Although the radical techniques and delightful results of The Peace Company (PC) have been tested and proven over a fifteen year period, the “business model” of the Company is a new millennium experiment. The Peace Company is an evolving, cooperative community. More specifically, the Company is organized as a “social business,” which means:

1. The Peace Company is owned by those it serves; and
2. Any profits generated by the Company do not go to outside investors, but rather go back into the business to help solve the deep, ingrained worldwide problem of people suffering and/or living and working in un-peace.

We are not a non-profit organization. We are a “for profit” business, organized like other “for profit” businesses. We pay reasonable fees to our peace teachers, coaches and trainers, and offer fair compensation to our suppliers, distributors and agents. However, any “excess” profits that are made above these expenses are put back into the Company to help expand our services to people around the world, and to train and pay more peace coaches, educators and “principals.”

The most well-known and successful example of  a “social business” is the Grameen Bank in  Bangladesh, which has helped over four million poor women by offering small “micro-loans”  —from $25.00 to $100.00 – so that they can start their own small businesses. The model has proven very successful, and the founder of the Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus, was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work.

How to Works:

Social businesses can be organized and operate in a lot of different ways. Here’s how the Peace Company is organized and operated:

For Customers: You learn this radical new approach to living in peace by

1. Attending a seminar or workshop put on by the Peace Company
2. Buying books, tapes, CD or DVD’s from the Peace Company
3. Signing up for a correspondence course,
4. Signing up for a personal peace coach

Here’s what’s unique about this process:  ALL OF YOUR FEES FOR THE ABOVE ARE CONVERTED INTO SHARES OF THE PEACE COMPANY (One dollar = One Share.) So when you invest your money in learning how to enjoy peace of mind, you are directly investing in The Peace Company and thus you become part owner of The Company.

This is a new, unique and evolving business structure, not only for The Peace Company but as a “new approach” to small business corporations around the world. We are proud to be part of this new movement. We believe it is the future of bringing back corporate responsibility through “real peoples’ capitalism.”

We are still in the early stages of developing this new business model, but as we progress, people are actually transforming their work and home lives through the peace practices we teach  and their daily lives are thus richer, healthier, more fun! .

If you have questions, or want more information about The Peace Company as a social business, please contact bear@frii.com

I wish I didn’t have to go to my Uncle’s funeral today. I wish he hadn’t died. I wish he could have stayed healthy and lived forever.

Nevertheless, I’m going to my Uncle’s funeral today. Bummer.

In my professional life, in my personal affairs and in my spiritual walk (three areas of my life that are in fact not separate.) I teach— and engage— a simple cognitive process I call the “peace practice.” I’ve learned that practicing peace of mind is the most important thing I can do for myself and everybody around me. And I’ve learned that to have peace of mind I need to be at peace with thoughts and stories I’m entertaining in consciousness. There’s no other way. So if I’m not a peace with a thought or story I’m telling myself, or someone else is telling me,  I’ve learned that I have two options:

a. drop the thought or story with which I am not at peace and find or create a thought or story with which I am more at peace; or

b. choose to be at peace with the thought or story with which a moment before I was not at peace.

When I teach this, clients often ask how it’s possible to be a peace when their outer circumstances are so stressful—relationships are strained, or health is impaired, or finances are in shreds. Or maybe one’s uncle has recently passed, and one must attend the funeral—later today.

One thought at a time, I tell them. One story at a time. For example, “I wish I didn’t have to go to my Uncle’s funeral today.” Am I at peace with this thought, this story? No, not right off. So okay, I have two options, per above. Can I drop the thought, and find one with which I am more at peace? Maybe, for a minute or less. But the funeral is in a couple of hours, and I have to go. So what about option b— can I be at peace with the thought which a moment before I was not at peace?

“I wish I didn’t have to go to my Uncle’s funeral today.”  Can I be at peace with this thought? And more precisely, can I be at peace with this feeling?

Yes, it’s the most peaceful thing I can do. This is what mourning feels like. Wishing it hadn’t happened. Wishing we didn’t have to deal with it. Wanting things to be different than they are. This is a natural, spontaneous, widely experienced human feeling. I don’t have to deny it. I don’t have to fight it. I don’t have to try to make it into something else.

“I wish I didn’t have to go to my Uncle’s funeral today. Nevertheless, I’m going to my Uncle’s funeral today.”

Can I be at peace with this story? It is, after all, a choice.

So yes, I can be at peace with my reluctance, I can be at peace with my feelings, I can be at peace with my sense of loss, and sense of wanting to run away. These are what rise up in me. I can consciously decide not to fight these feelings, these stories. Simply be with them. Nor need I exaggerate them. I will simply let them be what they are, rising and falling as they do. This is mourning. This is life. This is today.

This is beautiful, this ache, this wanting to run away, this wanting it to be otherwise, that is present in me now.

I’ve learned that Peace has many, many faces, with many wrinkles.

Yikes, yikes, yikes! An invisible demon is out to get us! Everybody, stay in bed!. Get under the covers. While you’re under there, wash your hands!

Although we naturally, spontaneously offer great compassion and sympathy for those folks whose families have suffered the loss of a loved one due to the recent outbreak of H1N1 – e.g. The Swine Flue— or are currently suffering the yucky symptoms of that flu, nevertheless the quick regress of our medical and media communities into adolescent enthrallment and systemic paranoia is to be laughed at. In fact, laughter is the healthiest thing we can do!

A couple of basics: Yes, indeed,  normal people are catching swine flu , though  those who have a compromised “immune system” are most at risk for catching the flu—any flu (swine, bird, donkey, etc)  just as they are more at risk for catching a cold or the bubonic plague. And these same folks with compromised immune systems are, alas, the ones most likely to suffer the most severe consequences, including the dropping of the mortal coil. It happens every year, with all kinds of maladies, including normal human (Kentucky) flu.

However, we don’t just have a physical immune system. We also have a psychological immune system. And now, even though we might have relatively healthy physical immune systems, our communal psychological immune systems are under heavy attack from the constant barrage of the media/medical community’s highly contagious fear, paranoid projections, and mass alerts of the possibly deadly pandemic at hand. Their fearful broadcasts have created countless false alarms and over-reactions around the world.

So how do we protect both our physical and psychological immune systems? Cutting edge medical research confirms that we do this first and foremost simply by staying centered, staying peaceful, staying happy and upbeat.  Duh. If you are running scared, worried about every sneeze, depressed and out of sorts, washing your hands won’t do you much good.

So exactly how do we do this—stay happy, healthy, upbeat?  Contrary to widespread assumptions, it’s actually quite simple. Dr. Charles Lawrence, the main character in  Practicing the Presence of Peace, observes that we stay happy and peaceful simply by enjoying the stories and thoughts we entertain in consciousness. We find peace, he says, by being at peace with our own inner dialogue. We suffer, and compromise our immune systems when we focus on and magnify the thoughts and stories we don’t enjoy, or with which we are not at peace.

Dr. Charlie suggests that in order to protect our immune system whenever necessary or appropriate we can simply ask, “Am I at peace with these stories, am I happy with these thoughts, yes or no?” He says that if the answer is not an immediate and spontaneous yes, it’s a no. Thus, if we are happy and at peace with the thought/story of a worldwide flu pandemic, we are free to think it. If we are not at peace with such a story, we are free to drop it.

Study after study has proven that our mental attitude has a huge impact on our physical condition. So I’m determined to simply enjoy, and be at peace with— not be too troubled by— the silly adolescent behavior of the media and the flat-earth medical people who continue to assault the mass immune system. And do my part, with posts such as these,  to simply say— I ain’t afraid of no swine. Think I’ll have a BLT while searching for cheap tickets to Acapulco.

Maybe wash my hands before boarding.

This is a brand new site, dedicated to living peace, in personal and communal affairs, as well as foreign policy.  My new book, Practicing the Presence of Peace, has just been released. In a minute or two– or a day or two— I’ll actually bring some new content to this site. In the meantime, read the book— and then let’s talk. 

 
Peace on— Bear