s a journey into your deepest self, helping you to heal old wounds, remove barriers to intimacy and trust, cultivate powerful friendships in the world and find your own unique contribution to global transformation.

Join us now for the Peace Ambassador Training by registering here

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  • You long to be a true peacebuilder during this pivotal time in history - but know you could be more effective if you had the right skills, practices and community of support.
  • You want to help heal personal and collective wounds - and are open to learning how to do it.
  • You strive to communicate in a healthy way that brings people, families and organizations together to work and collaborate more effectively.
  • You hunger for a comprehensive peacebuilding map that gives you the essential skillset of a social healer.
  • You want to develop techniques for cultivating inner peace and spaciousness, lowering the walls in your own heart, so you can come to forgiveness and healing around past wounds and teach others to do the same.
  • You see that there is something quite beautiful underway in the world - and you want to learn from the most inspiring programs and people about how to play your highest role.
  • You understand that a committed process of practice and learning over four months is the best way for you to evolve your skills and take yourself to the next level.

Watch this short video of Peace Ambassador graduate Fred Arment, Executive Director of the International Cities of Peace, sharing how the Training can impact you:

 
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Peace Ambassador classes are conducted via conference calls on Wednesday nights at 5:00pm Pacific. The 90-minute classes are followed by optional 30-minute small group discussions where students engage one another to deepen their understanding of course content.

In addition, participants stay connected with James O’Dea, Shift Network staff and other participants throughout the course via a private online community forum, which offers a rich and safe environment for students to explore how to integrate the course content into their daily lives and their own peacebuilding endeavors.

The Peace Ambassador Training is also The Shift Network’s certification process for leaders in the Summer of Peace 2012, a global network of events and activities promoting the shift to a culture of peace. During the training, you will develop and hone a vision for how you can play a peacebuilding leadership role in this significant global event. We’ll also offer many ways for you to apply your skills through our broader network.

Through this four-month journey, you will:

  • Develop profound skills and tools for cultivating peace in your life, your family, and your community, providing the training you need to be a more effective peacebuilder in the world.
  • Learn how to navigate conflict and stand in the fire of hostility and aggression in powerfully effective ways, giving you the tools to be a social healer.
  • Be empowered to release old wounds, navigate stress and clear barriers to friendships, as well as understand how to accelerate that process in others.
  • Learn exactly how to practice and model the principles of peaceful communication that alleviate aggression and antagonism and gain confidence to facilitate others in creating a culture of peace during this momentous period of planetary change.
  • Gain a comprehensive overview of leading practices along the peace continuum, from inner to international peacebuilding, including the leading-edge science of peace.
  • Develop a strong foundation in community-building and organizing skills.
  • Be inspired and guided to manifest your greatest qualities in service to humanity’s emergence and your deepest identity as a Peace Ambassador.
  • Connect with an inspiring network of peacebuilders, friends and allies from around the world, including direct exposure to the planet’s leading peacebuilders.
  • Have the opportunity to play a significant role in a massive Summer of Peace 2012 series of world-changing events.
 
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Dear friend in peacemaking,

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I have lived both on the frontlines of brutal inhumanity and the leading edge of conscious evolution. I’ve seen firsthand the horrors of genocide and was even in one tense situation where I received multiple stab wounds.

I’ve also seen the flowering of deep love and respect between people with long histories of animosity towards each other.

After decades of work, I can assure you that the world is now ready, in a way that it has never been, to make a profound shift - to shed its addiction to violence, to cleanse its old wounds and open to a global healing the likes of which we have barely imagined.

I invite you to be part of this great work, this birthing of a new and more harmonious era of human existence.

It begins in the deep recesses of your heart. It grows in the love you weave in your family. It buds in the healing of old grudges in your community. And it blossoms in the ending of war.

The walls can come down between us such that we experience the magnificence of the design that connects us. We can learn to think peace, be peace and celebrate peace, leading to a harvest of love, joy, connection and intimacy that comes from no longer warring with each other or ourselves.

I want to share with you all that I’ve been given in decades of traveling the world, working with some of the most remarkable men, women and children who are lighting the way forward. There is a beautiful new synthesis emerging - from the high mountain Kogis of Colombia to spiral dynamics in the West Bank, from the devotional heart of India to the rigorous mind of Western science.

This synthesis offers a clear, sober and inspiring picture of what we must do to shift beyond violence as an acceptable response to conflict and to transform the roots of that dis-ease at all levels of our world.

For our Peace Ambassador Training, we have brought together the leading pioneers of that synthesis for a state-of-the-art certification program.

All around us are the festering wounds of conflict, misunderstanding, violence and fear. We have the opportunity to be healers, bridgebuilders and peacemakers, bringing great benefit not only to the world, but to you, personally.

I invite you to be one of the pioneers of this path, together with hundreds from around the world who hear the call to become Ambassadors for a new and joyous era in human evolution.

We will laugh together, heal together, vision together, awaken together and learn from inspired masters of peace. We will create a new template for what is possible, with profound impacts in every area of your life and our world.

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Remember, peacemaking is not just the domain of international heroes. It’s one of the most practical skills for transforming the quality of our lives, our families and our society. It’s the foundation for turning conflict into friendship, stress into creativity and discord into collaboration. There are few skills that can more dramatically improve the quality of your relationships. And our world.

And the peacemaker does not just touch others - we touch our own innermost Self through the raw, naked power of the human heart. We shed layers of illusion and defense to live in a way that is lit by a powerful love.

If you hear the call, do join us. The world is calling forth our best NOW to help in the great turning of our day. It is time for each of us to play our unique, sacred role.

Are you ready to learn how to transform tension into peace, discord into love, violence into understanding?

I hope so. We were truly born for this day.

In peace,
James O’Dea

 
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The Training will offer you an immersive experience in building skills with today’s top peace leaders and is divided into five pillars:

  1. Deep Personal Peace: Cultivate the psychological, emotional and spiritual dimensions of peace as the great foundation for deep engagement in the world.
  2. Healing Personal and Collective Wounds: Transform personal wounds and collective trauma to create personal and social transformation and significant evolutionary change.
  3. Communicating Peace: Learn the art of skilled communication to benefit you, your family, your community and our world. You’ll also learn the latest in peacebuilding, conflict transformation, social discourse and dialogue.
  4. Mastering Systems Change: Understand how to create systemic change via models and strategies for unprecedented whole system shifts.
  5. Activating and Organizing for Peace: Gain the community-building and collaboration skills that expand your leadership capacity and help you offer your deepest gifts.

For each Pillar of Peacebuilding, you’ll learn from James O’Dea and two to three core faculty on the methodologies and peace practices they use in their work. James will be weaving and integrating these teachings into a cohesive map for peacebuilding, from the personal to the planetary, throughout the Training. You’ll also have weekly practices, readings, and assignments that deepen your experience of the material and put you into close collaboration with other training members from around the world.

Pillar 1: Deep Personal Peace - 3 weeks
These sessions will focus on helping you cultivate the psychological, emotional and spiritual dimensions of peace as the great foundation for deep engagement in the world. Core faculty includes:

JamesODea.jpg March 7: James O'Dea - currently Co- Director of The Social Healing Project funded by the Kalliopeia Foundation. (full bio)
March 14: Aqeela Sherrills - Celebrated peacemaker who brokered truce between the Crips and the Bloods in Los Angeles, now the Executive Director of YES! and advisor to peacebuilding projects worldwide. (full bio)
cassandravieten.jpg March 21: Cassandra Vieten - Director of Research at Institute of Noetic Sciences. (full bio)
 

Pillar 2: Healing Personal and Collective Wounds - 3 weeks
These sessions will focus on giving you the skills to transform personal wounds and collective trauma in order to create personal and social transformation and significant evolutionary change. Core faculty includes:

March 28: Judith Thompson - Former Director of Children of War, co-founder of Frontiers of Social Healing Dialogues, expert in reconciliation processes in post-traumatic areas. (full bio)
April 4: Azim Khamisa - Internationally renowned expert on forgiveness, hailed by the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh (full bio)
April 11: Belvie Rooks - social visionary, writer, educator and television producer. (full bio)
 

Pillar 3: Communicating Peace - 3 weeks
In these sessions and practices, you’ll advance in the art of skilled communication for yourself, family, community and world. You’ll learn the latest in peacebuilding, conflict transformation, social discourse and dialogue. Core faculty includes:

April 18: Michael Nagler - Professor emeritus at UC Berkeley where he co-founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program. (full bio)
April 25: Mark Gerzon - Key architect in the global leadership field; experienced facilitator in high-conflict zones; President, Mediators Foundation. (full bio)
May 5: Susan Collin Marks - Senior vice-president of Search for Common Ground, one of the largest conflict transformation organizations in the world; Susan served as a peacebuilder in S. Africa’s transition from apartheid. (full bio)

Pillar 4: Mastering Systems Change - 3 weeks
In these sessions, you’ll hone your understanding for how to create systemic change via models and strategies for unprecedented whole system shifts. Core faculty includes:

May 2: David Korten - Visionary, engaged citizen, author of Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. (full bio)
May 9: Louise Diamond - Co-founder of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, founder of Global Systems Initiative and The Peace Company and author of four books on peace. (full bio)
May 16: Don Beck - Spiral Dynamics theorist and wizard who has mapped and applied a comprehensive approach to working with different memes and transforming cultures from South Africa to the Middle East. (full bio)

Pillar 5: Activating and Organizing for Peace - 4 weeks
These classes and practices will help you develop community-building and collaboration skills that expand your leadership capacity and help you offer your deepest gifts.

May 23: Philip Hellmich - Director of Peace, The Shift Network. (full bio)
 
May 30: Barbara Fields - Executive Director, The Association for Global New Thought. (full bio)
 
June 6: Dot Maver - Educator and peacebuilder, Executive Director of the National Peace Academy that supports, advances and nurtures cultures of peace. (full bio)
JamesODea.jpg June 13: Final Session with James O’Dea - currently Co- Director of The Social Healing Project funded by the Kalliopeia Foundation. (full bio)

Special LIVE Bonus Session #1 - Non-Violence: A Path to Peace (March 31)

Arun Gandhi - The grandson of India’s legendary leader, Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi (full bio)
 

Special LIVE Bonus Session #2 - Spiritual Solutions (April 26)

Deepak Chopra - Global leader and pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine. (full bio)
 

Bonus Recording #1 - Cultivating Inner Peace

Swami Chidanand Saraswati - Renowned Hindu saint and president of Parmarth Niketan ashram, Swamiji has represented India at the Parliament of World Religions and is known as great teacher of peace. (full bio)
 

Bonus Recording #2 - The Path to Planetary Peace

Special Bonus Workshop #2: Philosopher Ervin Laszlo (full bio) and celebrated evolutionary Barbara Marx Hubbard (full bio) engage in a visionary dialogue.

Bonus Recording #3 - Crossing the Lines: Creating a World That Works for All

Sharif Abdullah - Founder and director of Commonway, Sharif is working to align our global human societies with our common spiritual and moral values. A leading expert in non-violent social movements. (full bio)
 

Bonus Recording #4 - Communicating Peace

Dr. William Ury - co-author of the global bestseller Getting to YES, author of The Power of a Positive No and co-founder of the Harvard Negotiation Project. (full bio)

Bonus Recording #5 - Committing to a Path of Peace

Kimmie Weeks - Child’s rights activist and globally-respected peacebuilder from Liberia who has helped to rehabilitate child soldiers. (full bio)
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Practices & Homework: Every week we’ll have practices that allow you to embody the core teachings and apply them in your daily life, in conflicted situations in your community, or in larger societal healing work. You’ll engage in a powerful journey with supportive groups and a private online community in which you can discuss and apply the homework. Additional readings and practices will be recommended each week to deepen your learning.

Certification: For participating fully in the course, completing assignments and demonstrating skills in key concepts, you’ll receive a Peace Ambassador Certificate from The Shift Network, which will enable you to play a leadership role in work we are planning for the Summer of Peace 2012 - a global array of activities to create a planetary shift towards a culture of peace.

Listen to Peace Ambassador graduate Taira St. John share how the Training helped her launch a Summer of Peace 2012 program to revitalize her economically-depressed county in California:

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