Meditation

Masters of Peace
Jennie Helene Sandstad
Breathing Meditation
as a Tool for Peace Work
A Transrational and Elicitive
Method Towards Healing the Healers
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Masters of Peace
Masters of Peace is a book series edited by the University of Innsbruck’s UNESCO
Chair for Peace Studies. It has been founded to honour outstanding works of young
academics in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies. It is reserved for selected Mas
ter theses of the Innsbruck School and published twice a year. The Innsbruck School
follows the principles of Transrational Peace Philosophy. It defines peace as a plural
and regards all aspects of human nature relevant for the understanding of peace
and conflict. Its applied method is Elicitive Conflict Transformation, a pragmatic
approach to conflict rooted in Humanistic Psychology that entrusts the responsi
bility for finding alternative options of behaviour, communication and encounter
to the conflict parties. Facilitators provide a safe frame, tools and methods for this
quest without imposing their own solutions on the parties.
Edited by
Wolfgang Dietrich
UNESCO Chair for Peace Studies
University of Innsbruck/Austria
Editorial Board:
Josefina Echavarría
Daniela Ingruber
Franz Jenewein
Norbert Koppensteiner
Fabian Mayr
Andreas Oberprantacher
Johney Xavier
Austria
More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/13769
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Breathing Meditation
as a Tool for Peace Work
A Transrational and Elicitive
Method Towards Healing the Healers
With a foreword by Roger Walsh, MD, PhD, DHL and
by Barbara Mitchels
Innsbruck, Austria
ISSN 2364-463X ISSN 2364-4648 (electronic)

Masters of Peace
ISBN 978-3-658-19903-6 ISBN 978-3-658-19904-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19904-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955538
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I write to transform and to allow transformation in others
Foreword
In many ways it is both the best of times and the worst of times. It is the best in
as much as we have the scientific and technical capacity to eliminate poverty,
eradicate starvation, live sustainably, and preserve our planet. It is the worst, in
as much as we continue to fight war after war, create ever more destructive
weapons, allow millions to starve and billions to suffer poverty, while degrading
the only planet we have.
So great is our technological power that we are shaping the world in our
own image. What we call global crises are actually global symptoms: symptoms
of our individual and collective psychological injuries, immaturity’s, and
neuroses. Our social and international conflicts reflect the conflicts within us.
What this means is that an important but often overlooked source of our
global conflicts and crises is a developmental imbalance. We have developed our
outer science and technologies to awesome world-shaping proportions. However,
our inner development – our psychological capacities and virtues for love and
compassion, wisdom and enlightenment – remain atrophied. We have become
nuclear giants and technological wizards while remaining ethical adolescents and
wisdom dwarfs, and this imbalance may destroy us. For as Robert Sternberg,
former president of the American Psychological Association lamented, “If there
is anything the world needs, it is wisdom. Without it, I exaggerate not at all in
saying that very soon there may be no world.” Humankind may be in a race
between inner and outer development, between compassion and conflict,
between sagacity and catastrophe.
Therefore, we urgently need to nurture a new generation of social and
global activists who not only feed the hungry and end conflicts but who also
address the psychological and cultural roots of these problems. Consequently, it
is heartening to see the University of Innsbruck Peace Studies Program
integrating these inner and outer dimensions, reaching across cultures and
disciplines, challenging students intellectually and psychologically, and fostering
both academic excellence and psychological maturation. And it is heartening to
see superb graduates such as Jennie Sandstad documenting their learning, taking
it out into the world, and using it to help, heal, and educate others.
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8 Foreword
I came away from this fine book feeling grateful to Jennie and the
University of Innsbruck, and feeling a little more hopeful about humankind and
our future. I think that after reading it you will feel the same.
Roger Walsh, MD, PhD, DHL.

Professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy, and Anthropology
and Professor in the Religious Studies Program
University of California at Irvine
Foreword
In these days of political uncertainty and global unrest, the need to generate and
sustain peaceful attitudes and ways of being is essential to our psychological and
physical survival, on all levels as individuals, communities and nations.
Adam Curle (1990) wrote of the need for those engaged in peacemaking to
achieve an inner state of peace, because along with many other peacemakers,
psychologists, philosophers and spiritual leaders, he clearly recognised that inner
peace is essential to create the psychological conditions that enable individuals
to undertake outer acts. Many of us share the understanding that all living beings
and matter are interconnected, and therefore our attitudes and actions influence
each other and our environment in a myriad of mysterious ways.
When we think of inner peace, we can also see that the converse is true –
that inner psychological un-peacefulness, for example unresolved trauma, grief,
guilt and shame, along with the physical aftermath of war such as hunger,
poverty, homelessness, illness and medical needs can all generate and perpetuate
the conditions for suffering and acts of violence. This concept is important to the
activity of peace-making in so many ways: helping those affected by the
negative impact of conflict to heal their pain and hurt; enabling peacemakers to
make a genuine empathic and compassionate connection with others in the
process of mediation and providing the inner strength to withstand the stress of
their work in helping the victims of war; and ultimately in helping aggressors to
understand themselves better, transforming the attitudes which fuelled their
violence.
We can see with clarity the need for working towards inner peacefulness
operating at all levels when we consider work to heal domestic violence, family
and community conflicts, national unrest, and international war. Effective
peacemaking involves both a ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ approach, involving
both the leaders and the communities involved – when we think of it this way, all
peace ultimately stems from individuals, and transformation at all levels will
happen through our interconnectedness leading to a collective consciousness
influencing our actions. In all these situations, conflictual attitudes can only be
fully transformed when individual inner peace is achieved, which often requires
healing past physical and psychological traumas arising from all aspects of our
lives.
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10 Foreword
Meditation in all its forms is a helpful way of working towards inner peace,
greater connection between self and the outer world, and can give rise to new
awareness and understandings. The sense of interconnectedness arising in
meditation can lead to greater compassion for self and others. The breathing
meditation techniques described here are particularly helpful in physically
calming feelings of panic, stress, and anxiety, and carry many psychological
benefits which are so well researched and described in this book.
It is always exhilarating to come across new ways of thinking and
developments in the practice of peacemaking. This book, informed by the
author’s wealth of personal peacemaking experience and grounded in her per-
sonal experiences of trauma and her self-healing practice of breathing meditation,
combines a sound academic approach with a clear explanation of breathing
meditation techniques, providing an innovative contribution to practical peace-
making. Her writing is honest, informative and compelling. Now it is time to go
and try to put her ideas into practice …
Barbara Mitchels
Contents
Foreword (Roger Walsh).................................................................................... 7

Foreword (Barbara Mitchels) ............................................................................ 9
List of Figures ................................................................................................... 15
1 Author's Perspective ................................................................................. 17
1.1 Why write? – The Author is Not Dead ............................................... 17
1.2 A Wonderer and a Wanderer .............................................................. 19
1.3 The Journey Towards Breathing Meditation ....................................... 20
2 Research Interest and Research Question .............................................. 21
2.1 Why This Topic Now? ........................................................................ 21
2.2 Identifying the Problem ...................................................................... 23
2.3 The Question ....................................................................................... 24
3 The Research Methods ............................................................................. 25
3.1 A Transpersonal and Academic Voyage ............................................. 25
3.2 Definitions of Relevant Concepts ....................................................... 26
3.2.1 The Families of Peaces .............................................................. 26
3.2.2 Transrational Peaces .................................................................. 26
3.2.3 Elicitive Conflict Transformation .............................................. 27
3.2.4 Transpersonal ............................................................................. 28
3.4 Empirical Approach- An Experiential Understanding ........................ 29
3.5 The Experiential Understanding – Breathing Meditation ................... 30
3.6 Embodied Writing ............................................................................... 32
4 State Of The Art ........................................................................................ 35
4.1 The Family of Peaces .......................................................................... 35
4.2 The Transrational Approach ............................................................... 37
4.3 Transpersonal Psychology .................................................................. 38
4.4 Elicitive Conflict Transformation ....................................................... 40
4.5 The Elicitive Tools .............................................................................. 42
4.6 Breath Oriented Approaches As Tools For The Peace Worker .......... 42
4.7 December 28, 2014 ............................................................................. 47
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12 Contents
5 Peace Work, Traumas & The Here and Now ......................................... 49

5.1 Approaching Trauma .......................................................................... 49
5.2 Trauma And The Following Reactions ............................................... 51
5.3 Peace Workers Encountering Trauma ................................................. 53
5.4 Irresponsible “Heroes” ........................................................................ 55
5.5 Power of the Presence/ We Can Be Heroes ........................................ 57
6 Peace Work As Art ................................................................................... 59
6.1 The Peace Worker as an Artist ............................................................ 60
6.2 Art as Conflict Work ........................................................................... 62
7 Meditation as a Tool for Elicitive Peace Work ....................................... 65
7.1 What is Meditation? ............................................................................ 65
7.2 Beyond Modern Methods Of Healing ................................................. 67
7.3 Meditation As A Tool for Peace Work ............................................... 68
8 Inhale, Exhale – The Breath In Breathing .............................................. 73
8.1 Breath – The Life Force ...................................................................... 73
8.2 The Breath And The Body .................................................................. 74
8.3 When Breathing Is Frightening ........................................................... 76
8.4 Why Tuning Into Our Breath? ............................................................ 77
8.5 Breathing And Being With Pain ......................................................... 79
8.6 Breathing Connects Us........................................................................ 81
9 A Practice For Inner And Outer Peace Work ........................................ 83
9.1 A Guide To Breathing Meditation ...................................................... 83
9.2 And Then... ......................................................................................... 85
9.3 Preparing For Peace work ................................................................... 86
9.4 Beginning Breathing Might Be Difficult ............................................ 87
10 Peace-work Interconnected With Self- Compassion .............................. 91
10.1 Dissecting The Definitions ................................................................. 91
10.2 Self-Compassion ................................................................................. 92
10.3 Elicitive Peace Workers, (Self-)Compassion and Burnout ................. 94
10.4 Towards a Self-Compassionate Healing ............................................. 96
10.5 Letter to self ........................................................................................ 97
11 Healing The Healers ................................................................................. 99
11.1 What is Healing? ................................................................................. 99
11.2 Self Healing ...................................................................................... 101
11.3 Shaman – The Healed Healer............................................................ 104
11.4 The Wounded Healer ........................................................................ 106
11.5 Dare To Go Deeper ........................................................................... 107
Contents 13
12 My Healing Process ................................................................................ 109

12.1 The Tibetan Singing Bowl ................................................................ 109
12.2 Acknowledging the Serpents ............................................................ 111
12.3 Pieces Of the Processes ..................................................................... 112
12.4 Trying to Touch Something Deeper – Leading up to Love .............. 115
13 Love – A Practice for Awakening the Heart ......................................... 117
13.1 Why Love? ........................................................................................ 117
13.2 What is Love? ................................................................................... 118
13.3 Conditional and Unconditional Love & The Energy of The Heart ... 120
13.4 Self-Love .......................................................................................... 122
13.5 My Practice/ How Do We Love? ...................................................... 124
13.6 Letting Love...................................................................................... 125
14 Concluding Thoughts ............................................................................. 127

14.1 Further Applicability ......................................................................... 128
14.2 The Art of Going Beyond ................................................................. 129
14.3 Lessons Learnt .................................................................................. 131
List of References ............................................................................................ 133
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Burmese posture,

drawn by Thea Elise Klingvall 2017 ........................................... 84
Figure 2: Sitting meditation on chair,
drawn by Thea Elise Klingvall 2017 ........................................... 84
1 Author's Perspective
1 Author’s Perspective
When I have experienced situations as overwhelming or unbearable, my coping

strategy has been to run away. As fast as my legs were able to carry me I ran
away from confrontations, presentations, from anxiety and from shame, but no
matter how fast I ran I found my fears hiding around corners and crawling into
my mind. Besides being an exhausting process for myself, this coping strategy
has also affected the relations with my family and my friends, and on an
overnight bus ride from Madrid to Cartagena in March 2014 I quietly asked
myself; how can I transform the pattern of running away? The starting answer to
the question is ironically simple: I sit, I breathe, I am. This is the story of how
returning to my breath through meditation began, and this journey is not of the
easy kind, but then again, what is a journey if you are not transformed by it?
By exploring the power of my inhalation and exhalation through breathing
meditation, I am able to bring out a calming and mind-clearing quality even in
stressful and difficult situations. This work forms a guidance for you my reader,
as well as for me, into how breathing meditation can be a transformative tool for
peace work. Koppensteiner writes, as the opening line in The Art of the Trans-
personal Self, Transformation as Aesthetic and Energetic Practice (2009) that
"[T]he question that needs to be asked at the beginning of every written work, and
indeed even more so at the beginning of a work of the size of a book is: why
write?" (Koppensteiner, 2009: 9, italics in original). With this question in mind I
embark upon the next challenge and raise my awareness to exactly this query.
1.1 Why write? – The Author is Not Dead

1.1 Why write? – The Author is Not Dead
One writes out of one thing only — one's own experience. Everything depends on
how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can
possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the
disorder of life that order which is art (Baldwin, 1998: 8).
James Baldwin, American author, poet and activist for the civil rights movement
stated that the main challenge for an artist is to transform the confusion and
chaos of life into art. My writing is ingrained in the cultural context I come from,

J. H. Sandstad, Breathing Meditation as a Tool for Peace Work,
Masters of Peace, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19904-3_1
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18 1 Author’s Perspective
which has predominantly been a modern and Western context, where the focus
of being an 'objective observer' was one of the main goals in my previous
behavioristic oriented psychology background. Unlike most contemporary
university programs the Innsbruck Peace Program, where my current academic
foundation has been formed, understands that the students themselves are
valuable sources of information. Embracing the understanding that subjectivity is
not causing danger to academic work but rather is the main component in my
research endeavor has indeed bewildered me, and I will soon use this quiver to
engage with my own history to show where I come from and where I am
currently standing in the ever-changing moment.
Roland Barthes, French literary theorist and philosopher published in 1967
the article La mort de l'auteur 1 where he argued that any aspect about the
author's identity and what s/he creates is unrelated. He concludes the text by
proposing the death of the author; “[W]e know that to restore to writing its
future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the
death of the Author“ (Barthes 1967: 6). Contrary to Barthes I will argue that the
author's perspective is a dynamic, but all-too often overlooked component in
literature and is of particular significance in research ventures. Aspects from my
ever-changing life will indeed affect my writing through personal dewdrops
upon the written pages, which cannot be extracted without causing a bleak,
insincere and characterless writing.
"I am not interested in the academic status of what I am doing, because my
problem is my own transformation [...]. Why should a painter work if he [/she] is
not transformed by his [/her] own painting?" (Foucault, 1997: 131). I first
encountered this quote by Foucault when reading Koppensteiner (2009) during
my first semester at the UNESCO Peace Program in Innsbruck, and it planted a
seed in me that led to asking a lot of questions; why should I write if I am not
transformed by it? Why should I, as a peace worker, provide a space for
transformation for others if I cannot provide this space for myself?
As I return to the beginning, my response to the question 'why write?' might
seem quite simple at first sight, but requires an enormous effort and courage: I
write to allow transformations. I write to transform my pattern of running away
and I write to put into words much of that which I have never been able to
express before. With a floating understanding of the self and the prudence of
writing genuinely I will try to paint a picture with some of the aspects that have
led me to where I am at the moment, and accordingly attempt to transform the
confusion and chaos of life into art.
1 The death of the author (Translated by author).

1.2 A Wonderer and a Wanderer 19
1.2 A Wonderer and a Wanderer

1.2 A Wonderer and a Wanderer
I was born in Oslo, Norway, in the late 80's and grew up with my parents and my
little brother Jørgen in the same red house that my father grew up in 30 years
before me, among forests and lakes. I had a safe childhood surrounded by friends
and family and was a rather shy little girl with an explosive temper. As a family
the four of us have had our ups and downs, sometimes putting on masks that
portrays harmony even when we experience obvious conflicts, but most of the
times speaking from our hearts.
As long as I can remember I have been a 'head person', meaning I have
dissected my never-ending stream of thoughts, asked masses of questions and
habitually filled myself with planning and concerns about the (luckily)
irrepressible future. In as much as I am a wonderer, I am also a wanderer. During
high school I became the student council leader and at the same time got deeply
engaged in the Palestine/Israel conflict, which gave me the opportunity to travel
to Gaza with a former teacher. 2 After this journey I wanted to see more,
understand more, learn more, which resulted in traveling around the world but
yet something was missing.
I studied psychology at the University of Bergen, where we spent hours in
front of a computer screen trying to condition the behavior of Sniffy, a virtual
rat. Frustrated with the focus of my education I moved six months to Stockholm,
Sweden, to engage with gender studies and got introduced to the field of
humanistic psychology, and I also attended open lectures at Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which later paved the way for
Peace and Conflict Studies in Puducherry, India. With a nomad heart and with
nomad feet I have constantly been on the move, but it was not until I returned to
Norway, after my journey to India, that my life took an abrupt turn and one
episode lacerated me and created a large wound inside of me, where I have been
hiding and storing a lot of anger, fear, shame and sadness. The anger has
occupied my body in the form of severe physical pain but also showed itself
through self-inflicted pain.
In January 2012 I was walking home alone after a night out in Oslo when
three men attacked me, pushed me down in the snow and tore my clothes off.
The months afterwards I tried to push away the memories because they gave me
so much pain. I covered up the episode (including the bruises and memories of
blood) and recounted a story where I had successfully escaped an assault. The
2 Manglerud High School started a cooperation in 2008 with the New Palestinian Abraham
Center for Languages, where the initial thought was to teach Arabic to Israelis and Hebrew to
Palestinians and have mutual English classes, and thus create opportunities for cross-cultural
exchange and interaction. For more information see: http://www.npacl.com/
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20 1 Author’s Perspective
retelling was comfortable during the first weeks, but as the memories started to
become stronger and more vivid, denial turned out to be a fatiguing and demanding
coping strategy. I started a process of what I describe as self-grieving, in which I
learnt to both numb myself and at the same time dismiss my own process.
It has caused a lot of anger, resistance and tears to take the step of leaving
the victim mode, and the lack of self-love and self-compassion has made the
journey towards healing exhausting. Through the Peace Program in Innsbruck I
have learnt to work with these practices at my own pace and I am now, more
than ever, determined to work in conflict zones, to use my experience as a
wounded healer to create a safe space for others.
1.3 The Journey Towards Breathing Meditation

1.3 The Journey Towards Breathing Meditation
Through the Peace Program in Innsbruck I have found what I like to call a
treasure chest inside of me which has helped me open up to explore my inner
chambers, and again created a hunger for more. The different exercises we have
been presented to and engaged profoundly with, such as Holotropic Breathwork,
Quantum Light Breath, 5 Rhythms Dance and various shamanic practices, have
provided me with perspectives and encouragement to understand more of who I
am in the depths of myself as well as given inspiration to how I can get my inner
string to vibrate in harmony with myself and thus with my surroundings, which I
see as an immensely important aspect to be aware of as a peace worker. The
quote below is extracted from The MA Program for Peace Studies' homepage
and shows a glimpse of the philosophical approach in the program.
[T]his is what we want to educate in our program: reflective practitioners of elicitive

methods of conflict transformation with the awareness of transrational peaces. The
way to such an understanding of peaces always begins with the perspective of the
observer. If we feel called to intervene into the maybe unpeaceful affairs of others
we should be most aware of our personal condition (UNESCO Chair for Peace
Studies, 2010).
What I have learnt through the semesters in Innsbruck is that the whole self
cannot be disconnected from what we chose to do in this world, and since I want
to be part of a healing organism through peace work, I need to be aware of the
different aspects of myself and of my personal conditions. Breathing meditation
has provided me with a gateway to observe and understand more carefully how I
react in different situations and how I can center myself in the present, and I will
use the coming pages to look more closely at the relationship between peace
work and breathing meditation.
2 Research Interest and Research Question
2 Research Interest and Research Question
Modern peace theorists seem not to take sufficient account of the depth of the
impact of posttraumatic stress in their study of peacebuilding and reconciliation.
Peace theorists also fail to recognize the importance of addressing the effects of
posttraumatic stress with appropriate psychological support, and some see little
point in opening up the past as a means of healing hurts (Mitchels, 2006: 21).
Up until a decade ago, research focusing on the stress and mental problems
suffered by humanitarian workers attempting to help traumatized individuals in
complex emergency situations were scarce (Adams, Boscarion, & Figley, 2006)
and the main area of research revolved around the wellbeing of peacekeepers and
armed personnel, and the traumatic events they were facing (Cardozo et al.,
2005). Research on the mental health and wellbeing of peace workers is still
limited, but there has been a slight shift of attention.
My research interest rotate around peace work and self-understanding,
particularly related to preparation in advance of peace work, as well as self-
observation, both during and after fieldwork. As peace workers are prone to
experience burnout syndromes, posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (PTSD)
and compassion fatigue, the ability to monitor and observe oneself during such
work requires more attention. Narrowing the topic further down, I am interested
in how inner peace work through sitting meditation, with a close focus on the
breath, can be important features when engaging with 'outer' peace work.
2.1 Why This Topic Now?

2.1 Why This Topic Now?
Every year in my hometown Oslo the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, according
to the guidelines given by Alfred Nobel, to “[…] the person who shall have done
the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or
reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace
congresses“ (Nobel, 1895). Peace work has changed fundamentally since the will
of Nobel was written down. A few wide spread examples are the different peace
work policies, an increase in, and also the desperate need of, civilian field
personnel as well as the colossal impact the establishment of the United Nations

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22 2 Research Interest and Research Question
has had. “Today peacework is multilateral, multinational, multidimensional and

multicultural” (Dietrich, 2013: 3), and the challenges met by those who are
engaging in peace work may potentially lead to quite serious outcomes if being
disregarded.
The danger is emotional as well as physical; ongoing occupational trauma exposure

has implications for mental health. With global complex emergencies and
humanitarian crises rising, relief workers are increasingly and continually exposed
to trauma, both primary involving direct dangers to workers and secondary through
exposure to others’ suffering. Trauma exposure creates emotional and psychological
risk, and anecdotal literature on relief workers theorizes workers are highly
susceptible to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related mental
illness (Connorton, Perry, Hemenway & Miller, 2012: 145).
The University of Innsbruck UNESCO Chair for Peace Studies has developed an
academic program that combines cognitive knowledge acquisition and personal
growth as grounded in humanistic psychology, where the preparation consist in
“adjusting oneself physically, psychologically, mentally, and spiritually to the
work, and recognizing one’s limits and boundaries” (Dietrich 2013: 12). The
students are offered methods such as Holotropic Breathwork, Five Rhythms
Dance and Theatre for Living as possible tools for exploring the deeper layers of
our selves. Not every tool may work for every person in the same way and
therefore they cannot be understood as a universal toolbox for elicitive conflict
work. Indeed this would be a contradiction to the non-prescriptive nature of the
elicitive approach (Lederach, 1995).
In the beginning of January 2015 I started working for the non-govern-
mental Norwegian Organization for Employees in International Operations
(NOFAIO), a network and support group for aid workers, initiated by three
former humanitarian field workers in 2013. The idea behind the project is to
build networks where former and present humanitarian workers can meet, share
experiences and exchange views.3 The organization also advocates that many aid
workers face challenges after having returned back home. Challenges related to
trying to reconnect with family and friends, feeling out of place, as well as
situating the challenges to stress, traumas, burnout, and other general mental
health issues of aid workers.
3 http://www.nofaio.no The website is written in Norwegian.

2.2 Identifying the Problem 23
2.2 Identifying the Problem

2.2 Identifying the Problem
Working with humanitarian crises or relief work, peace workers are increasingly
and continually exposed to suffering, and neither the employers nor the
employees may have sufficient understanding of the wounds this can create
(Connorton et al., 2012). The problem and what draws me to this topic is as
follows: most training programs that aim at sending workers out in the field,
such as The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), The United
Nations Volunteer Program (UNV) and The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC),
have their main focus on the conflict itself (often already with possible solutions
made in advance of arrival), and thus fall short to prepare the peace workers on
the importance of self-reflection, sensitivity and awareness on all layers.
Peaceworker Rosalie Hughes worked for the United Nations refugee agency and
other relief organizations in Rwanda, Kenya and other African countries from
2009 to 2013, and wrote an article in 2015, stating the following: “Aid
organizations exist to alleviate suffering and maintain and protect human dignity.
They should do better at applying these principles to their own staff” (Hughes,
2015).
The Tantric principle 'as above, so below; as within, so without; as the
universe, so the soul' reflects upon the notion that whatever occurs at one level
also occurs on every other hence, what is inside the peace worker effects what is
on the outside and vice versa. Peace researcher Noah Taylor describes it in this
way:
The elicitive conflict worker enters the conflict situation from a systemic perspective
acknowledging that by simply being in the conflict situation one has become part of
it. When universal prescriptive models have been abandoned, all one has to rely on
is one's own capacities and the quality and type of presence one can bring to the
situation in order to assist in eliciting the transformation of the conflict from within
(Taylor, 2013: 10).
Reflecting on what I have learnt about myself through writing this writing, I
know that if I try to suppress, hide or push away my wounds, they will only
manifest themselves differently within me. Breathing meditation has, as
mentioned, provided me with a space to acknowledge, observe and understand
how I react in different situations and how I can center myself in the present.
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24 2 Research Interest and Research Question
2.3 The Question

2.3 The Question
I begin my research journey with the symbol of the elicitive conflict worker. On
the preceding pages I attempted to connect the threads from my personal
perspective with the prevailing problems that the peace worker might encounter
in the meadows of the humanitarian/relief/aid/conflict/peace work. My research
question, the heart of my research design, has been through extensive feedback
loops with the result of one reformulated research question:
• How can breathing meditation, as a transrational method, be a tool for peace
work?
3 The Research Methods
3 The Research Methods
Throughout the human sciences and humanities, it is generally acknowledged

that the major aim of research and academic pursuits is to expand the knowledge
base of one's discipline -i.e., to provide further information about a topic of
scientific or scholarly interest. What is not as frequently recognized is that, in
addition to information, research can provide opportunities for transformation as
well (Anderson & Braud, 2011: xv, italics in original).
3.1 A Transpersonal and Academic Voyage

3.1 A Transpersonal and Academic Voyage
The quest of the voyage presented here is to find ways to balance the methods of
the academic harvest with the continuation of my self-exploration through
breathing meditation. One of the challenges will thus be the dogmas of scientific
knowledge, and the current elucidation is perhaps to dissociate myself entirely
from this subjugating set of standards 4 , particularly as the gathering of
observable and measurable 'evidence' subject to specific principles of reasoning,
with the intention of being as 'objective as possible', is quite distant from my
intentions.
The purpose behind this book is multiple. First it reflects my background in
psychology and peace work, and therefore aims at contributing to the academic
debates concerning the peace worker's role. Secondly the aspiration of this work
is to echo my inner journey towards healing the healer, in other words, using the
methods and tools that I write about to work with the scars from my own past,
my shadows, my self awareness, my process. This approach does have metho-
dological considerations that I will present on the coming pages.
As the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative versus quantitative
research methods have been debated ad infinitum (see for example Prakash,
Klotz, Barkin, Hoffmann, Duffy & Tannenwald, 2007) with as many perspec-
tives as researchers, I confine myself from comparing these two research
4 I am not arguing for an overcoming of scientific knowledge in general, rather questioning its
relevance in this specific research project.

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26 3 The Research Methods
methods within Peace Studies. Instead, I will refer to the specialized metho-
dological approaches that best reflect my process of investigation, noting
however that most of the data is collected and processed by the means of
qualitative methods, thereby leaving space for the consideration of difficult-to-
measure variables such as, among others; my meditation practice, transpersonal
experiences, emotions, intuition, shadow sides, bodywork, and states of mind.
To answer my research question (How can breathing meditation, as a
transrational method, be a tool for peace work?), I use a combination of theo-
retical and empirical approach of research, where both of the approaches are
guided and grounded in the transpersonal method of Embodied Writing.
3.2 Definitions of Relevant Concepts

3.2 Definitions of Relevant Concepts
Before I continue describing my courses of action, I will clarify a few of terms
that reoccur throughout this work. As this terminology forms the foundation for
the following chapter, State of the Art, where a more thorough analysis will be
presented, the main purpose behind this clarification is hence to describe the
rudder on the boat that I am sailing with.
3.2.1 The Families of Peaces
Peace-researcher Wolfgang Dietrich has explored different interpretations and

perceptions of understandings and experiences of peace through cultures and
histories. Dietrich found four grand narratives of peaces, which he identified as
energetic, moral, modern and postmodern peaces and combined them in a
holistic manner to identify a transrational concept of peace (Dietrich, 2012).
Each of the four interpretations of peaces circulate around a specific key
value: “energetic peace is all about harmony, the moral interpretation emphasizes
justice, the modern understanding of peace calls for security, and the post-
modern approach deals with the question of truth(s)” (Dietrich, 2014a: 48).
3.2.2 Transrational Peaces
The transrational peaces do not have only one meaning or interpretation but
rather exist in a diversity of expressions and manifestations (Dietrich & Sützl,
1997). The transrational perspective includes the embracing of the different
peace families and at the same time going beyond, as Dietrich explains it; “We
3.2 Definitions of Relevant Concepts 27
called this trans-rational, because it appreciates and applies the rationality of

modern science while it transgresses its limits and holistically embraces all
aspects of human nature for its interpretation of peace” (Dietrich, 2014a: 48).
A particular importance in transrational peaces is placed with the personal
perception, as the transrational way to understand peaces always begins with the
perspective of the observer. I therefore invite you, my reader, to consider your
experience of peace as I briefly present my own. As peace for me goes beyond
an understanding based on reason, an attempt to translate its meaning into words
becomes a complicated but fascinating task.
Peace for me. Inner harmonious resonance and reflection of energy, both
without and within. Perceived in stillness and wind, ocean and fire, bathing in
colors and gratification. Peace is letting go and allowing. A flow, experienced in
the ever-changing moment, breathing in the worlds, dancing life, collective
creating and tranquility. Peace is melodious poetry vibrating in the awareness
as equanimity. ∼ September 29, 2014.
This understanding let me experience peace as floating and ever-changing.
It is quite an energetic understanding of peace, and for me the exploration of
inner peace is a highly important virtue of the peace worker. Dietrich explains it
as follows;
Energetic peace is thus never a state and it is not tied to objective conditions. This
peace begins on the inside of the self and spreads from there as a harmonious
vibration into society, nature, and the universe. The human being who does not first
look for peace within herself will not find it on the outside, because there is no
objectifiable peace there (Dietrich, 2012: 56-57).
3.2.3 Elicitive Conflict Transformation
“Elicitive conflict transformation is a working principle that is rooted in the

insights of transrational peace philosophy and provides elicitive conflict mapp-
ing as a tool for applied conflict work” (Dietrich, 2014a: 56). Nearly two
decades ago, John Paul Lederach introduced the systemic approach into the
realm of peace research and practice of conflict transformation. In Preparing for
Peace (1995) Lederach describes a form of conflict transformation training quite
different from the prescriptive model. By and large, the prescriptive model
would suggest a ready-made training module, whereas elicitive training “begins
with a more open approach of identifying the needs in a given context and then
working with the participants to create the training that corresponds the needs”
(Lederach, 1995: 58).
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The adjective elicitive that Lederach uses to describe the approach, stems
from the verb 'to elicit', meaning to bring forth or to evoke (Dietrich, 2014a).
This shift in conflict transformation is closely related to the transrational
understanding of peace and conflict, and as Dietrich puts it “elicitive conflict
transformation is the methodological consequence of transrational peace
philosophy” (Dietrich, 2014a: 53).
3.2.4 Transpersonal
The aspect of transpersonal is closely related to the transrational, as

“transrational peaces always reach beyond the limits of the persona” (Dietrich,
2012: 258). Transpersonal psychology is a key concept for this work, because it
concerns the study of states and transformations in which people experience a
deeper sense of who they are, or a greater connection with the divine. I share the
view on transpersonal experiences as formulated by Walsh and Vaughan, as they
provide a description that is contextual and relational. “Transpersonal
experiences may be defined as experiences in which the sense of identity or self
extends beyond (trans.) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of
humankind, life, psyche or cosmos (Walsh & Vaughan, 1993: 203, italics in
original).
The word transpersonal can be divided into 'trans' and 'person', where trans
literally means: beyond or through (Daniels, 2005: 11) and the word 'person'
stems from the Latin word per-sonare which means “to sound through a mask”
(Dietrich, 2012: 227). This has a significant meaning for this piece of work as
the meaning of transpersonal thus becomes 'beyond sounding through a mask'. I
will later explain this notion and the importance of masks related to both
transrational and transpersonal peace work, whereas I now will portray my
courses of action.
3.3 Theoretical Approach

3.3 Theoretical Approach
To assemble my theoretical framework and congregate the State of The Art
Chapter, I conduct a bibliographical research. The data will be retrieved from a
wide area of published books, articles, documents, workshops, art, lectures and
personal conversations. The literature that I am interested in, and which has
provided the entrance to the fields of peace work and breathing meditation for
me, is the transrational and transpersonal methods related to elicitive peace
work.
3.4 Empirical Approach- An Experiential Understanding 29
The bibliographical research allows me to explore that which is already

researched, and will be presented in the following chapter. Since the aim of my
bibliographical research is to explore the literature on the topic, I combine the
spiral of published work about transrational peace work and breathing meditation
with my own transpersonal experiences, to bring a new perspective into the
debate.
As I tend to find texts more flowing without the interruption of cross-
references due to different languages, I have deliberately tried to engage mostly
with work written in English writing authors, or work that has been translated
into English. Nurse and author Marianne Magnelssen is the one of the few
Norwegian-writing authors I engage with in this book. I have included
Magnelssen's work in the original language, because her work and words
resonates with me. Reading in my mother tongue about her personal encounter
of the transformative powers of the breath has both a soothing and stimulating
effect on me, and so I ask my readers to bear with me on the cross-reference
jumping that will appear in Chapter 8.
3.4 Empirical Approach- An Experiential Understanding

3.4 Empirical Approach- An Experiential Understanding
My topic is rooted and twisted in an approach where I, as a peace worker, cannot
separate my self from the field where I work, because I am inextricably
entangled with the work I do and the people I work with. Consequently, I
critically question the so-called objective researcher that arrives at a universal
conclusion based on reasoning only, especially connected to psychology and
peace research disciplines. Unless it is a practice of objectivity, as argued by
Donna Haraway, that “privileges contestation, reconstruction, passionate
construction, webbed connections, and hope for transformation of systems of
knowledge and ways of seeing” (Haraway, 1988: 585), in other words, an
objectivity that is about “limited location and situated knowledge” (Haraway,
1988: 583). Since I do not aim to arrive at universal conclusions, but rather
situate myself and my understandings of peace work, reasoning alone does not
have the aptitude to describe my whole reality, which is reflected in my choice
of methodology.
Norbert Koppensteiner asks a question that resonates profoundly with my
view of exploration beyond explanations based on reason only: “How is it
possible to approximate theoretically something which is beyond rational
description?” (Koppensteiner, 2009: 29). The empirical approach used in this
work requires more discussion room at this point, due to the methodological
considerations related to my choice of focus. An approach that focuses on the
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embodiment of transpersonal experiences and the process of healing, and

therefore an approach that transcend the pure rational and scientific methods to
knowledge, is the main nucleus of this craft.
Since I see myself as an academic and a practitioner, where each of the fluid
labels are influencing and supplementing each other, I will use the concept of
Experiential Understanding as my pathway into experiencing that which I write
about.
[...] trans-rational practice ultimately takes us beyond the field of theory back into a
realm of experiential understanding beyond postmodernity, a weak transcendent
realm where (scientific, rational) knowing has to give way to the intuition of
understanding (Koppensteiner, 2009: 28, italics in original).
With this focus in mind I will clarify the process of Experiential Understanding,
my breathing meditation.
3.5 The Experiential Understanding – Breathing Meditation

3.5 The Experiential Understanding – Breathing Meditation
A basic assumption of the transpersonal approach is that research into the
transpersonal cannot be divorced from a commitment to personal and social
transformation, so that academics must themselves be practitioners in some sense
(Daniels, 2005: 277, italics in original).
Being an academic, a practitioner and a peace worker requires a delicate balance.

On the one hand I want to deepen my practice and explore my transformations
profoundly, on the other hand I want to engage with social transformations as
well as contributing to the academic sphere. Fortunately, these dedications do
not exclude one another.
Inspired by the work of Wolfgang Dietrich, particularly with a focus on the
corresponding methods of transrational peaces, the Breath-oriented approach to
elicitive conflict transformation forms the roots of my work. The breathing
meditation that I practice is mostly inspired by Buddhist traditions. I will
describe breathing meditation more in detail in Chapter 7 to clarify my
experiential understanding, however, I will give a short explanation of the
Breath-oriented approach I am practicing, as well as a brief notion on the
motivation behind using this method.
3.5 The Experiential Understanding – Breathing Meditation 31
Stanislav Grof, psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, and the founder of

holotropic breathwork5 explains in an interview about the use of breathing as a
healing element that “[...] subtle techniques, which emphasize special awareness
in relation to breathing rather than changes of the respiratory dynamics, have a
prominent place in Buddhism” (Grof, 2007: 21). Ānāpānasati, taught by the
Buddha, means 'mindfulness of breathing', where sati refers to mindfulness
(Bhikkhu, 1976: 225) and ānāpāna means inhalation and exhalation (Bhikkhu,
1976: 122). Ānāpānasati is a basic form of meditation most commonly practiced
with attention centered on the breath, without any effort to change the breathing.
My daily meditation practice is inspired by ānāpānasati and the writings and
teachings of amongst others Jack Kornfield, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Jon Kabat-Zinn
and Tara Brach, which will follow us through this journey.
I usually practice my breathing meditation early in the morning, when the
surroundings has a quiet ambiance and the darkness is still present. I seat myself
on a cushion on the floor in an upright and relaxed position. I close my eyes
gently and bring full awareness to my breath. With each inhalation I calm my
body, with each exhalation I center my emptiness. Buddhist monk, author and
teacher Jack Kornfield writes poetically about practicing meditation in a manner
that highly reverberate with my practice.
Let your mind be spacious and your heart be kind and soft. As you sit, feel the
sensations of your body. Then notice what sounds and feelings, thoughts and
expectations are present. Allow them all to come and go, to rise and fall like the
waves of the ocean. Be aware of the waves and rest seated in the midst of them.
Allow yourself to become more and more still. In the center of all these waves, feel
your breathing, your life-breath (Kornfield, 2016: para. 1-2).
After each meditation session I have my research journal and my drawing

utensils nearby to note down what I experience and observe. I often find it easier
to start with colors and use this as a basis for expressing what is beyond words.
To communicate my experiences I find it more helpful to use a more flowing and
rhythmical language, as I will explain in 3.5 Embodied Writing.
The motivation behind using this method is that first and foremost it is a
practice that I have personal experience with. Since the overnight bus-ride from
Madrid to Cartagena in March 2014, I have habitually been practicing and
transforming my practice from sitting meditation towards a meditation with a
close focus on my breath. Breathing meditation forms a bridge between my
5 Holotropic Breathwork is a powerful approach to self-exploration and healing that combines

accelerated breathing with evocative music. For more information see Grof, S. (1985): Beyond
the Brain. Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy.
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body, mind and spirit, it enhances my self-awareness in the moment and it is an

inner peace work that can be used in both conflict and peace work. Our life force
is contained in each breath we breathe, with the inhalation and the exhalation we
maintain the vital equilibrium and we connect with each other, with nature, with
all living beings and with the whole cosmos, as we are all sharing the air. We
breath to survive and are united by this basic necessitate.
Another motivation behind using breathing mediation as a method is
because it allows me to be the facilitator of my own processes. It does not
require any external devices or tools, such as music or a big space for movement,
since my breath is always with me, as explained by Kabat-Zinn:
Our breathing has the added virtue of being a very convenient process to support
ongoing awareness in our daily lives. As long as we are alive, it is always with us.
We can't leave home without it. It is always here to be attended to, no matter what
we are doing, or feeling or experiencing, no matter where we are. Tuning in to it
brings us right into the here and now. It immediately anchors our awareness in the
body, in a fundamental, rhythmic, flowing life process (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 41).
When discussing the spiritual element of the art of the transpersonal self, Norbert
Koppensteiner explains how the practice we engage with is not to be “mistaken
with a narcissistic or egocentric form of self-love, but on the contrary always
related to some kind of work one performs on oneself” (Koppensteiner, 2009:
62). He further emphasizes that “The work of care is undertaken first for the
spiritual and physical well-being, but secondly also for transformative purposes”
(Koppensteiner, 2009: 62).
When engaging with transformative practices, I have often found words to
be a mediocre substitute for the experience. Through the peace studies in
Innsbruck I have encountered a writing method that has opened up for a
newfangled way of describing my processes. The transpersonal method of
Embodied Writing is both grounding and guiding my theoretical and experiential
understanding, and is helping me express that which is hard to put into words.
3.6 Embodied Writing

3.6 Embodied Writing
“Writing unfolds like a game that inevitably moves beyond its own rules and finally
leaves them behind” (Foucault & Bouchard, 1980: 116).
With and through my body I inhabit this world and therefore I cannot and do not
want to disconnect my body from my writing. Inspired by the work of Rosemarie
Anderson whom, together with William Braud, has created the field of
3.6 Embodied Writing 33
transpersonal research methods, I apply the method of Embodied Writing

throughout my research process, which provides a space for reflection about my
relation to the topic and my experiences through my research. Embodied writing
is a process of writing where I merge my senses with the senses of the world and
then let the words that might come out form a part of the work.
Introduced into the research endeavor in an effort to describe human experience and
especially transpersonal experiences more closely to how they are truly lived,
embodied writing is itself an act of embodiment, entwining in words our senses with
the senses of the world (Anderson, 2001: 83).
Embodied writing as a method facilitate how I can illuminate for the readers the
lived experiences and sensations that come up during my breathing meditation,
and consequently provide the frame for my research and guide me in using
intuition in the writing process.
I want to share excerpts from my research journal that depict what I was
experiencing in the moment the words were penned down on paper. My thoughts
are flowing better when I am surrounded by the sea, while walking in the forest,
sitting on the bus, or in the moment that I wake up, and thus not necessarily
when I am at the library. By taking field notes and writing analytic memos I
develop my own ideas, therefore I am carrying a research journal with me all the
time, to get my ideas pinned down. John Paul Lederach writes, “Artists are on a
journey to find and reflect the beauty that surrounds them” (Lederach, 2005:
122). I write to echo the sounds that surround me and the humming I feel inside,
I write to transform and to allow transformation in others.
My research journal is continuously accompanying me on this journey, and
I have chosen to share a excerpts and passages with you, to illustrate parts of my
voyage. The pieces from the journal are written in italics, so that you more easily
can distinguish it from the rest of the text. During the semesters in Innsbruck, we
wrote reflection papers to echo our experiences within the program. These
reflection papers now provide a peek into my process through the program, and I
will similarly share some of the reflections in chapter 12 “My Healing Process”.
The months of engaging deeply with trauma and healing is affecting me on
every level, and since I cannot show you the exact moment of how I move in my
dance, in my singing, and in my stillness, I will use my writing to put more color
to the line contour drawing of this text. In the next chapter I will dive into the
literature that is relevant for my work, presenting the authors and the theories
that are significant for the journey ahead.
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4 State Of The Art
4 State of The Art
This chapter presents the authors whose writings and ideas I twist throughout
this work. Mutual for these authors are their contributions to transrational peace
philosophy, elicitive conflict transformation and the art of transpersonal
experiences. Their work form the stem from where the leaves of this text can
grow, and it is by exploring this cross disciplinary soil that I have understood
how fertile this field is.
4.1 The Family of Peaces

4.1 The Family of Peaces
Peace research as an academic discipline emerged during the 1950's in the
United States and in Europe, but the early focus was less on peace itself and
more on the systematic analysis of war (Lawler, 2008). Since I have a
background in Norwegian academia, it is rather implausible to describe the
history of peace without naming the influence of the ostensible 'founding father'
of Peace and Conflict Studies, Johan Galtung, keeping in mind that his partner at
that time, Ingrid Eide, was very central to the founding of the International Peace
Research Institute. Galtung's work, together with that of Kenneth Boulding in the
North American tradition, is still affecting peace research today. Even though
peace and conflict research only has been present during the last 65 years,
searching for an experience of peace has been relevant ever since a sense of non-
peace occurred.
Peace and conflict research has, with the wave of postmodernism, largely
been engaged in deconstructing the world and doubting its foundations, at the
same time frantically trying to hold on to several of the old grand narratives,
which all have failed in trying to bring about peace on earth, as Wilber
eloquently expresses;
No longer protected by anthropocentric gods and goddesses, reason gone flat in its
happy capacity to explain away the Mystery, not yet delivered into the hands of the
superconscious- we stare out blankly into that dark and gloomy night, which will
very shortly swallow us up as surely as it once spat us forth (Wilber, 1995: 271).

36 4 State of The Art
We do however, as Dietrich notes, have to be grateful to postmodernism “mainly

for twisting the moral and modern concept of peace” (Dietrich, 2012: 2010), as
this also showed the limitedness of the tool used by both the modern and the
postmodern approach; reason.
One of the early contributors to the field of peace-building, healing and
reconciliation was Adam Curle. His book The Fragile Voice of Love (2006) will
serve as an inspiration for how to include personal experiences and different
overlapping fields such as psychology, meditation, peace work and healing. He
was, according to Dietrich “the first declared peace researcher to understand and
describe the relationality of conflict and peace, and he understood them as a
process of communication” (2013: 20). In his writings, Curle combines his work
and experience with academia, and give inspiration for being a reflective
practitioner. Barbara Mitchels has a background in in law, psychotherapy and
mediation and has working experience from the field with trauma healing. In her
book Love in Danger: Trauma, Therapy and Conflict Explored Through the Life
and Work of Adam Curle (2006), Mitchels writes about the impact of trauma
following war and the development of community approaches to post war
healing.
Most of my motivation for writing this book has come through the Peace
Program in Innsbruck and can be understood as one of many flowers thriving out
of the transrational approach. The first two books in the trilogy Many Peaces by
Wolfgang Dietrich inspire my theoretical and experiential understanding. As I
wrote in the previous chapter, Wolfgang Dietrich interpreted the perceptions and
experience of peace through histories and cultures, and opened up for the
concept of five families of peaces. Already in 1997 Wolfgang Dietrich, together
with Wolfgang Sützl, wrote a Farewell to The One Peace:
The world [...] needs more than one peace for concrete societies and communities to
be able to organize themselves. The peaces do not become mutually compatible the
moment everybody understands one another, but when all live in their own peace,
that is, treat others like the members of their own kin, and so respect them even if
they do not understand them (Dietrich & Sützl, 1997: 15-16).
Dietrich is UNESCO Chairholder for Peace Studies at the University of

Innsbruck and Program Director at the MA Program for Peace, Development,
Security and International Conflict Transformation at the same university, and
his contributions to the field is of utmost importance for my research.
In the first book Interpretations of Peace in History and Culture (2012)
Dietrich explains the notion of the five peace families (energetic, moral, modern,
postmodern and transrational peaces). In the second volume of the trilogy
Elicitive Conflict Transformation and the Transrational Shift in Peace Politics
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4.2 The Transrational Approach 37
(2013) he elaborates upon the conclusions from the first volume and translates
these conclusions into methods of elicitive conflict transformation, explicitly
breath, voice, and movement oriented approaches. I will discuss breath-oriented
approaches in more detail after looking a bit closer at the transrational
perspective.
4.2 The Transrational Approach

4.2 The Transrational Approach
A transrational perspective “appreciates and applies the rationality of modern
science while it transgresses its limits and embraces holistically all aspects of
human nature for its interpretation of peace” (Dietrich, 2014a: 48). The term
trans-rational shows that we can go beyond the boundaries of the rational mind.
In the first volume of the 'Many Peaces' series, Dietrich wrote:
To go beyond [...] does not mean to fall back into a prerational, magic, or mythic
spirituality, but implies the integration of spirituality into a transrational,
transpersonal, and more complete image of peace. A peace research that takes itself
seriously will thus recognize transrationality and transpersonality as given figures
within research interest and will accept that the dissociation or omission of any
aspect of human reality from the question of peace leads toward peacelessness and
violence (Dietrich, 2012: 258).
This has consequences, in particular, for the methods that can be applied, and
furthermore accentuates the need for a toolbox which is not presented in a
prescriptive manner as a cookbook of conflict work, but rather one that
understand the complexity of social interrelations and the relationality of conflict
work. As a consequence of this,
[T]ransrational peace research can not limit itself in its applied methodologies to just
rational conflict engineering. It needs methods that address all aspects of human
nature because they all define conflicts and the way we deal with them. Conflict
workers need a toolkit that allows them to apply rationality and also methods that
work on the sexual, emotional, mental and spiritual layers, which correspond to the
familial, communal, societal and policity layers (Dietrich, 2014a: 53).
Transrationality, explained by peace researcher, facilitator and coordinator of the

MA Peace-Program in Innsbruck, Norbert Koppensteiner, “[...] describes a
process which, while also acknowledging reason, transcends it” (2009: 20).
Koppensteiner's book The Art of the Transpersonal Self: Transformation as
Aesthetic and Energetic Practice (2009) inquires how an active, experiential
practice of self-transformation could concretely be lived, and his work is

therefore central to my understanding of transpersonal art as embracing
subjectivity and expanding my own horizons by going beyond reason.
The Art of the Transpersonal Self bridges my view of the artful transrational
and transpersonal practice of the self, with that of elicitive conflict work. With a
reference to the transrational and transpersonal practice of the self, Koppen-
steiner writes about that fissure that is present when reason alone cannot provide
the space needed, or when the theoretical frames are insufficient for explaining
transrational experiences. He further sheds light on a few methodologies of an
art of the transpersonal self, explaining, however, that they “only prepare the
(rational) stage from which a transrational experience might spring (Koppen-
steiner, 2009: 152).
Elicitive methods will further be explained under 4.5 'The Elicitive Tools'.
Before that I will draw attention to a different, but quite similar, sphere of
research and practice, namely the transpersonal. I introduce this field with the
words of Sylvester Walch, student of Stanislav Grof in Holotropic breathwork
and a transpersonal psychotherapist, who connects peace work and transpersonal
work in the following manner:
[T]ranspersonal work on consciousness is work on peace, because it not only

supports integration but also opens the heart, improves attentiveness, transforms
arrogance and helps us to understand human nature more deeply as well as to put
things in order (Walch, 2006: 1).
4.3 Transpersonal Psychology

4.3 Transpersonal Psychology
Michael Daniels, psychologist and researcher within the field of humanistic and
transpersonal psychology, has inspired much of my understanding in the field. In
the book Shadow, Self and Spirit (2005) Daniels brings together a large amount
of research that explore and traverse the spectrum of transpersonal psychology.
Daniels together with Walsh, Vaughan, and Grof, are important researchers for
my work on transpersonal experiences and transpersonal theories.
Roger Walsh is a professor of psychiatry and philosophy whose work is
centered mainly on Buddhism, meditation, psychological wellbeing and
transpersonal psychology. Frances Vaughan, psychologist and researcher, has
authored several books on integrating psychology and spiritual growth, and
together the two of them have co-edited the book Paths Beyond Ego (1993). I
have drawn from Walsh and Vaughan's co-edited book for the definition of
transpersonal experiences, as well as for engaging with the different contributor's
view on transpersonality and its widespread dimension.
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4.3 Transpersonal Psychology 39
To sketch out a picture of transpersonal psychology today require, as with

the history of peaces, to travel through cultures and histories. Even though
transpersonal experiences have been investigated for millennia by spiritual
practitioners, mystics, philosophers and theologians (Daniels, 2005: 14),
mainstream psychology has to a large degree ignored spiritual and transpersonal
experiences, often discarding its research altogether (Taylor, 1999; Ellis, 1989;
Hartelius, Caplan, Rardin, 2007). As my work revolves around transpersonal,
transrational and breath-oriented approaches related to elicitive conflict trans-
formation, I will first and foremost focus on transpersonal psychology's roots in
humanistic psychology and the human potential movement of the 1960's.6
Instead of exploring the full history of psychology, I will rather leap a few
centuries further, passing among others William James (1842-1910), arguably
the father of transpersonal psychology, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) “perhaps
the first clinician who attempted to legitimize a spiritual approach to the practice
of depth psychology” (Kasprow & Scotton, 1999: 13) and Italian psychiatrist
Robert Assagioli (1888-1974) who developed the theoretical and practical
system of a therapy called psychosynthesis (Daniels, 2005), noting however, that
they all have, with numerous others, contributed significantly to the pillars of the
transpersonal field and continue to do so.
Moving back to the 1960's where the term transpersonal first became widely
used to refer to areas of “human experiences which seem to take the person beyond
the normal boundaries of the personal domain to the realm traditionally associated
with religion, spirituality, meditation and mysticism” (Daniels, 2005: 45).
American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), the so-called founder of
humanistic psychology proposed, together with his colleagues Stanislav Grof,
Miles Vich, Anthony Sutich and others, the term 'transpersonal psychology' as the
fourth force within psychology7 (Daniels, 2005: 21). They were also amongst the
initiators behind the leading academic journal in the field, Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology, launched in 1969 (Daniels, 2005).
The influence of eastern teachings blossomed during the same period and
increasingly came to dominate academic transpersonal psychology through the
writings of Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda, the Japanese monk Soyen Shaku
(whose work was translated by D. T. Suzuki), the integral psychology of Sri
Aurobindo, the theosophist Krishnamurti, and interpreter of Eastern philosophy
Alan Watts. They were all among those early teachers and interpreters who still
influence transpersonal psychology today (Daniels, 2005).
Contemporary debates in transpersonal psychology are revolving around
6 For a thorough overview on Humanistic psychology related to Elicitive Conflict Transfor-

mation, see Dietrich 2013: 25-44.
7 The three preceeding forces being; behaviorism, psychoanalysis and humanistic psychology.
differences in both epistemology and methodology. Michael Washburn's model

is based on a spiral dynamic perspective, and his theory “essentially represent a
reworking and extension of the Jungian and Grofian approach to the
transpersonal” (Daniels, 2005: 34). The work of Ken Wilber has influenced both
the transrational approach as well as the transpersonal, although Dietrich clearly
distances himself from Wilber, and Wilber himself has renounced transpersonal
psychology and now describes his approach as 'integral' (2000). Wilber has
argued for a linear chronosophy of human development, and with his structural-
hierarchical model of transpersonal development, quite different from
Washburn's and Grof's more holistic approach, falls back into an evolutionist
view and modern line of argumentation (Dietrich, 2012: 13; Daniels, 2005).
In this piece of work the understanding of transpersonal is guided by my
experiential understanding, as well as being connected to the contextual and
relational definition of transpersonal experiences formulated by Walsh and
Vaughan (also described in subchapter 3.2.4) as “experiences in which the sense
of identity or self extends beyond (trans.) the individual or personal to
encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos” (Walsh &
Vaughan, 1993: 203).
Transpersonal psychology and transpersonal work is not the only field that
gives space to go beyond the personal or individual. Daniels notes that academic
transpersonal psychology has developed within the domain of scientific
psychology, at the same time “it has always recognized the value of other
disciplines in contributing to our understanding of transpersonal” (Daniels, 2005:
14). The same is applicable for elicitive conflict transformation which also has
multiple roots reaching far and wide, and which embraces the connection
between the peace worker and the creativity of encompassing the beauty on all
levels, much like artwork, which will be the main focus of Chapter 6, Peace
work as art.
Lederach writes, “We [peace workers] must find a way to touch the sense of
art that lies within us all” (2005: 161). His poetic way of writing and his artistic
way of engaging with elicitive conflict work is a source of inspiration as well as
an encouragement for my own work, and the next section will look closer at
Lederach's contribution to the state of the art within the field of peace work.
4.4 Elicitive Conflict Transformation

4.4 Elicitive Conflict Transformation
A short introduction to elicitive conflict transformation was given in Chapter 3,
under the definition of relevant concepts, where I wrote that John Paul Lederach
introduced the elicitive approach into the realm of peace research and practice of
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4.4 Elicitive Conflict Transformation 41
conflict transformation. Lederach, recognized for his pioneering work on conflict

transformation that started nearly 30 years ago, has been involved in reconciliation
processes in, amongst others, Tajikistan, Colombia, Somalia, Northern Ireland and
Nepal, and he raised his objections against the idea of the neutral conflict worker
based on his working experience in Central America (Dietrich, 2013).
In my work I draw a connection on the interplay between Lederach's
elicitive conflict transformation and the principles of the energetic and trans-
rational concepts of peace. Of significance for my work are especially two of
Lederach's books: The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace
(2005) and When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys Through the Soundscape
of Healing and Reconciliation (2010).
John Paul Lederach wrote When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys
Through the Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation together with his
daughter Angela Jill Lederach, who also has experience from working in the
field. In their book they focus on the metaphors of healing and reconciliation as a
cyclic, dynamic and continuing processes, instead of being strictly linear and
always following certain fixed steps. When Blood and Bones Cry Out is a
primary element to my understanding of individual healing within the context of
the collective, as elicitive conflict transformation always is relational.
In settings of deep-rooted conflict violence must be understood as collective and

systemic even though the suffering falls into the lives of real individuals. Healing as
a stand-alone concept faces the important challenge that its micro-quality engages
and develops with the individual as a person. Increasingly, research confirms that
individual healing, particularly when dealing with deep violation, is enhanced – and
perhaps can only be understood – by locating it within the context of the collective
(Lederach, 2010: 203).
In The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace from 2005,
Lederach describes healing and reconciliation within the context, and also attend
to the importance of combining creativity, art and peace work.
Building adaptive and responsive processes requires a creative act, which at its core
is more art than technique. The creative act brings into existence processes that have
not existed before. To sustain themselves over time, processes of change need
constant innovation (Lederach, 2005: 73).
In the following section I will focus on the toolkit of applicable methods in

elicitive conflict transformation and how they balance an artistic journey with
that of peace work.
4.5 The Elicitive Tools

4.5 The Elicitive Tools
In the preface of The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace,
Lederach writes that conflict professions must go well beyond a sideshow, and
that we must envision the elicitive work “as a creative act, more akin to the
artistic endeavor than the technical process” (Lederach, 2005: ix). Elicitive
conflict transformation is, as already mentioned, the methodological con-
sequence of transrational peace philosophy.
In the article “A Brief Introduction to Transrational Peace Research and
Elicitive Conflict Transformation”, Dietrich states that “We found this ideal
toolkit in John Paul Lederach's approach to Elicitive Conflict Transformation,
which works principally with present realities and their complex systemic
interrelations” (Dietrich, 2014a: 53), and continues by presenting some of the
techniques that can be used within this frame.
The toolkit of applicable methods in elicitive conflict transformation comprises

practically all known techniques of breath-oriented, voice-oriented and movement-
oriented techniques that have been developed in the frame of humanistic
psychology, yoga, martial arts, dance, dynamic meditation, psychodrama, expressive
theatre and more (Dietrich, 2014a: 54-55).
Dietrich's selection of tools is neither a complete nor a fixed listing, but rather an
assortment that illustrate some of the diverse methods that can be applied within
the framework of elicitive conflict work.
4.6 Breath Oriented Approaches As Tools For The Peace Worker

4.6 Breath Oriented Approaches As Tools For The Peace Worker
Wolfgang Dietrich translated the conclusions of his first volume into tools and
methods of elicitive conflict transformation, explicitly breath, voice, and
movement oriented approaches. In this work I focus on the first approach,
namely breath oriented approaches and expand the concept further. Again, the
contributions of Dietrich and Lederach are of high significance but this time
more as a groundwork inspiration from which I later on illustrate my own
journey. Much of the research done in the field I am interested in has focused on
either meditation or breathwork. Meditation research, however, often includes
some notions around the centrality of the breath (Lee & Speier, 1996; Shapiro &
Carlson, 2009; Kabat-Zinn, 2013; Kornfield, 2000). In the beginning of the
1980s, Roger Walsh wrote the article A Model For Viewing Meditation
Research, where he pointed out that:
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4.6 Breath Oriented Approaches As Tools For The Peace Worker 43
Despite the fact that it has a longer history than almost any other psychotherapeutic
endeavor, it is only within the last few years that meditation has attracted significant
scientific attention. Meditation of one type or another can be found in a wide variety
of cultures and traced back for at least two-and-a-half thousand years (Walsh, 1982:
69).
Moreover, also the use of the breath as a transformation tool can be traced back
in time, as researchers Kathryn Lee and Patricia Speier explain; “Use of the
breath to enter nonordinary states of consciousness spans many cultures and
dates back thousand of years” (Lee & Speier, 1996: 366). Lee and Speier also
notes that “modern breathwork practitioners have developed techniques for
exploring and healing the psyche based on ancient traditions of working with the
breath” (1996: 375), which is, to a large degree, what I do when I am having a
focus on breathing meditation as a transrational method for peace work.
In the chapter on breath-oriented approaches to elicitive conflict trans-
formation (Dietrich, 2013: 45-73), Dietrich explores holotropic breathwork,
vipassana and quantum light breath as useful practices and methods of elicitive
conflict work, and he describes the difference between the approaches in terms
of conflict work as follows,
Previously, I referred to holotropic breathwork as a useful method for teaching, for

field mission preparation, and for supervision; it is capable of strengthening and
cleansing the facilitator's consciousness. Vipassana, on the other hand, represents a
path of practices at whose origin stands an essentially individual decision. [...]
Vipassana and Advaita open up the path to a philosophy that situates peace in a
transrational framework, no longer understanding it as an individual or collective
experience subject to normalization, but as a freedom from fear within the tense
interrelationships among emotions, feelings, and the imaginary (Dietrich, 2013: 73).
My approach of breathing meditation is thus leaning more towards the last

approach, due to the focus of being fully aware of the self in every situation and
aiming for an expansion of my consciousness.
Roger Walsh, referred to in sub-chapter 4.3 on transpersonal psychology, is
also a central researcher for my academic work on meditation. Walsh has
focused on meditation related to transformative practices within psychotherapy,
psychology and physiology, and furthermore presents a wide array of effects that
meditation research has shown, such as psychological, therapeutic, neural,
chromosomal, physiological and biochemical alterations (Walsh, 1982). The
research that have been conducted the last years on these areas are too vast to be
examined within this frame, thus for a general review of research on meditation
see Walsh & Shapiro, 2006. For research reviews of the physical benefits of
meditation, such as stress reduction and electroencephalogram (EEG) and brain-

imaging studies, see Van der Kolk, 2000; Cahn & Polich, 2006; Weissbecker,
Salmon, Studts, Floyd, Dedert, & Sephton, 2002; Carlson, Speca, Patel, &
Goodey, 2003. For reviews of mindfulness and meditation, see Germer, Siegel,
& Fulton, 2005; Kabat-Zinn, 2003.
In their book The Art and Science of Mindfulness: Integrating Mindfulness
Into Psychology and the Helping Professions (2009), Shapiro and Carlson draw
from Buddhist teachings and psychological theories to explore how mindful
awareness can be integral to the therapeutic healing process, and they note that
“Particularly important to health care professionals are findings that meditation
can enhance valued caregiver qualities such as empathy, sensitivity, emotional
stability, and psychological, maturity while reducing distress and burnout”
(Shapiro & Carlson, 2009). Their work, together with that of Jon Kabat-Zinn,
give contour to much of the relation between inner and outer peace work.
Jon Kabat-Zinn: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body
and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (2013), will be used related to how
meditation can establish a balance of body and mind, and how meditation can be
a powerful tool for healing and well-being. Full Catastrophe Living has shaped
pieces of my practice, which I will describe throughout this work, especially
through Kabat-Zinn's focus on commitment to the practice, on letting go, and on
working with emotional pain.
Variations of meditation can be found in all corners of the world, through
different cultures and religions. Of great importance for my work on meditation
is the writings by Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher,
author, poet and peace activist. In his books True Love: A Practice for
Awakening the Heart (2011) he explains how to experience compassion, love
joy, and freedom in the day-to-day living, while Peace Is Every Step: The Path
of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (1992) is a book about mindfulness and how to
work on sustaining inner peace.
Jack Kornfield, a Buddhist Monk, author, and meditation teacher for nearly
forty years, has written the book After the Ecstasy, the Laundry (2000) that for
me is central literature in understanding how a spiritual journey unfolds as well
as being guidance into heart awakening.
For the chapter that focuses on the breath, I use the work The Miracle of the
Breath; Mastering Fear, Healing Illness, and Experiencing the Divine (2005) by
Andy Caponigro. Caponigro is a former concert guitarist who, through giving
private music sessions, experienced the healing power of the breath. He sheds
light on how fear is being manifested in the breath, how fears that we ex-
perienced years ago can be embedded in the tissues of our bodies, and how the
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4.6 Breath Oriented Approaches As Tools For The Peace Worker 45
breath works as an anchor. In the book Pust for livet8 (2008) author and nurse
Marianne Magnelssen describes the connection between the breath and our
autonomic nervous system, and how the breath can be our lifebuoy in traumatic
events. Both Caponigro's and Magnelssen's work are central in cultivating my
own breathing exploration.
Lee and Speier have noted that the usefulness of breathwork is multifaceted
and they write; “At the most basic level, this technique lets one experience
oneself and the world in a different or nonordinary way [...]. From a therapeutic
standpoint, breathwork may help access repressed memories and experiences”
(1996: 371). This is of value for my view on trauma work, especially for
connecting the topic of healing the healer.
When exploring the psychological aspects of trauma, I engage with the
book Principles of Trauma Therapy- A Guide to Symptoms, Evaluation, and
Treatment (2015), written by trauma researcher and clinician John Briere, and
medical director of the USC Psychological Trauma Clinic, Catherine Scott. Their
work is based in clinical, biological, neuropsychiatric, and psychotherapeutic
information on the subject of trauma, and will contribute to the introduction of
the psychological understanding of trauma. Trauma researcher Bessel A. van der
Kolk was born in the Netherlands during the Second World War and has been
active as a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress
and related phenomena since the 1970s (Trauma Center, 2017). His work,
together with that of Peter A. Levine, has profoundly influenced my under-
standing of the effects that trauma has on the body and how the brain is shaped
by a traumatic experience. Van der Kolk's research explains how the different
areas affected in the brain can be reactivated through yoga and mindfulness, and
he emphasizes that this knowledge has to be integrated into healing practices. 17
years ago, van der Kolk wrote that “the human response to psychological trauma
is one of the most important public health problems in the world” (2000: 1), and
today he is still one of the greatest contemporary contributors to the under-
standing of how trauma unfolds in the body. The book The Body Keeps the
Score, Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma (van der Kolk:
2014) has profoundly changed my view of healing from the cycle of trauma.
I furthermore utilize the works of Peter A. Levine, mainly In an Unspoken
Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness (2010) and
Waking the Tiger: Healing trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Over-
whelming Experiences (1997), for delving into an embodied understanding of
trauma. Levine has researched and worked with trauma and its embodied
manifestations for the past 30 years. He is the developer of the method Somatic
8 Book title in English is "Breathe for life" (Translated by author).

Experiencing, where he turns to both the animal world and studies the brain's
functions, to create a body-based treatment that specifically aims to regulate the
autonomic nervous system. He also underlines the importance of body awareness
in successful treatment of trauma. In Levine's own words, “[…] you initiate your
own healing by reintegrating lost or fragmented portions of your essential self. In
order to accomplish this task, you need a strong desire to become whole again.
This desire will serve as an anchor through which your soul can reconnect to
your body” (Levine, 1997: 61).
For connecting the topics trauma and compassion, I draw upon the work of
psychologist Kristin Neff. Neff's book Self-compassion: The Proven Power of
Being Kind to Yourself (2011) is important for my exploration of self-
compassion and compassion fatigue (secondary traumatic stress). Of additional
significance is the book Mindful Compassion: How the Science of Compassion
Can Help You Understand Your Emotions, Live in the Present, and Connect
Deeply with Others (2014) by psychologist Paul Gilbert, founder of Compassion
Focused Therapy (CFT), and practicing Buddhist monk, Choden. These authors
are prominent researchers in terms of the Buddhist psychological aspects of self-
compassion, empathy, and healing of emotional pain.
Chapter 11, Healing the Healer, is grounded in the work by Joan Halifax
and Michael J. Maley, connected to that of Wolfgang Dietrich, to explore the
connection between the wounded healer and peace work. The chapter thus
revolves around shamanistic foundations related to the elicitive tool breathing
meditation. While Halifax is a Zen Buddhist teacher and a medical anthro-
pologist specializing in psychiatry and religion, Maley is a psychotherapist with
a focus on trauma and healing.
Chapter 13 'Love – A Practice for Awakening the Heart' is, as the title says,
inspired by the work of Thích Nhất Hạnh. Two other authors that contribute to
my knowledge on this field are Erich Fromm and John Welwood. Erich Fromm
was a praised social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and humanistic
philosopher. He grew up in Germany, but emigrated to the United States after
The Nazi seizure of power (Egidius, 2006). Of particular interest in this work,
are Fromm's writings about love. To have or to be (1997) and especially The Art
of Loving (1956) influence my understanding of love as a doing instead of a
being or having.
According to his own homepage, John Welwood is “a psychotherapist,
teacher, and author, and has been a pioneer in integrating psychological and
spiritual work for the past thirty years” (Welwood, 2016). Welwood is currently
an associate editor of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, and central for
my work is, as with Fromm, his writings on love. Together the works Perfect
Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart (2006) and “On
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4.7 December 28, 2014 47
Love: Conditional and Unconditional” (1985) is shaping much of the way I

perceive the spectrum of love. Mutual for the way I engage with the chosen
literature is my centering in transrational keystones. The aspect of going beyond
a pure rational understanding, to use my intuition and transpersonal experiences,
is that which allows healing on a personal level. The use of my senses, colors,
nature, the elements and a genuine openness and curiosity towards wholeness
has helped me balance the academic understanding with my own experiences,
and I want to depart this chapter with a quote on building a bridge between the
heart and the mind by Herm Weaver, from a personal correspondence between
him and Lederach.
Reconciliation gets complicated and compounded when we try to address it purely

on the intellectual level. Somewhere along the way we came to think of hurt as
lodged in the cognitive memory. Hurt and brokenness are primarily found in the
emotional memory. The reason I like the arts—music, drama, dance, whatever the
form— is precisely because it has the capacity to build a bridge between the heart
and the mind (Weaver, 2003, cited in Lederach, 2005: 160).
4.7 December 28, 2014

4.7 December 28, 2014
I am relying too much on my intellect, on my rational mind and on my thoughts. I
am forcing myself to just write. Just write how you experienced everything that
night; just tell about the smell, the pain, the horrible fear, the escape, the
anxiety, the numbness, -but that is not what I want to go deeper into.
Acknowledging yes, letting go? Not yet. Not yet, why? Why? Why? Why?
I don’t know. Pause from writing, step back. Take in the words “not yet”. Why?
Why not yet? Because..
Because I don’t remember what it was like before. This is what I know now. I
know pain, I know sadness, it is in me. I am sad and scared. I don’t remember
what it was like to feel completely safe in my own body. I don’t know what it is
like to be free of fear. I do not trust myself, I do not feel safe in my body, I have
betrayed myself, but I also repeat the betrayal by hiding in here.
It is stuck in my chest. Grey lumpy, heavy, sticky. Gluey mucus that cannot be
coughed up. And again grief. Grief, desolation and warm salty tears, running
down my cheek and down my neck.
I want to cry one last time, to empty the nooks and crannies of my body that has
been filled with objects that does not belong to my body. I want to be able to
stand in front of a mirror and truly believe that nothing has been taken away
from me that I cannot myself refill.
∼ December 28, 2014.
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5 Peace Work, Traumas & The Here and Now
5 Peace Work, Traumas & The Here and Now
'Nothing exists that is not Divine' says an old Tantric principle, and I ask you, as
a reader, to keep this aphorism in mind through this chapter. Since I will use the
coming pages for exploring and explaining trauma related to peace work, I take
this as an opportunity to carefully approach and embrace my own traumatic
episode. As much grief, anger and at times self-hatred that followed (and still
follows) the assault, I would probably not choose the path that I have chosen
without experiencing the attack. My healing process has already had beautiful
repercussions, although I still carry a heavy load within that I cannot seem to
fully understand rationally. As I have grasped through my own process,
traumatic experiences can, when being considered as part of the divinity and
given time and energy, be transformed. Encapsulated; experiencing traumatic
events can be an eye-and heart opener, if being handled and felt with sensitivity
and tenderness. In Peter Levine's own words, “Trauma is a fact of life. It does
not, however, have to be a life sentence. Not only can trauma be healed, but with
appropriate guidance and support, it can be transformative” (Levine, 1997: 2).
5.1 Approaching Trauma

5.1 Approaching Trauma
Remember that the zebra will go back to eating soon after escaping from a lion, but
a human may well ruminate about a similar experience for days and even be
traumatized by it for his or her whole life (Gilbert & Choden, 2014: 55).
As with several of the theoretical fields that this writing builds upon, the
systematic study of human responses to trauma is relatively new. The field grew
out in midst of the aftershocks of the Vietnam War, and “the term posttraumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) was introduced into the mental health lexicon only in the
mid-1980s” (Briere & Scott, 2015: 1). There are principally two international
diagnostic systems used in Norway that list criteria connected to various
psychiatric disorders, both of them situated primarily in a modern and Western
context. The World Health Organization (WHO) compiles the International
Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), and the

50 5 Peace Work, Traumas & The Here and Now
American Psychiatric Association has developed the Diagnostic Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (Nøvik & Lea, 2010).
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), which
shaped much of my psychology education at the University of Bergen, trauma is:
[…] an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape or natural

disaster. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer-term
reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and
even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea (American Psychological
Association, 2015).
The definitions by the APA and the DSM, both widely used by psychologists,
psychiatrists and therapists, are in my opinion insubstantial and narrow.
Although these definitions can be useful in creating an overall picture of various
psychological states, the requirements in the newest edition of the DSM (5th
edition) are limited and inadequate, and highly underestimate the range and
variances in traumatic experiences within the overall population. The DSM-5
defines trauma as:
Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one (or
more) of the following ways: (1) Directly experiencing the traumatic event(s); (2)
witnessing, in person, the event(s) as it occurred to others; (3) learning that the
traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member or close friend, the event(s)
must have been violent or accidental; (4) experiencing repeated or extreme exposure
to aversive details of the traumatic event(s) (e.g., first responders collecting human
remains, police officers repeatedly exposed to details of child abuse) (Note:
Criterion A4 does not apply to exposure through electronic media, television,
movies, or pictures, unless this exposure is work related) (American Psychiatric
Association, 2013).
John Briere and Catherine Scott argue along the same lines as above, and
emphasize that the earlier DSM (3rd edition) also included threats to psycho-
logical integrity as valid forms of trauma, and consequently question the current
DSM edition.
The DSM-5 does not consider events to be traumatic if they are merely highly
upsetting but not life threatening- for example, extreme emotional abuse, major
losses or separations, degradation or humiliations, and coerced (but not physically
violent) sexual experiences […] The issue of whether an event should have to satisfy
current diagnostic definitions of trauma in order to be, in fact, “traumatic” is an
ongoing source to discussion in the field (Briere & Scott, 2015: 9-10, italics in
original).
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5.2 Trauma And The Following Reactions 51
In this chapter I want to go beyond these mechanistic rationalizations of trauma

set by modern institutions and rather look towards the various reactions to
trauma, how irresponsible heroes may jeopardize their own and others health by
ignoring traumatic episodes, and how awareness is connected to trauma-work.
As my work reflects upon the dissimilar silhouettes and depths of trauma
related to peace work, I want to point out that I recognize the difference between
traumas experienced beforehand of deployment versus the critical incident stress
caused by witnessing, or personally experiencing, traumatic experiences during
deployment (MacDonald & Curling, 2009). The western trauma model has also
been criticized for its homogenous approach. Mitchels writes: “Western thera-
peutic approaches use a model of individualised catharsis and healing of
'memories' and 'emotions' and this may be criticized as inadequate, as it risks
missing the key themes that converge in the collective experience of trauma”
(Mitchels, 2006: 86). Nevertheless, traumas that remain overlooked and un-
settled will affect the work you do, and the persons you meet.
Personally, experiences that cause trauma beforehand of working in the
field are of particular interest. Doing peace work in Palestine and Israel 2013, I
understood more of how my previous experiences are shaping me in stressful
events, as well as how easy it is to let my inner movies play out and anticipate
instead of being open-minded and aware of the actual situation. As Peter Levine
notes, “Many people walk away from overwhelming events carrying a large,
unpalatable portion of unresolved trauma with them” (Levine, 1997: 105), and in
the coming sub-chapter I will dig more deeply into the diverse world of traumas,
and delve into why walking away from unresolved trauma is not the best
solution in the long run.
5.2 Trauma And The Following Reactions

5.2 Trauma And The Following Reactions
By exploring the roots and etymology of trauma, I windup up with τραῦμα, an
ancient Greek word that can be translated into damage, hurt and wound
(Caprona, 2013: 1438). I understand trauma not as the event itself, but as the
damage or reaction to the incident(s). The feeling of penetrating fear without
seeing any solution creates a manifestation and embodiment of the wound, and
the damage transpires when the event cannot be integrated in the conscious
awareness. Van der Kolk gives a short overview over the differences between a
traumatic event and posttraumatic stress disorder.
Traumatic events such as family and social violence, rapes and assaults, disasters,
wars, accidents and predatory violence confront people with such horror and threat
that it may temporarily or permanently alter their capacity to cope, their biological
threat perception, and their concepts of themselves. Traumatized individuals
frequently develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a disorder in which the
memory of the traumatic event comes to dominate the victims' consciousness,
depleting their lives of meaning and pleasure (van der Kolk, 2000: 1).
The different terminologies that accompany the suffering, distress and traumatic
experiences that peace workers might encounter are usually referred to as Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), secondary trauma, vicarious traumatization,
or compassion fatigue. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) denotes the
symptoms of the repercussions of an experienced/witnessed life-threatening/
overwhelming event. Levine, however, argues that PTSD is not a useful
paradigm for trauma and healing, since the D (disorder) discards the experience
that created the wound and should therefore be replaced with an I (injury).
“[T]rauma is an injury, not a disorder like diabetes, which can be managed but
not healed. In contrast, posttraumatic stress injury is an emotional wound,
amenable to healing attention and transformation” (Levine, 2010: 34). This
corresponds with the etymological roots of trauma, τραῦμα, (wound).
Kristin Neff uses the term compassion fatigue in her work on caregivers
who focus their energies on helping others.
Compassion fatigue is a type of exhaustion and burnout experienced as a result of

continually dealing with traumatized patients. When listening to tales of abuse or
horror, or when tending to bodies that have been ravaged by sickness or violence,
caregivers often relieve their patient’s trauma (Neff, 2011: 192).
Alleviating others' trauma can be a grand part of trauma work in the field, and
one of the recommendation typically given to persons who struggle with
compassion fatigue is to engage with self-care strategies. As a part of the
UNICEF guidelines and tools within the human resources department, the
booklet 'Stress in our workplace' was created, which defines self-care as “what
we do to manage our physical and mental health, as well as nurture our
philosophical/spiritual balance on a day-to-day level” (MacDonald & Curling,
2009: 12).
Peter Levine draws attention to how the mind has become the main focus
when discussing trauma, and highlights that we are habitually inattentive to the
bodily sensations connected to the traumatic experiences. “Most people think of
trauma as a 'mental' problem, even as a 'brain disorder'. However, trauma is
something that also happens in the body, we become scared stiff, or, alternately
we collapse, overwhelmed and defeated with helpless dread” (Levine, 2010: 31).
Focusing on the bodily manifestations of secondary trauma and compassion
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5.3 Peace Workers Encountering Trauma 53
fatigue when working with healing, both on a personal and on a professional

level, gives more space to the process. Kabat-Zinn acknowledges the importance
of the physical body related to healing and connects the same dots as I do, when
building a bridge between trauma and the breath.
Given the centrality of the body in the healing process, and how much pain and hurt
it may be carrying (the root meaning in Latin of the verb ‘to suffer’), it is not
surprising that we devote a good deal of attention to the breath, which you could
think of as the bridge between the body and our emotional life (Kabat-Zinn, 2013:
184).
In the upcoming chapter (Meditation as a Tool for Elicitive Peace Work) I will
focus on breathing meditation as a transrational method for peace work, whereas
in the forthcoming sub-chapter, I will unearth the connection between peace
work and trauma, secondary trauma and PTSD.
5.3 Peace Workers Encountering Trauma

5.3 Peace Workers Encountering Trauma
I had listened to survivors recollecting how machetes had been used to clear
grounds, to maim victims, to rape women and young girls, and to kill. Suddenly the
listening to these stories and the real threat to my body came together and echoed
each other. They were expressed through the shaking of my body, which was
suddenly transformed into an object of violence, and its vulnerability exposed
(Dona, 2014: 92-93).
I left Bosnia…three years ago. What I didn’t realize then is that Bosnia…will never
leave me. Loud sudden noises still make me duck for cover as if there were shellfire
nearby. I still dream, from time to time, about a foot clad in a tennis shoe that I saw
poking from a mass grave. I now always sleep lightly, one ear cocked for danger.
But most of all what stays with me is the guilt… (Neuffer, cited in Danieli, 2002:
286).
Since many peace workers are working with humanitarian crises or relief work,
and consequently are increasingly and continually exposed to suffering without
sufficient understanding of the wounds this can create, numerous peace workers
experience compassion fatigue and secondary traumas (Neff, 2011; Connorton et
al., 2012; Pigni, 2011b). Because emergency workers often encounter potentially
traumatic phenomena, including fatal injury, traumatic amputation, disembowel-
ment, severe burns, and extreme victim distress, it is not surprising that those
who help the traumatized may become traumatized themselves (Breire & Scott,
2015: 21) and, as Mitchels writes, it is not uncommon that professionals and
helpers feel unsupported and overlooked by their coworkers and superiors in

these situations (Mitchels, 2006). There is hence a great need “for training and
redeployment, risk assessment and contingency planning for personnel who
work in these situations” (Mitchels, 2006: 107).
Levine notes that secondary traumas can cause just as strong reactions as a
personal traumatic episode. “To witness human carnage of any kind, especially
on a regular basis, exacts its own toll and is often as traumatic as experiencing
the event firsthand” (Levine, 1997: 11). Taylor connects burnouts and com-
passion fatigue to the depletion of energy that peace workers might encounter
when doing demanding peace work.
The challenges faced by the contemporary peace worker are many. The sheer size,
scope, and complexity of most conflict systems can be overwhelming. Such work
places tremendous demands on the peace worker's personal power, which can also
be understood as physic/psycho/spiritual energy. It is of no surprise, then, that peace
workers engaged in the field are especially prone to burn out. These energies are
depleted because they are the fuel for interpersonal interactions, the key relational
tool in elicitive conflict transformation work (Taylor, 2013: 17).
PTSD, secondary trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout are thus some of the
possible outcomes if the peace worker has not been properly trained in the pre-
deployment phase. Alessandra Pigni, psychologist and consultant, launched in
2011 a discussion in a LinkedIn group (the Humanitarian Professionals Group)
around a statement and its following question; “Humanitarian aid workers are
often psychologically unprepared for field missions. Any views on this from
field and headquarters staff?” (Pigni, 2011a: 2). Hundreds of comments poured
in and were used in Pigni's White Paper Series, where she makes use of the
LinkedIn discussion to illuminate the concerns about the current state of
humanitarian aid work and the lack of proper preparation. “Preparing staff
psychologically for these kinds of issues, plus recognizing stress and burnout as
an occupational hazard is the real challenge for humanitarian and development
agencies” (Pigni, 2011b: 11).
The human response to trauma is extremely complex. Rosenbloom and
Williams present this illustration: “If you have experienced a trauma it can be
like having stared directly at the sun. Even after you look away the glare seems
everywhere and prevents you from seeing things clearly. It can keep you from
even opening your eyes at all for a while” (1999: 6).
How much we are affected by the work we do depends on a myriad of
variables and fluctuate from moment to moment and person to person. It
depends, amongst others, on how well prepared you are, the type of work you set
out to do, how much experience you have had previously, how receptive you are
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5.4 Irresponsible “Heroes” 55
and how much you see, experience or are being told. Everything can and will to
some degree shape you. As for now, the focus shifts more towards the
irresponsible peace worker, and how harmful such a workforce can be.
5.4 Irresponsible “Heroes”

5.4 Irresponsible “Heroes”
The irresponsible peace workers suppress, endure and block traumas and
shadows, which can create an unbalanced being with shadow projections,
slippery truths and incongruous reactions.
In our culture there is a lack of tolerance for the emotional vulnerability that
traumatized people experience. Little time is allotted for the working through
emotional events. We are routinely pressured into adjusting too quickly in the
aftermath of an overwhelming situation (Levine, 1997: 48).
On the one hand I agree with Levine when he ties together the society's
expectance of a quick 'heroic' recovery, on the other hand, I see the individual
worker's believed needs as important facets of why traumas are being
suppressed. It might be an easier coping strategy in the existing moment to
suppress that which haunts, nevertheless, this strategy can in the long run be
extremely destructive. Dietrich argues along the same lines and additionally
explains potential consequences of suppressing traumas.
Suppression obscures dangerous or painful experiences from consciousness, creating

a short-lived and superficial sense of calm. However, suppressed content and
energies search for a way back into life from the subconscious mind in modified,
transposed, or translated form. They direct decision-making processes, undermine
conscious plans, tell stories, create slippery truths, generate obstructive situational
thoughts, block emotions, and finally lead to incongruous reactions (Dietrich, 2013:
71).
Dietrich and Levine have quite a similar approach to traumas and the fallacious
glorification of emotional clampdown. “Most modern cultures, including ours,
fall victim to the prevailing attitude that strength means endurance; that it is
somehow heroic to be able to carry on regardless of the severity of our
symptoms” (Levine, 1997: 62). This view contributes to create an obstacle
within peace work, as withholding, thenceforth, becomes the prized behavior.
“Peace work of this kind is a matter for heroes”, Dietrich writes in the first
chapter of his second volume, and further clarifies his statement.
By hero, I mean one who has come far on the path of breaking free from confusion.
Heroes are capable of separating themselves out from the work they do. They do not
mistake recognition for self worth or criticism for hostility or competition- nor their
insights for political or social power, their contribution to transformation with
saving the world, their feelings of guilt for motivation (Dietrich, 2013:13).
The abovementioned quote silhouettes, to a great extent, the foundation for

elicitive peace work. A large part of the Innsbruck Peace Program builds upon
the notion that we, as peace workers, have to be aware of our layers with a
conscious handling of the own self and of our shadow aspects (Dietrich, 2013).
By being aware of our own motivation, we can further recognize what our drives
are for doing peace work. So-called 'good intentions' with an acclaim of altruism
is far from being the prerequisite for being an elicitive conflict worker. 'The road
to hell is paved with good intentions' says an aphorism that holds a lot of
wisdom. Ideals cannot feed people. By the same token, suppressing shadow
sides, and hiding our veiled and tangled wounds does not facilitate the healing
process of others. “Certainly the degree to which you can really be of help to
others, if that is what you believe is most important, depends directly on how
balanced you are yourself” (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 35).
“The key task for peace workers' self-exploration is to identify the sources
and dynamics of their internal strength and what depletes their energy in order to
develop a more keen awareness of how to regulate these dynamics” (Taylor,
2013: 17). Kabat-Zinn gives an example of how the lack of awareness grounded
in 'good intentions' can be a source of exhaustion or depletion.
You can exhaust yourself running around 'doing good' and helping others, and in the
end be so depleted that you are incapable of doing any good at all and unable to help
even yourself. It's not the doing things for others that is the source of the stress here.
It is the lack of peace and harmony in your mind as you engage in doing all the
doing (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 491).
Wolfgang Dietrich has written extensive literature on this topic and explains
overtly how suppression of memories and energies affects peace work. He
additionally explains the importance of being fully aware of one's self in the
present moment as a guiding concept fundamental to elicitive conflict transfor-
mation (Dietrich, 2013: 72), which corresponds to Levine's description of trauma
sufferers. “[They] live in a world of chronic dissociation. This perpetual state of
disembodiment keeps them disoriented and enable to engage in the here and
now” (Levine, 2010: 355-356). With this in mind we embark upon the last sub-
chapter, which involves the power of the presence, once more related to elicitive
conflict work.
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5.5 Power of the Presence/ We Can Be Heroes 57
5.5 Power of the Presence/ We Can Be Heroes

5.5 Power of the Presence/ We Can Be Heroes
“Real heroism comes from having the courage to openly acknowledge one's
experiences, not from suppressing or denying them” (Levine, 1997: 63).
According to the transrational approach in Innsbruck, the ABC of elicitive
peace workers' pre-requisite consists of: A-wareness of peace workers’ own
physical, emotional, mental and spiritual limits; B-alance between compassion
and self-protection; and C-ongruent communication (Dietrich, 2014a). The A,
awareness, is the main topic of this sub-chapter, whilst B, balance between
compassion and self-protection, is the keyword for Chapter 10. Awareness,
especially self-awareness, has the advantage of bringing us into the here and
now. “This self-awareness requires us to recognize and track our sensations and
feelings. We unveil our instincts as they live within us, rather than being
alienated from them or forcibly driven by them” (Levine, 2010: 278). Practicing
self-awareness on a daily basis, through breathing meditation, involve recognize-
ing the emotional spectrum without being forcefully drawn into it.
Levine clarifies that our ticket to live in the present moment is self-
awareness and embodiment. “When embodied, we linger longer in the lush
landscape of the present moment. Even though we live in a world where bad
things can and do happen, where unseen dangers nip at our heels, we can still
live in the now” (Levine, 2010: 278). 'Being in the here and now' is a mantra in
the Peace Program in Innsbruck, where we practice being present through active
listening, various forms of meditation and awareness of our mental movies.
Centering our attention on the present realities also direct energy for looking at
and within ourselves, and as Dietrich notes, “Only someone who consciously
feels herself/himself, can be conscious about the suffering of others and will not
do violence to them” (Dietrich, 2012: 241).
Elicitive conflict workers ought to be capable of separating themselves out
from the work they do. Self-regulation, balance between compassion and self-
protection and awareness of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual limits,
requires continual attention in order to flow with the dynamic equilibrium that
characterize these processes.
In general, the capacity for self-regulation is what allows us to handle our own states
of arousal and our difficult emotions, thus providing the basis for the balance
between authentic autonomy and healthy social engagement. In addition this
capacity allows us the intrinsic ability to evoke a sense of being safely “at home”
within ourselves [...] (Levine, 2010: 13).
Being at home within ourselves requires that we explore ourselves, become

aware of our layers and of our shadow aspects, and learn how to intentionally
and consciously regulate these energies.
When the work environment is shaped by war and deep cutting conflicts,
peace workers and traumatic experiences will be walking hand in hand. In the
beginning of this chapter, I wrote that I recognize the difference between traumas
experienced beforehand of deployment versus the critical incident stress caused
by witnessing, or personally experiencing, traumatic experiences during deploy-
ment. Furthermore I acknowledge the vast complexity of trauma reactions.
Whether, and to what extent, traumatizing experiences affect individuals does
vary. Nevertheless, having the courage to work with the episode(s) that cuts,
hacks and splits our very being is indeed challenging, although not impossible.
Learning to observe myself by using the breath as an object of awareness, has
taught me to be present in the here and now.
If we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with

life. When we are in touch with the refreshing, peaceful, and healing elements within
ourselves and around us, we learn how to cherish and protect these things and make
them grow. These elements of peace are available to us anytime (Hạnh, 1992: 12).
Awareness is the first pre-requisite in the 'ABC for elicitive peace workers', more
explicitly awareness of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual limits of the
peace worker. Breathing meditation, as a breath-oriented method within elicitive
conflict transformation, enriches this awareness. 'Nothing exists that is not
Divine' was the opening phrase of this chapter, which reminds me about a
dissolved dichotomy between mundane and spiritual. I also connect it to the
divinity of all. Clarified: The wound that first appears to be an utmost curse may
with love and care become a garden from where the most wonderful fruits can
grow.
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6 Peace Work As Art
6 Peace Work As Art
In the Journal of Conflictology Wolfgang Dietrich writes that elicitive conflict

transformation is “a method, an art and a science” (2014a: 53), and in this
chapter I will focus on the art part. In the introduction to Elicitive Conflict
Transformation and Peace Politics Dietrich gives an explanation as to why he
includes the perspective of art in his work. “I point to art because all humans, all
relationships, and all conflicts have unique characteristics which, above all,
require intuition and creativity rendering void any prescriptive instructions”
(2013: 14). Lederach also refrains from universal prescriptive models and
emphasizes on the artistic aspects of peace work. He states in the preface of his
book The Moral Imagination that conflict professionals should envision elicitive
work as a creative act, “more akin to the artistic endeavor than the technical
process” (2005: ix). He then follows up with a question without an answer,
which has laid much of the foundation for the methods and direction of conflict
transformation.
I am sure the practitioner will ask: How exactly does this translate into practical
skills? While I speak in some chapters to that question, the nature of this book does
not seek to provide a technician's manual. In fact it proposes to break beyond such a
view. I invite the practitioner to suspend the need for tools, answers, and techniques.
If possible, let these pages flow toward the deeper question of why we do this work
and what sustains us (Lederach, 2005: ix-x).
The peace program in Innsbruck builds upon this thought, both in going beyond
an exclusively rational approach, as well as searching for the deeper questions of
why, which is reflected in this work. Why write? Why this topic now? Why
tuning into our breath? Why should I as a peace worker provide a space for
transformation for others, if I cannot provide this space for myself? The question
of 'why engaging with peace work?' is also a central query in the peace program,
and as with my case, wounds tend to play a central role.
What would it mean if we could use art for expressing the inexpressible?
Within the frame of writing this work I am using my creativity in a different way
than before. I am using my body as a tool, my breath as a caretaker, friend, and
instrument for homeostasis and thus additionally for remaining stable and

60 6 Peace Work As Art
relatively balanced in times of anxiety and fear. I am using song as a source to

connect with the healing vibrations of my voice, and colors to express emotions
and feelings. Nurturing the artist within me is giving diverse aspects and
qualities to my process in writing this work, compared to what could have been
given if I relied strictly on cognitive and rational abilities.
Norbert Koppensteiner writes about the transformation of the self as a form
of art, and gives an understanding of art that reverberates with that of Lederach,
when he states that “art cannot be cognitively willed” (2009: 85). Koppensteiner
emphasizes how the intellect may actually be an impeding aspect. “The cognitive
realization of what exactly he/she is doing is not in each case necessary for an
artist to create a work of art- and may even hinder or block the process” (2009:
84-85). Elicitive peace workers therefore attempt to go beyond the intellectual,
beyond the conventional, and use the energy created in the creative processes for
transformation.
In subchapter 4.6 “Breath Oriented Approaches As Tools For The Peace
Worker”, I wrote that the aspect of going beyond a pure rational understanding,
to use my intuition and transpersonal experiences, are part of that which allows
healing on a personal level. The use of my senses, colors, nature, the elements
and a genuine openness and curiosity towards wholeness is helping me balance
the academic understanding with my own experiences. It is, however, important
to note that an inclusion of artistic and transrational methods does not imply
compromising rationality. “We called this trans-rational, because it appreciates
and applies the rationality of modern science while it transgresses its limits and
holistically embraces all aspects of human nature for its interpretation of peace”
(Dietrich, 2014a: 48).
The inclusion of artistic aspects introduces a whole different spectrum of
methods to engage with in conflict transformation, compared to the traditional
oriented peace-building schools. To fully engage with this concept of the peace
worker as an artist, it is necessary to also look at how art and artist is defined.
This is, however, quite an extensive task, and would require a broader
framework as well as page number. I will nonetheless try to give an overview of
who/what an artist is related to elicitive peace work.
6.1 The Peace Worker as an Artist

6.1 The Peace Worker as an Artist
Koppensteiner argues that the art in the Art of the Self differs from the
colloquial perception of art as an object, where the artist is predominantly
separated from the art (2009). In the process of an Art of the Self, the material
that is worked with is life itself, and the art and the artist can therefore not be
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6.1 The Peace Worker as an Artist 61
separated. “The aim of the Art of the Self is not the creation of an extrinsic
object but the transformation of the self, through a risky process which does not
culminate in a finished piece of work but continues perpetually throughout one's
life” (Koppensteiner, 2009: 92). Koppensteiner further twists the notion of art by
embracing the elements of intuition, embodied and transpersonal experiences
(2009), and thus expands the art of the transpersonal self to include both
cognition and spiritual practices.
Instead of scrutinizing the concept of art9, it will perhaps be more fruitful to
look at the peace worker as an artist in this context, and subsequently ask the
question; what is an artist? James Baldwin (1998) stated that the main challenge
for an artist is to transform the confusion and chaos of life into art, while John
Paul Lederach claims that artists are “on a journey to find and reflect the beauty
that surrounds them” (2005: 122). In my opinion, these two statements coincide
delightfully in the sense that they reflect the challenges in transformations, both
grasping the beauty and the confusion. Koppensteiner describes the artist in a
wider approach, and consequently manages to include the risk segment
incorporated in the life of the artist.
An artist now is somebody who risks the own transformation, who enters the
creative process in order to change oneself, to change what one has been towards the
intermediate horizon of new beginnings with uncertain outcome and open future. No
results are guaranteed in this game (Koppensteiner, 2009: 90-91, italics in original).
An artist is accordingly one who is on a journey to find and reflect the beauty
that s/he is surrounded by, one who risks a transformation of the self, and who
transforms the confusion and chaos of life into art. Artists can therefore be
everyone, everywhere as Lederach notes;
Curiously, you can find artists washing on serendipity dishes at a restaurant,

planting corn, or devising housing policy for an inner city. And you can find
technicians managing universities, directing a church choir, or purchasing
eighteenth-century art for a national museum. The difference is not in what they do
or where they are located. The difference is in how they are attentive to and interact
with the world that surrounds them (Lederach, 2005: 122-123).
Since everybody can practice the art of the Self, and “everybody can become an
artist of the self” (Koppensteiner, 2009: 90), there has to be some common
denominators for the artists. According to Lederach, “Artists live an everyday
9 For a more thorough interpretation of art, see Koppensteiner, N. (2009): The Art of the
Transpersonal Self, Transformation as Aesthetic and Energetic Practice. New York: Atropa
Press.
62 6 Peace Work As Art
ontology built on three pillars: an insatiable curiosity, constant invention, and

attentive critique. They learn from everything and everyone, but they never stop
creating (2005: 122).
The challenge of the artful connection is how to respect what we create, nurture love
for what we do, and bring beauty to what we build, even in the simplest tasks. We
have come to see our work for social change and peacebuilding too much in the line
of an intellectual journey, the cognitive processes of getting the analysis right and
developing the technique that facilitates the management of the change process. We
have failed to nurture the artist. To nurture the artist however does not require
becoming whom we are not. The opposite is true. It requires that we pay attention to
what already lies within us, within our capacity (Lederach, 2005: 162).
6.2 Art as Conflict Work

6.2 Art as Conflict Work
Lederach has written a great deal of work about art and science (Lederach, 1995;
Lederach, 2005; Lederach & Lederach, 2010). As Wolfgang Dietrich notes,
however, the connection between art and science is not a new invention (2013).
Dietrich gives the example of David Diamond's Theatre for Living: the Art and
Science of Community-based dialogue (2007) and Morihei Ueshiba's Art of
Peace (2007), and explains that “both authors, one concerned with theatre and
the other with the body-oriented art of movement -aikidō, build on a sound
philosophy of peace and understand their art as a form of conflict work”
(Dietrich, 2013: 14). Even though the connection between art and science is not
a novel discovery, it is nonetheless often an ignored relation. “In the field of
conflict resolution we have for far too long taken the art out of education and
learning. With art removed, the former becomes training and the latter becomes
evaluation” (Lederach, 2005: 123).
Breathing meditation is one of many art forms being practiced at the
Innsbruck peace program, where a basic training with a wide range of techniques
makes the elicitive peace workers “scouts, scientists, and artists of conflict
work” (Dietrich, 2014a: 55). In addition to breathing meditation, Dietrich
mentions numerous other ways of connecting art and conflict work, a few of
them cited below.
[...] Holotropic Breathwork, the ClarityProcess, Vipassana, Intuitive Monologue

and Dialogue, Paralinguistics, Mantra, Active Listening, Nonviolent Communi-
cation, Theme Centered Interaction, Five Rhythms Dance, Butō, Capoeira, Aikido,
Theatre of the Oppressed, Theatre for Living (Dietrich, 2014a: 54-55).
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6.2 Art as Conflict Work 63
Since there are no prescriptive models and prefabricated solutions within

elicitive conflict transformation, the peace worker has to rely on the artist within,
to transform the confusion and chaos of life into art. Working in this manner is
transformative; it shakes your roots, challenges your patterns and provides plural
ways of expressing oneself. However, as already mentioned, to nurture the artist
does not require becoming whom we are not.
The goal of bridging art and peacebuilding is not that we endeavor to become
something we are not. Nor is it the pursuit of the 'Arts' in order to find a way to
somehow become miraculously gifted in one of the forms, like music, poetry, or
painting. Experimenting and working at those can create tremendous insight, inner
strength, and sustenance. But I am not appealing for, nor advocating that peace-
builders must be artists in the professional sense of the word in order to connect art
and social change. The key is simpler than that: We must find a way to touch the
sense of art that lies within us all (Lederach, 2005: 161).
Elicitive conflict transformation, as a method, an art and a science, is making it

possible to touch the sense of art that lies within us all. Nurturing the artist
within is furthermore nurturing the process of transformation, both for the self
and towards the surrounding environment. “Art is a form of love. It is finding
beauty and connection in what we do” (Lederach, 2005: 161).
7 Meditation as a Tool for Elicitive Peace Work
7 Meditation as a Tool for Elicitive Peace Work
“The human being who does not first look for peace within herself will not find it on
the outside, because there is no objectifiable peace there” (Dietrich, 2012: 56-57).
Due to an inelastic understanding of healing in public health care in Norway,

alternatives to the governmental approved medical care is scarce, expensive and
disregarded. To position myself in this chapter I will first give a short explana-
tion of the Norwegian Health Care system by looking at the latest Health System
in Transitions report from Norway. These reports consist of country-based
reviews that provide detailed descriptions of the health care systems in different
countries.
The Norwegian health care system is built on the principle of equal access,
independent of social economic status and geographical location (Ringard,
Sagan, Sperre Saunes & Lindahl, 2013: 15). According to the 1999 Patients’
Rights Act, patients in the Norwegian health care system have the right to choose
between the available and “medically sound methods of examination and
treatment” (Ringard et al., 2013: 43), however, patients who choose an
alternative healing route to the mainstream medical care are not entitled to
patients' rights, as “complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is not
referred to as 'medicine' in Norwegian legislation but as 'alternative treatment' ”
(Ringard et al., 2013: 117). Selecting CAM also means rejection of govern-
mental funding, in which the outcome is that the patients will have to pay for the
treatment in full out of their own pocket. This inelastic understanding of healing
impels the patients to often undergo the governmental approved medical treat-
ment even if desiring an unconventional method.
7.1 What is Meditation?

7.1 What is Mediation?
Variations of meditation can be found in all corners of the world, through
different cultures and religions. Meditation, in innumerable forms, can be traced
back for more than two-and-a-half thousand years (Walsh, 1982: 69), and since

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66 7 Meditation as a Tool for Elicitive Peace Work
there already exist excellent works about meditation through history 10 , I will
focus more on the topic of meditation as a tool for peace work, than on an in-
depth guide of the history and variations of meditation. In sub-chapter 3.4 “The
Experiential Understanding – Breathing Meditation”, I gave a short explanation
of the Breath-oriented approach I am practicing, as well as a brief notion on the
motivation behind using this method. In this chapter I will present a short
overview of meditation to depict my current locus, as well as unfold the connec-
tion between meditation, transpersonal psychology, and peace workers.
The word meditation comes from the Latin words mederi (which means “to heal” or
“to look after”) and medicus (which means “healer”). This is no mere coincidence;
meditation quiets our mind and brings our consciousness into contact with the most
powerful healing energies in the universe (Caponigro, 2005: 27).
Meditation is often used as a collective term for methods that focus on expand-
ing our consciousness. My personal experience is that it takes quite some prac-
tice before the monkey mind is able to settle. As Gilbert and Choden writes
“Without training, our minds can be a chaotic mix of different motives and
emotions, but making deliberate choices of what motives and emotions to cul-
tivate can change our minds” (2014: 53). A quiet and conscious mind is in the
here and now. A quiet and conscious mind is aware of the inner current, of
tensions, rigidities and conflicts, and attentive to changes “[…] because meditat-
ing is bringing your true presence to the here and now” (Hạnh, 2004: 5-6).
The purpose varies between the diverse types of meditation, but typical
goals can be one or more of the following: relaxation (both mental and physical),
detachment from uncontrolled mental activity, enhanced awareness, greater
insight and understanding of the universe and a cognitive and/or emotional pause
from the everyday life (Caponigro, 2005; Kornfield, 2000; Walsh & Sapiro,
2006). The meditation techniques vary as well.
There are hundreds of valid techniques that can guide our mind into the realms of
meditative consciousness […]. Of the many techniques that can quiet our mind and
bring us into the meditative state of consciousness, meditation on the breath is one
of the simplest, most ancient, and most powerful of all (Caponigro, 2005: 28).
Other practices include free association, imagination travel, sensory exercises

such as visualization and body scan, voice-and sound oriented methods such as
chanting mantras (Caponigro, 2005).
10 Recommended reading: Kohn, L. (2008): Meditation Works, Three Pines Press, New Mexico;
Gawler, I. & Bedson, P. (2010): Meditation: An In-Depth Guide, Tarcher/Penguin, New York
7.2 Beyond Modern Methods Of Healing 67
I understand meditation as inward attention, a method of wholesomely

raising my awareness and consciousness, as well as a way of living in the present
moment. When I meditate I reduce my mental activity and inhabit my self in the
here and now. The word inhabit may at first glance seem a bit misplaced, but it
explains very well the impressions and sensations I get when I focus inwards.
There is a flow of soft awareness that makes me feel the delicate changes, which
again guide me to connect with my whole self.
7.2 Beyond Modern Methods Of Healing

7.2 Beyond Modern Methods Of Healing
For the transpersonal psychologist, meditation is of interest for several reasons. The
altered states of consciousness and enhanced psychological development it elicits
are both of central concern. The fact that it elicits measurable changes in behavior
and physiology has made it the focus of interest for researchers who have hoped to
find in meditation a way of bridging the practices of the consciousness disciplines
and Western empirical science (Walsh & Vaughan, 1980: 136).
Walsh and Vaughan explain that meditation elicits measurable changes, which is
of great significance for those who crave to bridge meditation with the inflexible
frames of empirical science. Koppensteiner (2009) recognizes and gives space
for the debate between the supporters and practitioners of transpersonal methods
on the one hand, and those who dismiss these techniques as the latest New Age
trend on the other. It is vital to acknowledge this debate, to be open to discuss
and converse about the fauna of transpersonal experiences and transrational
methods. As much as we ought to acknowledge the fruits of the rational mind,
we should also be able to go beyond the rigid understanding of healing that are
prevailing, at least in the Norwegian health care sector.
“Trans-personal psychology acknowledges and preserves the spiritual virtue
of pre-rational cultures as well as the achievements of rationality” (Dietrich, n.d.:
19). This recognition of the pre-modern civilizations' approach to healing is
fundamental for this chapter, particularly when compared to the modern
understanding of healing. Peter Levine describes how the modern, and especially
Western, medicine's have disregarded and viewed alternative methods as back-
wards and obsolescent, whilst prescribed medication has been the highway to
heal sufferings.
Since time immemorial, people have attempted to cope with powerful and terrifying
feelings by doing things that contradict perceptions of fear and helplessness:
religious rituals, theater, dance, music, meditation and ingesting psychoactive
substances, to name a few. Of these various methods for altering one's way of being,
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modern medicine has accepted only the use of (limited, i.e., psychiatric) chemical
substances (Levine, 2010: 10).
In the Western and modern context, the scientific methods are exalted. The
modern peace family campaign for a mindset where 'the one God' is replaced by
'the one Truth', a singular truth that is superior of everything. “This type of truth
is accessed by reason, making rationality the prized capacity as it is the means by
which one approaches the truth” (Taylor, 2013: 6). This is where the concept of
transrationality becomes essential. By twisting the limits of rationality and
reintegrating energetic concepts of peace, a transrational understanding of peace
becomes available. “The rational elements have their place and necessity, but
neither are they sufficient as explanations for concrete transformations, nor will a
transformation occur whenever such an explanation is attempted” (Koppen-
steiner, 2009: 152). We must dare to go beyond our rational minds to experience
peace.
As I wrote in Chapter 3, The Research Methods, the transrational
perspective includes embracing the different peace families as well as going
beyond them, as Dietrich explains it; “We called this trans-rational, because it
appreciates and applies the rationality of modern science while it transgresses its
limits and holistically embraces all aspects of human nature for its interpretation
of peace” (Dietrich, 2014a: 48). Since modern medicine has based the process of
healing predominantly on the use of limited (psychiatric) chemical substances,
the modern societies have to a large degree been taught to be skeptical of
alternative methods to heal traumas. “Until recently, the very word meditation
tended to evoke raised eyebrows and thoughts about mysticism and hocus-pocus
in many people” (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 7, italics in original). As much as we must
dare to go beyond our rational minds to experience peace, we must dare to be
open to that which can heal, and it is through breathing meditation that I
experience peace, the energetically flowing harmony that supports me in healing
trauma at my own pace.
7.3 Meditation As A Tool for Peace Work

7.3 Meditation As A Tool for Peace Work
Bringing the meditation practice into your work life can make for major
improvements in the quality of your life at work no matter what your job
(Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 506).
One of the reasons for why meditation can be such a valuable tool for peace
workers is because there exist a myriad of different techniques and practices to
choose from. With my definition of meditation, wide-ranging forms of move-
7.3 Meditation As A Tool for Peace Work 69
ment arts, such as Butō, Qigong, 5Rhythms and Aikido, definitely fit the medita-
tion description as well. Hence, various practices can be explored to find a type
of meditation that to the best degree satisfies the practitioner's needs.
Meditation, as a method for expanding our consciousness and cultivating
our awareness, guide us to be present and see things as they are. As peace
workers are prone to experience posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (PTSD),
burnout syndromes and compassion fatigue, the capability to monitor and
observe oneself during such work is essential. Jon Kabat-Zinn explains how
being present in the moment can create a space. This space, or pause, can also be
applied when differentiating between e.g. mimicry, emotional contagion,
empathy and compassion.
As you bring mindfulness to a stressful moment, you can see if, in effect, it winds up
creating something of a pause, a moment in which it feels like you have a bit of
extra time to assess things more completely. By intentionally orienting yourself in
this way to the present moment, challenging as it may be, you have an opportunity
to buffer the impending effects of a major stress reactions (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 340).
Being able to create this little pause in stressful and demanding moments
requires, as previously mentioned, quite a lot of practice beforehand. Like an
athlete learns to adjust and attune her body and mind, the meditator learns to
inhabit her body, calm the mind and be present in the here and now. However,
they both need commitment to the practice to experience the harvests of their
sowing.
In a qualitative study, psychologists Richard Harrison and Marvin
Westwood identified various protective practices that might mitigate risks of
secondary traumatization among mental health therapists (2009). Sections of
their findings can be transmitted to the elicitive conflict worker, as both
facilitators are working with trauma healing and both are prone to experience
secondary trauma or compassion fatigue due to the potential heaviness of their
work. There is especially one segment of their study that I find relevant for the
connection between the elicitive conflict worker and the transformative effects of
breathing meditation.
The practice of mindfulness (present focused attending to minute, ongoing shifts in

mind, body, and the surrounding world), integrated into daily life from initial
waking to final moments before sleep, helps most of these therapists to develop
enhanced patience, presence and compassion. Mindfulness, as described by
participants, involves curiosity and holistic awareness of one’s experience in relation
to both external and internal environment. Breathing consciously and redirecting
attention to their embodied experience of the here-and-now helps these therapists to
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stay calmly focused and grounded, which allows them to be less reactive and engage
with greater equanimity. This contributes to increased ability to embrace complexity
and tolerate ambiguity, as well as enhanced capacity to hold multiple perspectives,
engage in both/and thinking, and remain hopeful in the face of suffering (Harrison &
Westwood, 2009: 209).
As transformative tool for peace work meditation may, as Kabat-Zinn writes, be

a challenging method as it tends to elicit changes and help access repressed
memories and experiences if the practitioner is open for it. Challenging as it may
be, the stakes are higher if a peace worker ignores a conscious handling of the
self, suppress and block emotions and disregards symptoms of trauma. As
Harrison and Westwood note; “If they do not take care of themselves, they are at
risk of harming others” (2009: 212).
Meditation is a convenient tool for the peace worker, as it is always carried
within. It furthermore allows you to initiate your own healing and to be the
facilitator of your own processes. Because it is difficult to exceed or violate
limits you are not ready to cross, you can follow your personal beat when
exploring the deeper layers of your essential self through meditation.
Meditation furthermore creates a space for recognizing limits and
boundaries. Observing and understanding how we react in certain situations,
what triggers us, depletes us of energy, and why, are all elements that an
enlarged consciousness can make you more aware of. Harrison and Westwood
explain how this can transpire:
Mindful awareness […] helps participants recognize if and when their interpersonal
boundaries are at risk of becoming overly permeable, as well as other times when
they need to take action to restore balance in their lives (e.g., employ imagery or
ritual, engage in self-care practices, seek consultation, and reach out to personal
community) (Harrison & Westwood, 2009: 209, parenthesis in original).
Practicing self-awareness on a daily basis, through meditation, involve recogniz-

ing the emotional spectrum without being forcefully drawn into it. As a peace
worker becomes part of the conflict itself by simply just being in the conflict
setting, a moment-to-moment awareness may consequently help the peace
workers with separating themselves out from the work they do.
The heart of my work is the focus on how inner peace work, through
breathing meditation, can be a vital tool when doing 'outer' peace work. Jon
Kabat-Zinn gives a brilliant notion on how being attentive to the breath can
make you more aware of your mindsets and your corporal sensations, as well as
questioning their precision.
7.3 Meditation As A Tool for Peace Work 71
Resting in an awareness of breathing, even for one or two breaths, can also remind
you to check in with your thoughts and feelings and become aware of them and how
they may be expressing themselves in particular regions of the body in the form of
tightness or tension of some kind. Perhaps you will see how reactive they are.
Perhaps you will question their accuracy (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 343).
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8 Inhale, Exhale – The Breath In Breathing
8 Inhale, Exhale – The Breath In Breathing
As long as we breathe, as long as we take in the air from around us, let it spread
in our body and then exhale it again, we will not remain the same (Koppen-
steiner, 2009: 93).
Dear reader, before you embark upon this chapter, I invite you to breathe with
me, to let fresh oxygen enter your blood, to carefully step on your brake pedal
and simply slow down your pace and breathe. Gently place your hands on your
belly, close your eyes, and focus on the connection between your diaphragm and
your breath for a couple of breaths as your belly goes through two or three
risings and fallings.
8.1 Breath – The Life Force

8.1 Breath – The Life Force
Breathing represents the total circulation of humanity, as inhaling is one of our
first endeavors when we enter this earth, and the last exhale puts the final dot to
our lives. “In ancient and pre-industrial societies, breath and breathing have
played a very important role in cosmology, mythology, and philosophy, as well
as an important tool in ritual and spiritual practice” (Grof, 2014: 8). In
Norwegian the words pust or åndedrett are used to describe the set of
mechanisms involved in the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between a
living organism and its surroundings.
In many languages words describing breathing and soul are often closely
connected, as in the English language where respiration and spirit share their
origin in the Latin word spiritus, meaning “vindpust, luft, ånde, ånd” 11
(Caprona, 2013: 918), and the Norwegian word åndedrett has the same relation
between breath and life force, as ånd means spirit.
In the ancient Indian literature, the term prana meant not only physical breath and
air, but also the sacred essence of life. Similarly, in traditional Chinese medicine, the
word chi refers to the cosmic essence and the energy of life, as well as the natural air
11 "Breath of wind, air, breath, spirit" (Translated by author).

74 8 Inhale, Exhale – The Breath In Breathing
we breathe by our lungs. In Japan, the corresponding word is ki. Ki plays an

extremely important role in Japanese spiritual practices and martial arts. In ancient
Greece, the word pneuma meant both air or breath and spirit or the essence of life
(Grof, 2014: 8-9).
These coinciding features show how humans, through various languages and
different cultures, have had a deep understanding of the transforming powers of
respiration and correspondingly attempted to identify symbolic representations
of the life force within the languages.
8.2 The Breath And The Body

8.2 The Breath And The Body
Breathing is connected to our autonomic nervous system (ANS), a system that
works mostly reflexively and involuntarily, to regulate the functions of our
internal organs (Magelssen, 2008). I wrote in Chapter 4 that I would not go
deeply into research on the physical benefits of meditation, such as how
electroencephalogram (EEG) and brain-imaging studies measure the electric
activity in the brain while meditating, however, certain aspects connected to
pneuma's physical role within our bodies will be given, to show how vital our
breath is in regulating and balancing oneself, qualities fundamental for elicitive
conflict workers.
The autonomic nervous system consists of the 'sympathetic nervous system'
and the 'parasympathetic nervous system' (Magelssen, 2008). The sympathetic
nervous system is often referred to as the 'fight, flight or freeze' system, while
the parasympathetic nervous system is considered the 'rest and digest' system.
The role of the breath is central when it comes to regulating our ANS. Author
and nurse Marianne Magelssen describes how the breath initiate transformations
that affects the nervous system.
En forlenget utpust og en rolig pust helt ned i mellomgulvet (Her og nå-pusten)

trigger det parasympatiske nervesystemet, kroppens “bremsepedal”, og utløser en
avspenningsrespons. Avspenningsresponsen roer ned hjerterytmen, blodtrykket,
hjernebølgene og følelsene. Det sympatiske nervesystemet aktiveres i forskjellige
stress-, fare- og treningssituasjoner. Det sympatiske nervesystemet er kroppens
“gasspedal”. Overfladisk pust trigger “gasspedalen” 12 (Magelssen, 2008: 24).
12 A prolonged exhalation and calm inhalation all the way down to the diaphragm (The Here and
Now breath) trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, the body's "brake pedal" and
stimulates a relaxation response. The relaxation response calms down the heart rate, the blood
pressure, the brain waves and feelings. The sympathetic nervous system is activated in
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8.2 The Breath And The Body 75
As both the 'brake pedal' and the 'gas pedal' of our nervous system is affected by
our breath, and vice versa, we can facilitate a recreation pause by focusing on
our respiration.
Å puste med fokus på mellomgulvet/magen er svært avslappende for det autonome

nervesystemet. På innpust trekkes musklene i mellomgulvet sammen og skyves
nedover. På denne måten gjøres det plass til å fylle begge lungene helt med luft 13
(Magelssen, 2008: 24).
Our physical body is thus affected by how we inhale and exhale and reciprocally,
our current experienced state of mind affects the way we breathe, whether we
have a shallow breath, hold our breath or use our breath to activate the 'brake
pedal'.
Nonetheless, the physical body is not the only element that is affected by
our pneuma, and the awareness of the breath's vitality is far from being a
newfangled focus point within areas regarding healing. “Since earliest times,
virtually every major psychospiritual system seeking to comprehend human
nature has viewed breath as a crucial link between nature, the human body, the
psyche, and the spirit” (Grof, 2014: 8). What Grof here titles link, Kabat-Zinn
calls bridge, a bridge between our body, mind and spirit (Kabat-Zinn, 2013).
Thích Nhất Hạnh correspondingly explains how conscious breathing creates this
bond.
Our breathing is the link between our body and our mind. Sometimes our mind is
thinking of one thing and our body is doing another, and mind and body are not
unified. By concentrating on our breathing, “In” and “Out,” we bring body and mind
back together, and become whole again. Conscious breathing is an important bridge
(Hạnh, 1992: 9).
Through practicing breathing meditation, I have observed how the breath not
only bridges my physical body and mind, my breath also facilitates my healing
process, connects me, among others, to my inner peace, my feelings, shadows,
chaos, emotions and fears.
different stress, threat and training situations. The sympathetic nervous system is the body's
"gas pedal". Shallow breathing triggers the "gas pedal" (Translated by author).
13 To breathe with a focus on the diaphragm / stomach can be very relaxing for the autonomic
nervous system. When we inhale deeply the muscles of the diaphragm are drawn together and
pushed down. Breathing this way, there is space to fill both lungs completely with air
(Translated by author).
I am completely immobile, but the whole body wants to move, shake, get rid of
the words that the brain keeps on formulating. I feel like a four year old child,
forced to sit still when the legs are full of imaginary ants, crawling, creeping,
pushing to move. At the same time my body is heavy and exhausted. Focusing on
the breath.
Inhale, exhale.
I feel the air entering my right nostril, the temperature is shifting slightly. The
air follows the stream towards my lungs, but it feels like a tight ribbon is around
my breast, making it impossible to really expand and take in the air. The ribbon
starts to tighten up even more and the muscles in my stomach, right behind my
navel, starts to contract. I notice how I am moving the glottis, and the throat
passage is narrowed to the point that the airway is almost blocked. As I am
pushing out the air, I sense that there is a lot of voice inside of me. Strong, loud
humming is suddenly leaking out between my heavy lips. As I am holding the
note, I feel how the vibrations are coming from the outside, as if the trembling is
shining in from the outside. My tongue is vibrating, together with my throat,
loosing up the pressure on the glottis, sending pulsating rhythms downwards in
my body. With each humming the vibrations are growing stronger and the
ribbon around my chest releases a bit. ∼ April 10, 2015.
8.3 When Breathing Is Frightening

8.3 When Breathing Is Frightening
A small note has to be given to the antithesis of the aforementioned. I have
written that an enhanced focus on the breath can have a calming effect, and that
deep breathing can activate our brake pedal. Conversely, it is important to
mention that a robust focus on the breath also can be frightening and paralyzing
in certain situations. People who experience panic attacks may recognize a great
fear connected to the breath and a feeling that death comes one step closer with
each gasp.
Biologisk sett er angst en alarmreaksjon der kroppen på et øyeblikk gjøres i stand til
å reagere fort og kraftig. Denne alarmreaksjonen hjelper oss å overleve […]. De
store arm- og beinmusklene får en økt tilførsel av blod og oksygen og pusten
forsterkes 14 (Hoffart, in Magelssen, 2008: 107).
14 Biologically speaking anxiety is an alarm reaction in which the body in an instant is able to
react quickly and vigorously. This alarm reaction helps us to survive [...]. The large arm and
leg muscles get an increased supply of blood and oxygen, and the breathing rate increases
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8.4 Why Tuning Into Our Breath? 77
This feeling of anxiety can be linked to an activation of our sympathetic nervous

system, our gas pedal. Shallow breathing triggers the gas pedal, increases our
breath rate, which may lead to over-breathing or hyperventilation (Magelssen,
2008).
I have learnt to recognize how my breathing pattern changes due to how I
interpret and construct the situation around me. Often I realize that I prepare for
attack or defense by breathing superficially, clamping my jaws hard together and
squeezing my tongue into my palate. In these moments I close my eyes for a
second or two and focus on inhaling all the way down to my diaphragm and I
immediately feel more connected to myself and I am able to let go of some of the
pressure I expose myself to. I have also found relief in the anchoring effects
breathing meditation has had on my panic attacks, on accepting things as they
are, moment by moment, and on working with traumas, which is reflected in the
embodied writing sections of this work.
8.4 Why Tuning Into Our Breath?

8.4 Why Tuning Into Our Breath?
Approaching slowly the topic of trauma and healing, I want to point out that
there is not one superior and solitary route to follow. There are as many ways to
healing, as there are beings on this planet. I write from my own encounter with
trauma and can therefore only try to illuminate my own journey. I have learnt
other methods and seen other paths, but the gentlest approach I have found for
me is being present through breathing meditation and trying to accept whatever
appears.
As I previously wrote, there exists quite a rigid understanding of healing in
the Norwegian health care sector (Ringard et al., 2013: 117). However, there is
currently a greater awareness of the profound effects of the pneuma, especially
among nurses and physiotherapists in Norway (Magelssen, 2008; Ringard et al.,
2013). Grof writes that breathing, in the materialistic/modern science, lost its
sacred meaning and was reduced to a machinery function of our corporeal
bodies. Respiration was “stripped of its connection to the psyche and spirit”
(Grof, 2014: 9). In the last few decades, the healing potential of breath has been
rediscovered, and nurse Magelssen has used different breathing techniques with
her patients for years. In the succeeding quote Magelssen explains how we can
create a space with our breath, and how this space can become our daily support
system.
Det er i dag en helt ny bevissthet rundt pustens dyptgripende virkning. Vi kan også
se at den tradisjonelle delen av Vestens helsevesen begynner å ta innover seg dette
virkningsfulle verktøyet som vi alle er i besittelse av, og som naturlig følger oss
gjennom hele livet. Når du er oppmerksom på pusten, tar det fokus fra tankene og
skaper rom. Det er en måte å frambringe tilstedeværelse og bevissthet på. I
stressituasjoner vil du aktivt kunne bruke pusten for å trigge avspenningsresponsen,
og det er da du oppdager av pusten er en gave – du blir tilstede i dine oppgaver og
kan sette mer pris på hverdagen 15 (Magelssen, 2008: 53).
The need to push the brake pedal at some point can be quite a strong need for
peace workers employed in a challenging field. Breathing meditation, as a
method within elicitive conflict transformation, creates a convenient space for
nurturing the daily awareness. “Tuning in to it [the breath] brings us right into
the here and now. It immediately anchors our awareness in the body, in a
fundamental, rhythmic, flowing life process” (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 41).
Tuning into our breath activate what Magelssen calls the brake pedal, or the
relaxation response, that calms the physical functions of the ANS. Van der Kolk
has been researching the connection between the brain and the body. In his book
“The Body Keeps the Score”, van der Kolk explains part of the relationship
between the brain and the body in the following manner:
Some 80 percent of the fibers of the vagus nerve (which connects the brain with
many internal organs) are afferent; that is, they run from the body and into the brain.
This means that we can directly train our arousal system by the way we breathe […].
Learning how to breathe calmly and remaining in a state of relative physical
relaxation, even when accessing painful and horrifying memories, is an essential
tool for recovery (van der Kolk, 2014: 207, parentheses included in original).
Observing our breath furthermore involve the opportunity to separate oneself out
from our work, and accordingly create a sufficient distance to be able to observe
a situation without giving nourishment to our inner movies, and correspondingly
avoid putting our own conflicts into the working space. As an elicitive conflict
worker, I become a part of the conflict by simply being in it (Taylor, 2013) and
therefore centering my attention on the present realities, through breathing,
supports me with balancing myself more deeply in demanding situations. Hạnh
15 Today there is a new awareness of the profound effects of the breath. We experience that the
traditional part of the Western [modern] healthcare is beginning to grasp the effects of the
powerful tool that we all possess, and that naturally accompanies us throughout our lives.
When you are aware of your breath, it takes the focus from the mind and creates space. It is a
way to bring forth the presence and the awareness. In stressful situations you can actively use
your breath to trigger the relaxation response, and that is when you discover that the breath is a
gift – you are present in your tasks and can appreciate the more your daily life (Translated by
author).
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8.5 Breathing And Being With Pain 79
gives a beautiful picture to how mindful breathing help us stay connected to the
here and now.
While we practice conscious breathing, our thinking will slow down, and we can
give ourselves a real rest. Most of the time, we think too much, and mindful
breathing helps us to be calm, relaxed, and peaceful. It helps us stop thinking so
much and stop being possessed by sorrows of the past and worries about the future.
It enables us to be in touch with life, which is wonderful in the present moment
(Hạnh, 1992: 11).
8.5 Breathing And Being With Pain

8.5 Breathing And Being With Pain
In the chapter which revolved around the topic of trauma I cited Peter Levine, as
he notes how experiencing a traumatic episode might enable a person to engage
in the here and now (2010). Tara Brach, a western teacher of Buddhist medita-
tion, emotional healing and spiritual awakening, explains it in the following way:
Even years after the actual danger is past, the trauma, undigested and locked in our
body, randomly breaks through into consciousness. A person who has been
traumatized may continue to relive the same event as if it were occurring in the
present (Brach, 2014: para. 9).
Trauma can dissociate us from our bodies, disconnect us from the presence and
remove us from the people we love and care for. Albeit this reaction may be
protective for a certain time, it will create more suffering that healing. “By
rejecting pain and pulling away from the ground of our being, we experience the
dis-ease of separation—loneliness, anxiety and shame” (Brach, 2014: para. 12).
Irresponsible heroes ignore traumatic episodes, leave the unprocessed
wounds forlorn and fill up body and mind with different substitutes to ease the
pain. However, “Unprocessed pain keeps our system of self-preservation on
permanent alert […]. Whether or not there is any present danger, we feel
absolutely at risk and compelled to find a way to get away from the pain”
(Brach, 2014: para. 10). Consequently we keep full throttle at the 'gas pedal' the
entire time and create mental movies in support of this agitation.
Learning to observe oneself by using the breath as an object of awareness,
does not necessarily mean that we have to, as Magelssen writes above, move
forward. Being present in the here and now also supports the ability to accept, to
halt or to let go, but with the additional flavor of letting it be a conscious choice.
“[W]hen we breathe consciously we recover ourselves completely and encounter
life in the present moment” (Hạnh, 1992: 9).
Mindful breathing furthermore brings an opportunity, to embrace our pain,

as well as a chance to transform the painful narratives of our bodies. As Hạnh
notes “When you have pain with you, the first thing to do is to bring the energy
of mindfulness to embrace the pain. I know that you are there, little anger, my
old friend. Breathe- I am taking care of you now” (2004: 37). By getting to know
your breath, you will be able to recognize how it may guide you to heal the
different facets of your pain and wounds.
In addition, you will discover that it is possible to direct your breath with great
precision to various parts of your body in such a way that it will penetrate and
soothe regions that are injured or in pain, at the same time it calms and stabilizes the
mind (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 50).
The countless effects that breathing meditation can have, will all start to blossom
in the present moment. “As you practice, your breath will become peaceful and
gentle, and your mind and body will also become peaceful and gentle” (Hạnh,
1992: 8). Tune in to your breath to grasp how your patterns affect your daily life,
how you can make conscious choices, how you can work with your breath for
healing pain and checking in on yourself in this present moment.
Focusing on being fully aware in every situation and aiming for an expan-
sion of my consciousness has brought up many painful moments of suffering. I
have deliberately approached meditation knowing that whatever comes up,
comes up for a reason, and subsequently tried to be open and warm to whatever
expressed. Jack Kornfield's way of understanding the loops of human pain has
guided me to through difficult times, and to open up to the beauty, which is also
related to suffering.
We cling to some hope that in spiritual life we can rise above the wounds of human
pain, never to have to suffer them again. We expect some experience to last. But
permanence is not true freedom, not the sure heart's release. Every wise voyager
learns that we cannot hold on to the last port of call, no matter how beautiful
(Kornfield, 2000: 125).
Transformations can be beautiful. Fed on divergences, yearning for equilibrium,

only to be put out of balance once more. However beautiful this depiction of
transformation might seem, the occasional outpouring does not feel wonderful
while placed in its midst.
Anger, heat, red. Sweaty hands, jaws squeezed tightly together. SCREEEAM,
tears running down my face, bitter, angry, colorless tears. The anger shifts with
my breath. Hopelessness, frustration. I cannot do this!! I cannot hold all of this
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8.6 Breathing Connects Us 81
inside, it is too big, too much, too painful. My body is full, it overflows, and there
is no space for all of this. All I contain is pain. All I am is sorrow, grief and
disappointment. ∼ January 09, 2014.
This passage is from one of my first nights walking home alone in Oslo after
returning form Innsbruck. When I started noticing the changes in my body, the
tingling sensations, I began whispering a gatha16 by Thích Nhất Hạnh that I have
been practicing for reconnecting to the internal observer.
Breathing in, I calm my body.

Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment
I know this is a wonderful moment.
I have been whispering the lines as I walk home alone from late nights out in
Oslo, I have pronounced it before speaking up in front of crowds and I have
written it down on paper time and time again to memorize it and make it part of
my own practice. What the aforesaid excerpts demonstrates for me is that this
too is part of the practice, pain and suffering is part of life. “The capacity to
respond mindfully develops each time we experience discomfort, pain, or strong
emotions of any kind during formal meditation and we just observe them and
work at allowing them to simply be here as they are, without reacting” (Kabat-
Zinn, 2013: 338). Kabat-Zinn here stresses the importance of simply being, and
to respond mindfully. I am trying to welcome these outbursts with warmth and
openness, so that I can direct my energy where I want it to go, but it is a very
challenging part of my practice.
8.6 Breathing Connects Us

8.6 Breathing Connects Us
In the beginning of this chapter I quoted Koppensteiner who wrote that as long
as we inhale and exhale the air around us we are constantly changing. Our breath
is with us as long as we are alive on this planet, it mixes with the breath of every
human being, animal and plant, every sea, mountain and forest, and we will
therefore all be in an endless fluctuation. The air we breathe does not belong to
anyone; it is free, omnipresent and drifting from lung to lung. In this script the
peace worker is the main focus and hence it is important to recognize that the
peace worker does not exist in a vacuum.
16 Gatha is here used as a verse expressed with rhythm.

With each lungful of air we take in, we blur the boundaries to our surroundings,
making a piece of our environment – and, at times, other people's pnauma – part of
ourselves. Each time we exhale we charge the atmosphere similarly with a part of
ourselves. With each breath we change as our bodies blur (Koppensteiner, 2009:
169, italics in original).
Peace work is relational and it is the connectedness through our respiration that
helps me open up to both my surroundings and myself more profoundly than
before. I have found breathing meditation to be the most powerful tool for
observing and working with the relationship with yourself and others, and I will
describe this more in detail in the coming chapter. As for now I will leave you
with a quote from Kabat-Zinn that shows how breathing meditation can create
greenhouse-like conditions for the trust-seed to grow.
[Through breathing meditation] you are practicing taking responsibility for being
yourself and learning to listen to and trust your own being. The more you cultivate
this trust in yourself, the easier you will find it will be to trust other people more and
to see their basic goodness as well (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 26).
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9 A Practice For Inner And Outer Peace Work
9 A Practice For Inner And Outer Peace Work
[T]he fact that you can learn to respond to stress with awareness does not mean that
you will never react anymore or that you will not sometimes be overwhelmed by
anger or grief or fear, We are not trying to suppress our emotions when we respond
mindfully to internal or external stressors. Rather, we are learning how to work with
all our reactions, emotional and physical, so that we may be less controlled by them
and see more clearly what we should do and how we might respond more effectively
(Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 348).
Up until this point I have written about meditation and its history, benefits and
difficulties. In this chapter I will share an introduction on how to meditate and
dip into some of the possible tussles related to beginning a practice. The guide
entails insights that might be useful for a person wanting to start a practice. This
chapter is shaped by reflecting upon the following question “How can an
elicitive peace worker use breathing meditation as a transrational method for
peace work?”, and is hence created for peace workers preparing for deployment,
in the midst of working, and for personnel returning home. What I want to state
at this point, however, is that meditation should neither be practiced at the
expense of a consultation with a doctor or psychologist, nor replace any
recommendation provided by your doctor.
9.1 A Guide To Breathing Meditation

9.1 A Guide To Breathing Meditation
When you embark your meditation practice, try to find a place where you will
not be disturbed neither by people nor electronic devices. There are a number of
varied seating positions you can take when you meditate, but try to keep a
dignified posture with the top of your head aligned vertically with your neck and
back. Personally I practice sitting on the floor in the so-called Burmese posture
(Fig. 1). In this posture I feel rooted and connected to the earth, aspects that are
grounding my practice.

84 9 A Practice For Inner And Outer Peace Work
Figure 1: Burmese posture 17
Figure 2: Sitting meditation on chair
17 Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 are made by artist Thea Elise Klingvall
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9.2 And Then... 85
I use a meditation cushion, as I find it easier to keep an upright and alert position
with some height under my buttocks. The cushion also supports me to expand
my chest, tilt my pelvis a bit forward and maintain a vertical posture. If you
prefer sitting on a chair, try to keep your back straight up (Fig. 2), not resting
your spine on the back of the chair. I use a meditation timer available as a mobile
phone application in order to keep track of time, and with the sound of a Tibetan
Singing Bowl I am gently coming back from each session.
When you have found your sitting position it is time to bring your aware-
ness to the breath. I am once again referring to Buddhist monk, author and
teacher Jack Kornfield and the practice of feeling your life-breath.
Let your mind be spacious and your heart be kind and soft. As you sit, feel the
sensations of your body. Then notice what sounds and feelings, thoughts and
expectations are present. Allow them all to come and go, to rise and fall like the
waves of the ocean. Be aware of the waves and rest seated in the midst of them.
Allow yourself to become more and more still. In the center of all these waves, feel
your breathing, your life-breath (Kornfield, 2016: para. 1-2).
For the first couple of weeks I meditated for 20 minutes each morning to get into
my practice. With the beginning of each new month I added ten minutes to the
sitting time, and currently I practice one hour every morning. I also practice
breathing meditation throughout the day, in short sessions that reminds me to be
present. It does not matter how long time you sit, what is important is to make
each moment count, bringing back your attention to your breath and stay
present.18
9.2 And Then...

9.2 And Then...
a) We are a part of a simulated UN field training with the Austrian Armed
Forces (as a part of the Innsbruck Peace Program), it is the last day in the field,
everybody is exhausted and it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality
and role play. As the Head of Mission it is my utmost important task to get
everyone down hill to a safe place where UN forces are waiting for us. Masked
persons are shooting at us from behind, wounded people are crying for help, all
the squad leaders are exhausted and half of the Head Quarters have opted out.
The army adviser working close with me is yelling at me that I need to run uphill
18 For a more thorough guide on meditation, I recommend Full Catastrophy Living, Using the
Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn 2013.
to motivate the group that is falling behind, while the Second in Command is
screaming that we need to keep running down hill, and then...
b) The soldiers are looking at me in the interrogation room at the airport. No,
looking is the wrong word, measuring. They are measuring me. Their eyes travel
up and down my body and I try to hide my sweaty palms. I am asked to take off
my clothes for a security inspection, to spread my legs, raise my arms and to
bend forward. Later they take me to another interrogation room and start
screaming to me, and then...
c) I close my eyes and the pictures, smells and sounds are coming back to me.
My pulse increases rapidly as the ache is crowding up from deep within,
expanding first around my chest so tightly that I want to throw myself to the
ground, and then...
And then... I breathe, a long deep breath. Feeling how the air is entering
through my nostrils, how my lungs are expanding and how my stomach is
growing slightly with the air I inhale. As I exhale I focus on how wonderful it
feels to be able to witness this breath that keeps me alive, and with these seconds
of practice I return to the here and now, being fully aware and centered.
∼ February 17, 2015.
9.3 Preparing For Peace work

9.3 Preparing For Peace work
Inner conflict transformation, awareness of shifts in consciousness and energies,
individual healing processes and responsibility for ourselves, all these aspects
are important to be familiar with before deployment. As Dietrich notes, “It is
absolutely necessary to attain observer consciousness in order to work
elicitively” (2013: 222). We can learn to pay attention and to be aware of what is
going on in our minds and bodies, but it takes practice. When deployed in an
area with for example strict security measurements or penetrating chaos, finding
a silent place to practice might be difficult. Therefore, starting the practice when
training for deployment is important in order to be able to practice when you are
not sitting safe in your living room.
“Elicitive transformation work begins when a mediating third part enters the
conflict environment. The simple presence of the third part already amounts to a
transformation” (Dietrich, 2013: 13). When we are aware of how we affect a
situation just by entering, it becomes clear why we need to be aware of what we
bring to the conflict. At the Innsbruck Peace Program we learn to monitor
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9.4 Beginning Breathing Might Be Difficult 87
ourselves with the internal observer, a technique highly supported by breathing

meditation.
The internal observer looks at the persona's ego layers such as they are in the present
in a loving manner, without judgment, comparison, reward, or punishment. The
internal observer is conscious of his or her existence, but does not comment or act.
[…] Observers working from the spiritual layer remain silent and love uncon-
ditionally, as there is no duality in transrationality (Dietrich, 2013: 220).
Using the breath as a tool can facilitate the process of twisting our awareness
from habitually being impenetrable and out of reach, to carefully open up to the
crispness of the present.
9.4 Beginning Breathing Might Be Difficult

9.4 Beginning Breathing Might Be Difficult
“At first, holding our attention on the breath can seem as tricky as grasping for
the soap in a bath” (Gilbert & Choden, 2014: 135). Starting my meditation
practice was not a walk in the park, I did not sit down in the Burmese posture
and 'saw the light' during the first session. Aiming for a stable everyday practice,
I knew that there was only one way of doing it. To sit, to breathe, to be, and to
welcome the inner torrent. “Anyone who turns inward to meditation or prayer
immediately encounters the everchanging thought stream of mind, and the
endless ripples of moods and emotions that color each moment” (Kornfield,
2000: 74).
No matter how many thoughts that try to disturb your practice, how you
perceive pain in every physical aspect of your body, how bored you might be,
the only remedy is to keep on breathing and focus on your breath. Walsh and
Vaughan describe how the beginning might be experienced.
Beginning meditation may be difficult. Just sitting immobile for a half hour can be
arduous at first and intensive practice over a period of days can be powerful and at
times disconcerting. Any unresolved psychological conflicts tend to surfaces soon as
attention is turned inward and the restless agitated nature of the untrained mind
rapidly becomes apparent. Powerful surges of arousal and emotion may alternate
with deep peace and joy (Walsh & Vaughan, 1980: 136).
In a two-papers series entitled Personal Autobiographical Accounts, Walsh

describes his encounter with meditation as a practice from the very first sessions,
through difficult sittings and across transformative periods.
Certainly had it not been for these expectations prior psychotherapeutic experiences
and the encouragement of more experienced practitioners, I would never have gotten
beyond the first couple of weeks. The nature of meditation seems to be especially at
first a slow but cumulative process, a fact that might be useful for beginners to know
(Walsh, 1977: 153).
Gilbert and Choden write that without training, our minds can be “a chaotic mix
of different motives and emotions” (2014: 53). As I began to meditate I noticed
more attentively the aspects of my monkey mind; the planning, judging, day-
dreaming, fearing, all in a frenzy. I also started noticing how I distinguished bet-
ween various emotions and motives, and how I embraced only the qualities that I
wanted to identify with.
Getting smart also means that, unlike other animals, we are able to think about our
own inner emotions and motives, and we can judge them along with our behaviors
and efforts too. The problem is, we might not like what we experience inside of us.
We might not like the surges of fear or anger or our tendencies to get irritated with
people or be submissive to them. We might be alarmed by some of the sexual or
aggressive fantasies that flow through us, and instead of having compassion for
ourselves for having such a tricky brain, we might become critical and at war with
ourselves (Gilbert & Choden, 2014: 44).
Encountering strong waves of fear, insecurity, shame and anger through

breathing meditation has made it challenging to stay in the practice. Returning to
my pattern of running away has been tempting more than once, but this surge of
'having to flee' currently function as a commitment to stay. Whenever the need
of running away appears I use my breath to stay and to reflect upon the
triggering elements, often interrelated with an over-identification with my mind.
In the first 'Personal Autobiographical Accounts' paper, Walsh share his
meditation journey and describes how he was confronted with redefining what
he earlier perceived as his rational mind.
The more sensitive I became, the more I was forced to recognize that what I had
formerly believed to be my rational mind, preoccupied with cognition, planning,
problem solving, etc., actually comprised a frantic torrent of forceful, demanding,
loud and often unrelated thoughts and fantasies which filled an unbelievable portion
of consciousness even during purposive behavior (Walsh, 1977: 154).
Nevertheless, the difficulties and challenges of the meditation journey are often
the same aspects that are transforming, heart opening and that shake up your
equilibrium. “The best advice for any kind of question in the meditation practice
is to keep practicing, to just keep looking at whatever arises in nonjudgmental
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9.4 Beginning Breathing Might Be Difficult 89
awareness and with kindness, especially if it is a recurring pattern, conundrum,

thought, or feeling” (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 575).
My breathing meditation practice helps me become aware of what is mine
and what is not, a topic central for Chapter 10 on empathy and self-compassion.
By exploring the power of my inhalation and exhalation through breathing
meditation, I am able to bring out a calming and mind-clearing quality even in
stressful and difficult situations, but meditating is far from being solely a
satisfying process.
Exploring Present Being: I am separated. Each cell in my body consists of an

excess of protons and I am attracted to misery and death as if it was superfluous
by negative electrodes. I inhale, inhale. Too afraid of letting go. I am separated.
My feet are not connected to the ground, my stomach and heart force me down
with the heaviness they carry, and my mind is constantly searching for fugitive,
far, far away. Separated. I want to connect with the earth and so I crawl on
muddy trails to smell the wondrous fragrance of petrichor. 19 I inhale, inhale.
Neglecting my exhales. Building up a stronghold within. And so I sink into the
earth, suffocated by the heaviness. I am cutting the bonds to my tribes; I am
choking on the umbilical cord with my mother earth. Pulled towards- pulling
away from- constantly doing- forgetting being, never exhaling.
∼ October 02, 2014.
In sub-chapter 1.2 'A Wonderer and a Wanderer', I wrote that the lack of self-
love and self-compassion has made the journey towards healing exhausting. The
foundation of the subsequent chapter continues to be 'being present through
breathing meditation', however, the main focus will be how the breathing space
creates an opportunity to enhance (self)compassion.
19 Petrichor is the scent of wet earth formed when rain falls on dry soil.
10 Peace-work Interconnected With
Self- Compassion
10 Peace-work Interconnected With Self- Compassion
Take a long deep inhale through your nose, linger for a few seconds and release
the air slowly through your mouth and contemplate on the following: how do
you relate to suffering, to the suffering of unknown others, of acquaintances,
close friends and family, and likewise how do you relate to your own suffering?
Do you close your eyes and heart to it, or do you take everything in? Related to
the B in the ABC of elicitive peace workers' pre-requisite, namely “B-alance
between compassion and self-protection” (Dietrich, 2014a: 53), I am using this
chapter to explore the balance, and to understand what might happen if the
weight scale is tipping towards either side. I will furthermore explain how my
breathing meditation practice is helping me to become more aware of what is
mine (and what is not).
10.1 Dissecting The Definitions

10.1 Dissecting The Definitions
There are no universally recognized definitions of the words empathy, sympathy
and compassion. As neuroscientists Singer and Lamm rightfully notes; “[…]
there are almost as many definitions of empathy as there are researchers in the
field” (2009: 82, italics in original). I will nevertheless try to navigate us through
this dense jungle of definitions, to make sure we are on the same page.
First I will briefly point out two concepts that are related to empathy and
sympathy namely mimicry and emotional contagion, however, “neither emo-
tional contagion nor mimicry can account for the full-blown experience of
empathy” (Singer & Lamm, 2009: 83). Singer and Lamm further suggest that
while mimicry is the tendency to mirror, imitate and reflect various expressions
of another person, emotional contagion is to unconsciously catch feelings and
emotions from others (2009).
Empathy, sympathy and compassion all have their linguistic roots in
respectively ancient Greek and Latin. Empathy and sympathy share their origins
in Greek, where em means 'in/into', sym means 'with' or 'together', and pathos
signifies 'feeling' or 'passion' (Gilbert & Choden, 2014; Singer & Lamm, 2009).

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92 10 Peace-work Interconnected With Self- Compassion
[…] while empathy involves feelings that are isomorphic to those of the other
person, sympathy, empathic concern, and compassion do not necessarily involve
shared feelings. For example, empathizing with a person feeling sad will result in a
feeling of sadness in the self, whereas sympathizing with, being empathically
concerned, or feeling compassion for a sad person will result in either pity or
compassionate love for the person, but not sadness (Singer & Lamm, 2009: 84).
By being sympathetic one perceives and understands rationally that another

person is experiencing grief or distress, and a concern for the well being of
another is part of being sympathetic. Different from empathy, sympathy does not
require a sharing of an emotional state. Sympathy is thus “[…] the emotional
ability to be moved by distress in ourselves and others” (Gilbert & Choden,
2014: 109), but not feeling the suffering in the same way as the other person.
Empathy, 'feeling in'/into, indicates an emotional impact on the experiencer,
making the emotive differences between the self and the other less distinct, as if
we were feeling it ourselves. As Dietrich notes, “[…] to feel empathy- that is, to
place themselves in the position of others in order to understand how they
experience a particular situation or conflict” (2013: 37). The significance and
importance of empathy has been presented within peace studies, peace work and
through various versions of psychology.20 In this work I have chosen to look
more towards the aspects of self-compassion. I will, nevertheless, emphasize that
being empathic is a highly important aspect of being an aware and present peace-
worker, as empathy gives the peace worker a deeper understanding of another
perspective.
10.2 Self-Compassion
10.2 Self-Compassion
As with meditation, the concept of self-compassion is a relatively new concept
for Western psychology, although the philosophy behind it has existed for
centuries in Eastern philosophical thought (Neff, 2003). Numerous theories and
concepts have been associated with that of self-compassion in Western psycho-
logy, such as self-respect, self-efficacy and true self-esteem, most of them with
roots in positive psychology and social cognitive theory. These concepts do not,
however, give space for the scope and openness that I advocate self-compassion
to include.
To explore self-compassion on a deeper level, we have to first understand
more of what compassion is. The word compassion originates from the Latin
20 Empathy plays a crucial role in for example Carl Rogers' client-centered therapy, Marshall
Rosenberg's model of nonviolent communication, Fritz Perls Gestalt therapy and many others.
10.2 Self-Compassion 93
word compati, which means 'to suffer with' (Gilbert & Choden, 2014). Gilbert
and Choden further note that this is not a helpful definition, “[…] because the
key to compassion as we think of it today is not just suffering or even 'suffering
with', but the motivation to relieve it and acquire the skills to do so” (2014: 95).
Compassion is here defined as perceiving and relating to suffering with an
authentic desire to help. “Compassion involves understanding and acceptance of
suffering but not just sitting in it- like sitting in one's own dirty bathwater and
believing that acceptance means you shouldn't do anything” (Gilbert & Choden,
2014: 2). Neff argues that compassion involves recognizing our shared human
condition, “flawed and fragile as it is” (Neff, 2011: 10). In relation to this quote,
I would like to remind the reader about the importance of being aware of our
own motivation and drives for doing peace work. I reiterate: so-called good
intentions with an acclaim of altruism is far from being the prerequisite for being
an elicitive conflict worker.
Self-compassion is the ability to direct compassion inwards and is therefore
necessary for both trauma and peace work. According to Neff and Pommier,
self-compassion involves “being moved by one's own distress so that the desire
to heal and ameliorate suffering is experienced” (2012: 2). Being able to
encounter your pain and suffering with compassion and acceptance, in the same
way that you would be open to the suffering of another being, can help you
connect more profoundly to yourself as well as create ripple effects around you.
Self-compassion […] involves being touched by and open to one's own suffering,
not avoiding or disconnecting from it, generating the desire to alleviate one's
suffering and to heal oneself with kindness. Self-compassion also involves offering
nonjudgmental understanding to one's pain, inadequacies and failures, so that one's
experience is seen as part of the larger human experience (Neff, 2003: 87).
By writing 'connect more profoundly to yourself ', I refer to the ability of

monitoring yourself, checking in on yourself, seeing and feeling yourself and
experience attentively how you oscillate from moment to moment, breath to
breath. “By giving compassion to oneself, however, one provides the emotional
safety needed to see the self clearly without fear of self-condemnation, allowing
the individual to more accurately perceive and rectify maladaptive patterns of
thought, feeling and behavior” (Neff, 2003: 87).
As I wrote in the Research Interest, the Tantric principle 'as above, so
below; as within, so without; as the universe, so the soul', reflects upon the
notion that whatever occurs at one level also occurs on every other. What we
experience within will be expressed or echoed by the universe, and what we
think and contemplate will be reflected in our bodies and in our environment.
Henceforth, working only with empathy and compassion outwards implies a
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blocking of our own needs for compassion. “To give compassion to others but
not the self, in fact, is seen drawing artificial distinctions between self and others
that misrepresent our essential interconnectedness” (Hạnh, quoted in Neff &
Pommier, 2012: 1). This distinction becomes blurred when we engage with a
practice of compassion for all, including ourselves. “Self-compassion entails
seeing one's own experience in light of the common human experience,
acknowledging that suffering, failure, and inadequacies are part of the human
condition, and that all people—oneself included—are worthy of compassion”
(Neff, 2003: 87).
10.3 Elicitive Peace Workers, (Self-)Compassion and Burnout

10.3 Elicitive Peace Workers, (Self-)Compassion and Burnout
The hardships of being a caregiver are just as valid and worthy of compassion as the
hardships of being a trauma victim. Certainly there are differences in how
deliberating and intense the pain is, but all pain deserves to be held in the warm
embrace of compassion so that healing can occur (Neff, 2011: 193).
The previous sub-chapter carries with it certain responsibilities for the peace
worker to take into account, before, through and after deployment. An elicitive
peace worker should, for instance, be able to balance compassion and self-
compassion, as well as distinguish between empathy, sympathy, confluence and
compassion. Without this differentiation, we could easily let others' states of
being affect us, so that the other's despair becomes my despair, the other's
traumatic experiences become my experience, the other's fury arouse my anger
and so on. Thus, an overemphasis of affective or emotional elements could lead
us into an emotional confusion without the ability to distinguish between our
own feelings and those of others.
The German born psychotherapist Fritz Perls coined the term 'Gestalt
therapy' in the 1940s and 1950s, a “[…] here and now-therapy, in which we ask
the patient during the session to turn all his attention to what he is doing at the
present, during the course of the session, right here and now” (Perls, 1973: 63).
In the book The Gestalt Approach & Eye Witness to Therapy written in 1973,
Perls writes about discovering the proper balance and boundary between a
person and the world that surrounds her, and the ingrained mechanisms/neurosis
that might prevent a person from finding such a balance. Perls interpreted
neuroses “not as diseases in the medical sense, but as an impairment of an
organism's holistic development” (Dietrich, 2013: 35). One of the neuroses Perls
describes, confluence, matches the aforementioned struggle and can be linked to
the peace worker who is identifying him/herself too closely with those s/he
encounters. “When the individual feels no boundary at all between himself and
10.3 Elicitive Peace Workers, (Self-)Compassion and Burnout 95
his environment, when he feels that he and it are one, he is in confluence with it.
Parts and whole are indistinguishable from one another” (Perls, 1973: 38).
Confluence is thus a loss of distinction between the self and others.
When working with trauma and healing it is necessary to tune into and
observe our own feelings and emotions, which we often relate to our own ex-
periences, associations, intuitions and familiarities, and then use this information
as guidelines in our understanding of the other. Thenceforth it is essential that we
engage with reality checks of those feeling and emotions that are aroused in us,
reflect upon them and sort out which ones that belong to us, so that our
understanding of other beings are not restrained and/or controlled by ourselves
(by our feelings, expectations and needs).
In 'A Brief Introduction to Transrational Peace Research and Elicitive
Conflict Transformation', Dietrich presents a tool for analyzing the different
themes, levels and layers in a conflict. 21 Referring to this it is essential, and
additionally very difficult, to work on the mental-social layer. It is however, of
“[…] the greatest importance that conflict workers undergo a conscious
education of the heart, and that they learn to confront their attachment on mental-
social layer in a selectively authentic fashion” (Dietrich, 2013: 219).
According to Dietrich, who have worked with thousands of students in a
special field-training component designed to integrate academic excellence with
the skills required in real conflict situation (UNESCO Chair for Peace Studies,
2015), to be an elicitive conflict worker requires “[…] high awareness of the
Self, of the surrounding reality in the field and of the concepts of one’s own
mind in order to not get lost in fantasies, pre-concepts and values, but be able to
resonate to the parties’ statements, behaviors, feelings, needs and requests”
(Dietrich, 2014a: 53).
Balancing compassion thus corresponds with point 2 and 6 of Dietrich's' 20
central virtues of elicitive conflict workers, who: 2- Accept themselves, others
and human nature for what they are; 6- Are benevolent, empathic, patient and
concerned for the wellbeing of others (2014a: 54). Being compassionate does
require us to be attentive to the struggles of other beings, but if we, as elicitive
conflict workers, manage to be present and self-compassionate in the very
moment, we are able to nurture ourselves at the same time. Breathing meditation
can once more be a wonderful tool for balancing compassion and self-
compassion, and for being in touch with ourselves, as Neff states,
21 The third volume of Dietrich´s trilogy is available in print in German: Variationen über die
vielen Frieden, which presents Elicitive Conflict Mapping as a practical tool of applied conflict
work. English translation forthcoming in 2016.
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[…] when we recognize how difficult it is sometimes to be there for people who are
struggling, and comfort ourselves in the process, we are able to be stronger, more
stable, and resilient when supporting others in their suffering. This is an especially
important skill for those who deal with others' problems for a living (2011: 191-
192).
10.4 Towards a Self-Compassionate Healing

10.4 Towards a Self-Compassionate Healing
Living and working compassionately radiates a tenderness that resounds in your
environment. The common denominator for (self-)compassion, breathing
meditation and elicitive peace work lies in the reverberation of healing, as Hạnh
writes, “We could say that when the energy of compassion and love touches us,
healing establishes itself” (Hạnh, 2004: 52-53).
The path to transformation is indeed difficult, but by being self-com-
passionate, open and attentive we can tune into suffering without vanishing too
deeply into in. Feldman and Kuyken write that compassion offers a vital alter-
native to aversion and fear. “It is what allows us to turn towards distress and pain
rather than fleeing from it. It allows us to surround suffering with kindness and
curiosity rather than shame or blame” (Feldman & Kuyken, 2011: 145). By
tuning in to suffering I have understood the qualities of pleasure on a different
level, as seemingly opposites always coexist. In the book 'True Love: A Practice
for Awakening the Heart', Thích Nhất Hạnh enlightens how suffering is
necessary for understanding both compassion and love.
Thus pain and suffering are a necessary condition of our understanding, of our
happiness. So do not say that you do not want to know anything about pain or about
suffering, that you only want to know about happiness—that would be an impossible
thing. We know well that suffering helps us to understand, that it nurtures our
compassion, and that for this reason it is vitally necessary for us. So we must know
how to learn from suffering, we must know how to make use of it to gather the
energy of compassion, of love, of understanding (Hạnh, 2011: 44).
Compassion encompasses the energy to do something about the suffering, and

being compassionate allows healing. “Above all compassion is the capacity to
open to the reality of suffering and to aspire to its healing” (Feldman & Kuyken,
2011: 144).
10.5 Letter to self 97
10.5 Letter to self

10.5 Letter to self
Dear Jennie. I know you are scared of the unknown, I know you are afraid of
taking the first steps even though you want to take them, you want to peak
around the corner and see what is there. I am not telling you that it is going to
be an easy journey, but then again, you do not want easy, do you? You will fill
pillowcases with tears and you will sob so fiercely that your heart wants to jump
out of your chest. Dear Jennie, you will slowly and carefully stop identifying
yourself with your past. Your past will not disappear but you will learn to live
with it and to let it be at the same time, and this will open up possibilities for you
to experience the here and now. You will go through experiences that will scare
you, make you laugh, make you sweat, make you scream and make you see how
strong you are. Dear Jennie, you will learn to see how powerful you are, you
have a voice that can lift mountains and your arms can lift up those who want to
be embraced. You will let go of certain aspects of yourself Jennie; you will see
that you are beyond your perceptions of yourself. You will make space for the
woman that is inside of you and release that which has been shaping you.
You are capable, experienced, strong, worthy. Do it Jennie, dear to be free.
∼ August 24, 2014.
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11 Healing The Healers
11 Healing The Healers
In the previous chapter I rounded off glancing towards self-compassionate

healing. In this chapter I will dig deeper into various aspects connected to
healing, especially by looking at the roots of healing, self-healing and the
shamanic figure: the wounded healer.
11.1 What is Healing?

11.1 What is Healing?
To look at healing more thoroughly I will once more begin with the etymology
of the word. Healing stems from the Old English hælan, which is also where the
Norwegian expression for healing, hele, derives from. “Hele: Av norrønt heila,
avledet av adjektivet heill (hel, frisk, uskadd), som på norsk har gitt heil, hel
“ikke i stykker; ublandet; udelt”22 (Caprona, 2013: 1383). “The etymology […]
suggests that healing, wholeness, and holiness are closely related. Indeed, both
healing and holiness draw us toward deeper awareness of and experience of our
wholeness” (Burkhardt & Nagai-Jacobson, 2002: 27). The term whole does for
me imply interconnectedness, referring in this context to a unity of body, mind
and spirit. I share Thích Nhất Hạnh's observation; that we heal when there is no
split or detachment between the three elements, and that the breath is a central
component the process.
When body and mind are one, the wounds in our hearts, minds, and bodies begin to
heal. As long as there is separation between body and mind, these wounds can't heal.
During sitting meditation, the three elements of breath, body, and mind are calmed,
and gradually they become one (2012: 126).
22 Heal: Of Old Norse heila, derived from the adjective heill (whole, healthy, undamaged) which
in Norwegian has given the words heal, whole, not in pieces; natural; complete (Translated by
author).

100 11 Healing The Healers
In the chapter 'On Healing' Kabat-Zinn also offers a connection between whole-
ness, healing and meditation.
The notion of wholeness is found not only in the meaning of the words health and
healing (and, of course, in the word holy); we also find it embedded in the deep
meaning of the words meditation and medicine, words that are obviously related to
each other in some way (2013: 188, italics in original).
Here I would like to make a remark influenced by the work of Kabat-Zinn,

namely that 'to heal' in this work is not quite the same as 'to cure'. “[H]ealing is a
transformation of view rather than a cure. It involves recognizing your intrinsic
wholeness and, simultaneously, your interconnectedness with everything else.
Above all, it involves learning to feel at home and at peace within yourself”
(Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 217). Divisions between these two concepts depend, of
course, on how the words are being defined. Here, I can only assume that Kabat-
Zinn understands curing as getting rid of something, removing something
completely (such as how one may erase words on paper with a rubber, or throw
out a bag of garbage and never think about neither the erased words nor the
content of the garbage bag ever again).
Aligned with the above-mentioned understanding I would agree with Kabat-
Zinn's distinction between the two concepts. Similarly, by looking at the word
cure in the Norwegian Etymology Dictionary, where kur is defined as:
“systematisk og regelmessig behandling av sykdom; hardhendt botemiddel” 23
(Caprona, 2013: 1392), I prefer using the word healing in my work, as the
Norwegian connotations of cure to treatment of disease are disconnected from
my understanding of healing. Nevertheless, 'to cure' has a complementary
substance to it if we look towards the Latin etymological history, where cura is
correlated with “omsorg, omhu, eller oppmerksomhet til noen eller noe” 24
(Caprona, 2013: 1392). Lederach also refers to cura and its Latin roots, stating
that “the word cura, literally meaning 'to take care of' and having to do with both
'cure' and 'care', as in spiritual and physical healing” (Lederach, 2005: 36).
Hereafter, I will however continue to use the word healing, acknowledging that
the etymological roots of healing and curing might not be that far apart.
The goal of my meditation practice is thus not to find a remedy that
includes a deletion of memories or a treatment and removal of a disease. I
practice breathing meditation with the intention of learning to live with, and
integrate my memories, to approach moment-to moment situations with an
23 Kur: Systematic and regular treatment of disease; rough remedy (Translated by author).
24 Cura: Care, solicitude or deep consideration/attention of someone or something (Translated by
author).
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11.2 Self Healing 101
enhanced awareness and to welcome and heal my wounds. To me a healing

process, through the transrational tool of breathing meditation, includes a
twisting of consciousness and an expansion of the awareness. Kabat-Zinn
moreover explains healing as a transformation that further transforms.
Healing always involves an attitudinal and emotional transformation. Sometimes,

but not always, it is also accompanied by a major reduction in physical symptoms
and by improvement in a person's physical condition […] Out of this shift in
perspective comes an ability to act with greater balance and inner security in the
world, especially when encountering stress or pain (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 194).
To sum it up, healing is a transformation of view, a twisting of consciousness.

Healing implies becoming whole, or rather grasping that our intrinsic wholeness
is already within. Van der Kolk writes about the importance of owning your self
when healing from trauma and of having self-leadership in the healing process.
The challenge of recovery is to reestablish ownership of your body and your mind –
of your self. This means feeling free to know what you know and to feel without
becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed, or collapsed. For many people this
involves (1) finding a way to become calm and focused (2) learning to maintain that
calm in response to images, thoughts, sounds, or physical sensations that remind you
of the past, (3) finding a way to be fully alive in the present and engage with the
people around you, (4) not having to keep secrets from yourself, including secrets
about the ways you have managed to survive (van der Kolk, 2014: 203-204).
Healing includes integrating and embodying and thus fully inhabiting yourself,
as Levine writes, “you initiate your own healing by reintegrating lost or
fragmented portions of your essential self” (1997: 61).
11.2 Self Healing

11.2 Self Healing
Trauma sufferers, in their healing journeys, learn to dissolve their rigid defenses. In
this surrender they move from frozen fixity to gently thawing and, finally, free flow.
In healing the divided self from its habitual mode of dissociation, they move from
fragmentation to wholeness (Levine, 2010: 356).
In the quote above Levine explains how healing, in a holistic sense, involves a
transformation from the cluttered to the whole. In Chapter 5: Peace Work,
Traumas & The Here and Now, I explored topics concerning peace workers
encountering trauma, irresponsible 'heroes', and the power of the presence. In
sub-chapter 5.5 I wrote the following: When the work environment is shaped by
war and deep cutting conflicts, peace workers and traumatic experiences will be
walking hand in hand. When walking hand in hand with trauma, peace workers
will likewise walk together with healing, and attempt to return to a state of
balance.
Unprocessed pain and trauma will, according to Tara Brach, “keep our
system of self-preservation on permanent alert […]. Whether or not there is any
present danger, we feel absolutely at risk and compelled to find a way to get
away from the pain” (2003: 110). This reflects the notion from Chapter 5
regarding the need, at times, to suppress the trauma shortly as it might be an
easier coping strategy in the existing moment. “In order to make it through such
sudden and severe pain, victims of trauma typically dissociate from their bodies,
numbing their sensitivity to physical sensations” (Brach, 2003: 11). However,
traumas that are ignored will not disappear. “Even years after the actual danger is
past, the trauma, undigested and locked in our body, randomly breaks through
into consciousness” (Brach, 2003: 110). The traumas that our bodies shelter
manifest throughout our lives in different ways, as fears that we experienced
years ago are embedded in the tissues of our bodies (Magelssen, 2008;
Caponigro, 2005). Maybe they manifest in a subtle manner by dripping into
muscular contractions or through thought patterns, or perhaps by bursting out
like seismic waves and erupting our life in a ferocious manner. However, we
must dare to encounter these frightening vibrations in order to begin healing.
Until the core physical experience of trauma- feeling scared stiff, frozen in fear or
collapsing and going numb- unwinds and transforms, one remains stuck, a captive of
one's own entwined fear and helplessness. [...] In order to unravel this tangle of fear
and paralysis, we must be able to voluntarily contact and experience those
frightening physical sensations (Levine, 2010: 73-74).
An equivalent notion is applicable within peace studies where Dietrich is of the

opinion that healing therapies and methods should assume that some, if not all,
experiences are being stored in the memory of our bodies.
[P]sychic experiences, and thus also disturbances in the sensation of peace,

peacelessness, are stored in the memory of the body. That is why suppressed,
traumatized, or frozen emotional reactions, disturbances of peace, shall be made
accessible for direct experience and for acting them out in a controlled frame
(Dietrich, 2012: 250-251).
Approaching these traumatic experiences and acting them out might be a

horrible process or a process of relief, although most probably a fusion of both
sensations interweaved with other. Tara Brach elaborates on how we can be self-
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11.2 Self Healing 103
compassionate in this process and give ourselves the space, gentleness and
patience we need to begin healing.
We heal by reconnecting to the parts of our experience that we habitually push

away. Yet because we feel so unsafe, especially in the aftermath of trauma, opening
mindfully to our physical experience may be a very gradual process. We begin by
learning to put our toe in the river, and then, compassionately, step back when
necessary (Brach, n.d.: para. 8).
This elucidation by Brach contains certain guidelines. It reflects the importance

of being able to activate the 'internal observer', and hence being able to discover
the indications from your own body regarding the pulse, or speed, of your 'toe
dipping'. The quote further echoes how healing, as a process, cannot be
described as an equal route for all. “Healing is always a unique and deeply
personal experience” (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 197), and expecting any pattern of
change from your journey might leave you disappointed.
Every day will be different. In fact, every moment and every breath will be different,
so it is helpful not to jump to conclusions about either the practice or its value to you
after one or two sessions. The work of growth and healing takes time. It requires
patience and consistency in the meditations practice over a period of weeks, if not
months and years (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 379).
We heal by reconnecting with those places in our body where the unprocessed
pain is sheltered (Brach, 2003), and in order to reconnect with these places we
need a tool. As a transrational method for peace work, breathing meditation is
precisely such a tool for learning to reconnect your broken peaces/pieces. Kabat-
Zinn illuminates how breathing meditation “involves helping people to see and
feel and believe in their wholeness” (2013: 186). Breathing meditation also
support practitioners to:
[…] tend, befriend, and mend the wounds of disconnectedness and the pain of
feeling isolated, fragmented and separate, and helping them to discover an
underlying fabric of wholeness and connectedness within themselves” (Kabat-Zinn,
2013: 186, italics in original).
Comparing the etymology from sub-chapter 5.1 of trauma, τραῦμα (damage or

wound) with that of healing (whole, not in pieces and complete), their
interrelatedness it is quite apparent. There exist a balance and homeostasis in
what appears to be opposites, and in my understanding, aiming for healing
includes a damage or wound. In sub-chapter 5.3 the major focus was on peace
workers and trauma, including both encountering traumatic episodes in the field,
and experiences that cause trauma beforehand of fieldwork. In the coming sub-
chapter I will focus on the wounded healer, a figure that has come to manifest
within me and support my process, especially through challenges and resistance.
Michael J. Maley claims that the basic understanding of the wounded healer
is connected to the idea that “[...] we make no progress toward wholeness
without problems to address in our life, and that the so-called issues of the
therapist can be looked at as blessings or opportunities for learning rather than
something to remove” (Maley, 1989: 1). According to Wolfgang Dietrich, is the
figure of the wounded healer “[...] as present in psychotherapy as it is in
shamanism, and it means that people who suffered through a specific traumata,
such as violence or sexual abuse [...] acquire a heightened awareness of related
problems” (Dietrich, 2013: 213). I will further give a short overview of the
shamanic figures' relation to peace studies, and subsequently explore the concept
of the wounded healer.
11.3 Shaman – The Healed Healer

11.3 Shaman – The Healed Healer
“Shamanism is a crucial component of humanistic psychology and, by extension,
transrational peace studies” (Dietrich, 2013: 15). The breath-centered methods
that Dietrich introduces in his second volume build upon shamanic foundations
and on schools that have been inspired and influenced by shamanism. As
Dietrich writes “[T]hose who work with peace and conflict transformation in an
international and intercultural context will encounter shamanism defined here as
a psychobiological capacity existing in all societies (2013: 45). Joan Halifax has
written the books Shaman: The Wounded Healer and Shamanic Voices: A Survey
Of Visionary Narratives, which are grounded in an energetic perspective and has
influenced my understanding of shamanistic practices. Halifax defines shamans
in the following manner:
Shamans are healers, seers, and visionaries who have mastered death. They are in
communication with the world of gods and spirits. Their bodies can be left behind
while they fly to unearthly realms. They are poets and singers. They dance and
create works of art (Halifax, 1979: 4).
Dietrich argues that the different definitions of whom and what a shaman is have
given rise to countless arguments (2013). Dietrich then provides a basic
definition that covers the heart of shamanism: “Shamans are […] healers,
teachers, narrators, singers, or poets who address the great themes of fertility and
death as well as healing of illnesses and social relationships” (2013: 46). What
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11.3 Shaman – The Healed Healer 105
Dietrich leaves out of this definition is the ability to healing the self, which
Halifax claims to be one of the core features of shamanism. “The shaman is a
healed healer who has retrieved the broken pieces of his or her body and psyche
and, through a personal rite of transformation, has integrated many planes of life
experience” (Halifax, 1979: 18). The life experiences of the shaman thus play a
great role and shape the tools the shamans uses in search for a connection to the
whole.
Maley argues that in many of the shamanic societies, “one does not become
a shaman without this fundamental sickness and withdrawal experience” (Maley,
1989: 3). In order to understand the territory of disease and death, a shaman must
have experienced illnesses and wounds and the complementary marks it has on
the body, mind and spirit.
The period of sickness and withdrawal forms the core of the experience that makes
the healer. From this experience comes the knowledge, wisdom, strength, energy
and commitment to assist the client in finding the connection to those parts of
themselves that actually do the healing (Maley, 1989: 4).
These arguments lead us to the figure of the wounded healer, a prominent, but
often ignored, figure in both psychology and peace work. Levine has researched
and worked with trauma and its embodied manifestations for the past 30 years,
and he argues that therapists should first recognize and work with their own
wounds before trying to give space for others to do the same. Levine compares
the practice of contemporary therapists with that of shamanic traditions, with a
footing in the quality of healing the healer.
In a common therapy [...] the therapist instructs the PTSD victim to assert control
over his[/her] feelings, to manage his[/her] dysfunctional thoughts. Contrast this
alignment to that of shamanic traditions, where the healer and the sufferer join
together to re-experience the terror while calling on cosmic forces to release the grip
of the demons. The shaman is always first initiated, via a profound encounter with
his[/her] own helplessness and feeling of being shattered, prior to assuming the
mantle of healer. Such preparation might suggest a model whereby contemporary
therapist must first recognize and engage with their own traumas and emotional
wounds (Levine, 2010: 35).
Maley makes the same connection as Levine and further understands the
therapist's wounds as possible advantages rather than obstacles: “[...] we make
no progress toward wholeness without problems to address in our life, and the
so-called issues of the therapist can be looked at as blessings or opportunities for
learning rather than something to remove” (Maley, 1989: 1). In the chapter
'Healing the Healers', Roger Walsh connects the topics of healing, shamanism
and wounded healers, and this quote will guide us to further explore the area of
the wounded healer.
Healing is not a one-way street. What heals the patient can also heal the therapist.
Even the desire to help another may benefit both people. This mutual healing may
be especially important for those shamans who undergo an initiation crisis. Some of
these were the original 'wounded healers', healers who had themselves once suffered
and were therefore enabled to relieve the suffering of others (Walsh, 2007: 217).
11.4 The Wounded Healer

11.4 The Wounded Healer
Seeing the healing potential in trauma might not be very easy when the suffering
is overwhelming. Beginning on the healing journey however, the figure of the
wounded healer has resonated deeply within me and given me inspiration to
explore the pain with more compassion. In the song 'Anthem' by Leonard Cohen
the last lines are: “There is a crack, there is a crack in everything. That's how the
light gets in”. To me, Cohen's lyrics symbolize the beauty of accepting and
openheartedly welcoming suffering, and to see its potential.
Peace workers are constantly entering conflicts and social relations in a
ceaseless state of flux. This state of flux also includes various types of suffering
which is, to some degree, present in each and every one of us.
The individual with a broken heart cannot love. Some people cannot fight back,
others cannot receive, forgive, love themselves, surrender. All of us have these
missing pieces, not because we want them, but because we have not yet worked
through the steps to their development. It is certainly true that some are larger and
deeper than others and many are unconscious. It is also true that they have an impact
on others in relationship to us (Maley, 1989: 6-7).
In the State of the Art chapter I refer to Carl Gustav Jung as one of the first
clinicians who attempted to legitimize a spiritual approach to the practice of
depth psychology (Kasprow & Scotton, 1999: 13). Jung introduced the term
'wounded healer', to a concept that had already existed for a long time within
shamanism (Dietrich, 2013; Halifax, 1982). In 'Fundamental Questions of
Psychotherapy', Jung explains the concept of the wounded healer related to
physicians.
We could say, without too much exaggeration, that a good half of every treatment
that probes at all deeply consist in the doctor’s examining himself, for only what he
can put right in himself can he hope to put righting the patient. It is no less, either, if
he feels that the patient is hitting him, or even scoring off him: it is his own hurt that
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11.5 Dare To Go Deeper 107
gives the measure of his power to heal. This, and nothing else, is the meaning of the
Greek myth of the wounded physician25 (Jung, 1985: 116).
Dietrich offers a similar statement related to a transformation of a conflict and

mutually the healing of the peace worker. “The healing and the transformation of
the conflict is also the mediator's healing and transformation, which process then
acts upon the system” (2013: 13). Nowadays the concept 'Wounded Healer' has
expanded from Jung's original meaning, to encompass most occupations working
with healing including, amongst others, nurses, psychologists, therapists and
peace workers. The wounded healer is a central component within the Peace
Program in Innsbruck, and the following quote by Dietrich summarizes
perfectly the connection between suffering, healing, peace work and compassion,
and the need for self-awareness.
Usually – this is our observation – most people who are interested in peace work are
wounded, or have been wounded. The motivation for going into such a program and
such a job is that you want to do something because you have been through this or
that experience, which made you want to do things like peace work. And if this is
the case, you have a lot of potential. The wounded healer is a wonderful figure in
our world. However, the wounded healer also means that you heal your wounds
first, and then – because you know the pain – you can be empathic with others since
you went through something similar (Dietrich, 2014b: para. 23).
Michael J. Maley is of the opinion that it is not enough to briefly look into one's
own wounds when working as a facilitator. The therapist should preferably
continue the exploration, as suffering does not exist only on one level. “Hope-
fully, each therapist continues to pursue his or her journey into woundedness
long after the initial training experience is over. This continued commitment to
therapy is very necessary to encourage since there are so many levels to
woundedness” (Maley, 1989: 5).
11.5 Dare To Go Deeper

11.5 Dare To Go Deeper
“Dare to go deeper” he said. “Dare to explore in depth what you experience and
develop your embodied writing”. The muscles in my lower abdomen contracts,
telling me to keep my shit together. My upper chest sways softly from side to
side, as to ease the tension around my heart. “Dare to go deeper” he said, and I
25 For more information about the wounded physician, read C. Kerényi: Asklepios: Archetypal
Image of the Physician's Existence.
wanted to answer that I am going deep. Deeper and deeper I explore myself with
each meditation session and travel into wonder, pain, and nothingness. The
gentle confrontation and encouraging words “Dare to go deeper” left the mouth
of Koppensteiner, but the words, however, have already been aching inside my
heart for months. Sitting still, doing absolutely nothing for forty-five minutes. It
does not sound very difficult does it? To let go of the control and dive into full
stillness is challenging, but daring to disclose my experiences on pages that will
be read, has proven to be very challenging.
I am scared of exposing myself, scared of uncovering the contraries within
to others. I am afraid of standing naked in front of you, in front of my family, and
in front of my friends. Why? If the wounds I carry are part of that which made
me begin this journey, anxiety of not being accepted is what keeps me from
uncovering my experiences. Writing and drawing after my meditation sittings is
a way for me to keep track of the different sessions and also a therapeutic way of
expressing the sensations I have had. What I find immensely challenging is
including these excerpts into this work. One part of me starts criticizing my own
experiences when they are on paper and I start to worry how the passages will
be received, how I will be judged, how it might affect the readers understanding
of me and the overall work I have been doing. As I am writing these lines I feel
extremely vulnerable and sad because I let my fears push and drag me into
different directions. ∼ October 09, 2015.
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12 My Healing Process
12 My Healing Process
After an incident in the military training26 I broke down. When an event outside
the mission took place [a bus full of young soldiers drove past me and started
making inappropriate hand signs and yelled abusive words], and the zone
between the rules of 'the game' no longer were relevant, my tears came. When
talking to our trainer from the army, Samuel, he told me to stop pinching myself
when I was crying. During my crying phase of the integrative seminar I noticed
that I was biting my thumb. I have tried to reflect on why I am hurting myself,
and I think it is a sort of coping strategy creating pain somewhere else on my
body, so that I can avoid thinking about what is really hurting. It is hard writing
about this knowing that someone else will read it (Reflection paper, 2013: 6).
12.1 The Tibetan Singing Bowl

12.1 The Tibetan Singing Bowl
In my case, healing is a continuous process. Life is happening. Everything is in
everything. During the first six months after the violation I moved back to my
study town Bergen, to finalize my bachelor thesis. I blocked the assault,
suppressed the painful memories and tried my best to hide the symptoms. I
moved to Argentina (fleeing, hiding, creating a “new start”, forgetting, ignoring)
and it was after arriving in Oslo again, moving back into my old flat, finding
myself living in walking distance to 'the place', where I started to experience the
first bodily reactions. I experienced the first panic attacks and had horrible and
hunting nightmares.
My chest contracts hurriedly as if a knife drills deeply into the ribcage, the
breathing rate increases and my palms get sweaty, and there is a slight tingling
sensation on the skin of my face as if I am going to pass out. My heart beats
faster and faster, and the tension in my stomach turns into a hard stone and I
want to scream and lie down, I want to run and hide, I want to expand and
shrink. The conflicting energies in my body are pulling me in opposite directions
26 The military training is a special field-training unit for civilians with a background in conflict
transformation that is offered by the Austrian Armed Forces. The training is part of the MA
Program for Peace Studies in Innsbruck.

110 12 My Healing Process
and it hurts. A panic attack. Making my nights sleepless and my days fatiguing.
The experience of anxiety is growing and descending in a circular movement.
The circular movement continues until the breathing reaches a peak and then
descends into the depth of silence. The loss of control over my fight-or-flight
response is part of my physical after-experiences of the trauma, lingering and
recurring.
During the first year after the attack, I pushed away people close to me, was
restless, angry, but at the same time, I was also coping with living. I was trying
to create and live a normal life; making dinner, going to the gym, working in a
kindergarten, figuring out how to get a job in the NRC, MSF or the ICRC. The
healing process for me has not gone through certain set stages. I cannot say in
hindsight that I have crossed of denial, anger, shame, outward adjustment phase,
integration phase and then, ultimately, reached a stable state of Healed with
capital H. There has been no checklist in my healing process.
[W]e noticed something about books written on healing and reconciliation. Almost
every author would say two things. The first is that healing and reconciliation are
not linear processes. Then they usually take a breath and go on to describe the
phases and stages of healing and reconciliation in a fairly linear way. I would call
that a paradox. A paradox is not a contradiction; it is about holding two truths that
may be apparently contradictory on the surface but that at a deeper level have a
connection. I do think that these are connected. When you are in the midst of healing
and reconciliation over deep violation, it is up and down, back and forth, over and
over again, round and round, and nothing, always nothing, makes full sense. If you
stand back and look at hundreds and thousands of these, it is possible to discern a
pattern or two that you could refer to as stages or steps. Once these get named, the
linear metaphors tend to dominate the discussion. So while authors would say that
healing is not a linear process, they do not tell us very much about the nonlinear part
of it (Lederach, 2013: 83).
The best metaphor I have encountered for my process can be found in the work
of Lederach, as he has suggested “a shift from a linear metaphor that views
change as a sequential movement described as progress, to a metaphor more in
tune with life – as a continuous flow of simultaneous and multilayered
experiences” (Lederach, 2010: 200). The Tibetan Singing Bowl, a type of bell
that gives a deep, vibrating sound, is the metaphor that Lederach uses in
describing a healing process. The sound given by the Tibetan Singing Bowl is
created through a circular movement at the rim of the bowl with a padded mallet.
The circular movement continues until the vibrations create a sound. The sound
descends into the depth of the bowl and then expands upwards and outwards. As
the movement is repeated, the vibrations continue and the deep sound is both
lingering and recurring.
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12.2 Acknowledging the Serpents 111
12.2 Acknowledging the Serpents

12.2 Acknowledging the Serpents
Being back in Oslo I struggled with keeping the memories suffocated. They were
crawling like wet, slimy serpents inside my body and tried to disrupt my
crumbling stronghold. I named the memories traitors and continued to sedate the
poisonous flashbacks by keeping myself busy with work. In retrospection I see
someone who is trying to be a hero, someone who is fighting to maintain life as
it was, to bring back the safe past, to continue living in a body that only belonged
to her.
I broke down when I heard a woman crying and screaming in the last
exercise in the army, when I was kneeling in the dark cellar. After two hours in
the stress position I opted out, and this causes me to question whether I am able
to work in this field. Because I am trying to cope with my traumatic experience,
will this inflict working with persons exposed to similar experiences? Will this
hamper my work? Will I be able in such a situation to step out of my victim role,
'remove' some of my identification with those suffering so as not to 'take over'
their suffering? These are some of the questions I am asking myself in order to
tie together the military experiences, and my professional life.
To a certain degree, I have been obsessed with trying to define myself as a
super woman before this Master Program, meaning not allowing myself to show
fear. Being part of this MA, I have stepped on some mental mines, causing this
mask to be ripped off. I 'chose' to put on the mask of a victim. The mask of a
terrified girl without any protection capabilities. Being in this environment, and
constantly challenging myself, allows me to recognize this. After this mental
minesweeping, of where some mines have been detonated, I do not know which
mask I am bearing (Reflection paper, 2013: 4-5).
By chance, or fate, I decided to apply for a Master of Arts Program in
Peace, Development, Security and International Conflict Transformation in
Innsbruck and was accepted. At that point I felt (again) a strong need to escape
from all the tension and memories. In sub-chapter December 28, 2014, I wrote:
“It is stuck in my chest. Grey lumpy, heavy, sticky. Gluey mucus that cannot be
coughed up”. Something was stuck, and it was exactly this something that had
raised to the surface and that had become a somatic reaction to that which I
cognitively struggled to suppress. During the first weeks in Innsbruck we
practiced active listening, had integrative seminars, discussed our term papers
with the title “Transformation- what is transformation for me personally?” and,
simultaneously, had active introduction classes to Peace and Conflict studies.
The first strong mental and bodily release came during one of the first
lectures where Prof. DDr. Dietrich said that that which has happened once might
just as well happen twice. If you have had a horrifying experience, you are not
immune to a similar event happening again. This statement triggered something

within that made me nauseous and angry at the same time. I remember leaving
the classroom thinking in the lines of “fuck this shit, I'm leaving”. This was the
moment where I realized that I could not go on suppressing the slimy serpents
that so desperately were trying to communicate with me. Admitting and acknow-
ledging the assault to myself simultaneously invited a turmoil of shame, anger,
grief and vulnerability into the process.
Lederach gives a lovely description of the roots of vulnerability, which
corresponds to my present understanding of the word. “Vulnerability has a very
interesting Latin root: vulnus, which means 'wound'. The root suggests that
vulnerability is how we carry our wounds with each other, how we are present
for and with the wounds that we have, and as we are present with our wounds,
how healing may emerge” (Lederach, 2013: 95). How have I been carrying my
own wounds? How has the healing process been unfolding? There is a myriad of
elements that has provided energy to my healing process. Particularly two
emotional reactions have influenced my process, namely anger and sadness.
12.3 Pieces Of the Processes

12.3 Pieces Of the Processes
On the second day in the mission my trainer from the Austrian Armed Forces
took me aside into a room and asked me to sit down. As I was preparing for the
next mission and just wanted to continue I asked him if we could talk later, but
he said that I should sit down. He told me that he could see that there is a 'bomb'
inside of me that I have to detonate because sooner or later it will explode, and if
I let it explode inside of me it can get ugly. He said “All the anger, all the tears,
all the hate; give it to those who deserves it and that's not you” (Reflection
paper, 2014a: 8).
Anger, feeling powerless, frustrated, frenzied, chaotic and furious, thoughts
of violent revenges that keep me awake. The anger moves and shifts between
wrath and hate and then transforms into frustration and disappointment, as each
outburst of anger has been perceived as a setback or failure. I got angry because I
got scared, and then felt sad because I was being so insensitive with myself. The
anger is still a big part of my healing process and moves in circles. Eruptions of
anger catch me by surprise from time to time, but contrary to prior experiences, I
now have knowledge of tools that help me to engage with the anger (even if it
occasionally might take some time).
You've destroyed so damn much. I wipe of the lipstick (walking home alone-
rule) with my hand. The long red stripe on my right thumb reminds of another
blood strip. War Paint. I put my hair up into a bun (walking home alone-rule).
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12.3 Pieces Of the Processes 113
Loose hair is dangerously tempting, no? I turn up the music on my earphones

and stare down on the sidewalk until I have passed Grünerløkka. Don't get eye
contact with anyone (walking home alone-rule). Turn my head to look. The
streets are almost empty of people. I put the music on pause to be able to listen
for signs. Turn my head to look. Tracking people. Analyzing the figures
approaching. Do they change to the sidewalk on the other side of the road, or
not? I walk faster. Turn my head to look. And then I stop. “Use your strategy”, I
tell myself, and I lean against a wall. I start breathing, first long and deep
breathes that fills my stomach. I do this for some minutes with my eyes open, and
then when I feel my heartbeats slow down I close my eyes and continue
breathing with presence until I feel calm and tranquil. I continue to focus on my
breath all the way home. Breathing and soothing myself. ∼ October 21, 2016.
Sadness, emptiness and despair have also colored the process. I have been
crying and grieving, experienced shame and blamed my own body, feeling guilty
when having sexual relationships and feeling powerless and numb. Mutual for
anger and sadness within my healing process is that they are connected to a
feeling of loss of control, as if the emotions rush over me like a huge wave. This
loss of control has made me anxious and unsafe, as it has been difficult to
identify what is triggering these emotions and how they will unfold.
I am getting so tired of all the battles I am fighting, because it feels like I
am not moving forward, that I am stuck in my same patterns. At the same time it
feels like I am diving deeper into where my fear is actually lying. My mantra has
for too long been that I am not good enough, my voice does not have enough to
say, I am not pure, I am not exciting enough... ∼ February 17, 2014.
When I came to the realization that something had to be done, that I could
no longer ignore the crawling serpents inside, I wanted to be fast, to get the
healing over with, and I wanted to excel at healing. When I started writing on
this work I also thought that I would be healed when this book was finished,
when the thesis was handed in.
Waves are coming in through my body telling me that I am not healed, and
that it takes time. It makes me feel very violent to myself noticing that I have
been bursting forward wanting to feel better, wanting to hold myself and at the
same time this is exactly what I have not been able to do. I have separated myself
from my body trying to heal my mental memories while so much is still present in
my body. As much as it is painful to understand how far I have been pushing
myself towards healing, it is also beautiful to discover some of the stories of my
body, to see how wounds and scars are shaping me (Reflection paper, 2014b: 8).
Learning to use breathing meditation as a tool for peace work has let me
facilitate my own journey at my own speed, and has thus given me control over
my process. “Often in situations where people have been deeply hurt, sometimes
for long periods of time, they do not feel safe. How we create the space of safety
is an unending challenge in our work, one where we have to create a safe
container” (Lederach 2013: 84). My breath is my safe container; my practice of
breathing meditation is my tool for feeling safe in the moment.
During the last seven months I have learned more about myself than I
probably have learnt during my years on this planet. I have slowly begun to
embrace the painful experiences, and I am planting them as seeds inside my
stomach. I am visualizing how I give them enough light (attention) enough water
(tears and processing) and enough love, so that they can germinate, and maybe
one day they have grown into small flowers of experience that I can enjoy the
smell of. Some of these flower buds have been lying too far below the soil
(beyond my reach). As with delicate flowers I need to be extra careful with them
and remember that even the most beautiful flowers can have thorns (Reflection
paper, 2014a: 10).
Healing is a continuous flow. It has been difficult to describe my healing
process, since it is impossible to dissect the pieces of healing from the rest of my
life. As I wrote in the beginning of this chapter, life is always happening.
Everything is in everything. The same is true for healing; it is a continual
manifestation. My healing process has, to a large degree, centered on learning to
use the breath as a tool to be in the moment. When managing this, I am not
reliving the past, I am not constantly alert, I am able to monitor my body and
thought flow. The peace program in Innsbruck has been a healing kick off for
me. Not everyone has this opportunity, but everyone has their breath, their life
source and thus an opportunity to engage with reconnection. A healing process,
through the transrational tool of breathing meditation, involves a twisting of
consciousness and an expansion of the awareness, and is a tool for learning to
reconnect with our broken peaces/pieces and being present with our wounds.
The healing journey is always unique to the traveller. The sounds of the
Tibetan Singing Bowl is, like healing, about resonance, expansion, moving in
circles, renewal yet repetition. “I like the image of a container because it carries
a different kind of directional metaphor. It feels like the sound is being called
from somewhere deep. It is going deep. It is not trying to go from point A to B.
It is trying to touch something deeper” (Lederach 2013: 84).
Touching something deeper comes through the breathing meditation,
through being present and through giving space for myself to just exist. When I
meditate I feel that something internal is peacefully expanding. It is as if the area
right behind my eyes grows and soft rays of light and darkness embrace my eyes,
my forehead, and with each breath, increases just a bit. As I breathe I sense how
there is a small source of heat in my belly, or perhaps coming from the floor
where I am sitting, which is swirling slowly through me. In the beginning this
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12.4 Trying to Touch Something Deeper – Leading up to Love 115
experience made me feel dizzy and uncomfortable, but now it makes me feel
centered and connected to life. Although there is stillness, there is also
something greater, a wider feature of existence. A transpersonal aspect of being,
where I cannot fully grasp what I am anymore, touching something deeper.
12.4 Trying to Touch Something Deeper – Leading up to Love

12.4 Trying to Touch Something Deeper – Leading up to Love
“Not knowing, in our blood and bones, that we are truly loved or lovable
undermines out capacity to give and receive love freely” (Welwood, 2006: 4).
As I was lying in bed, about to fall asleep, I got an epiphany. I opened my eyes
and was lying numb in bed, thinking-rethinking, until I sensed that words and
thoughts were not doing me any good. I put my feet down on the ice-cold floor,
dragged a blanket with me and hurried into the living room to sit down on my
meditation cushion. I am not lovable. The thoughts hit me straight in solar
plexus, I gulped after air. I tried to close my eyes and began whispering a gatha
by Thích Nhất Hạnh. “Breathing in, I calm my body”/ I am not good enough, I
am not kind enough, I am not smart enough. Stomach cramps were building up
inside of me, slowly getting harder and harder, until I started crying. The only
thing I wanted was self-comfort, holding myself, rocking slowly back and forth.
∼November 10, 2015.
All the most intractable problems in human relationships can be traced back to what
I call the mood of unlove – a deep-seated suspicion most of us harbor within
ourselves that we cannot be loved, or that we are not truly lovable, just for who we
are. This basic insecurity makes it hard to trust in ourselves, in other people, or in
life itself (Welwood, 2006: 4).
13 Love – A Practice for Awakening the Heart
13 Love – A Practice for Awakening the Heart
In the peace movement there is a lot of anger, frustration, and misunderstanding.

People in the peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not
so skilled at writing love letters (Hạnh, 1992: 130).
Love has not commonly been a topic of much discussion in the literature on healing
and reconciliation in settings of deep-rooted conflict. This may be due in large part
to the burden experienced by peace studies researchers and authors: that our chosen
field represents a 'soft' science struggling for legitimacy among existing disciplines.
To directly and openly discuss love enters the slippery slope of the intangibles that
lie outside the scientific endeavor. We beg to differ for a number of reasons
(Lederach, 2010: 231).
13.1 Why Love?

13.1 Why Love?
As Hạnh and Lederach express in the preceding quotes, there is a lack of love
both within peace and conflict studies and within the peace movement. Within
this work, where academic reflections and personal experiences have been
combined- love plays a strong, but for a long time, inexplicit part. The academic
reflections and the personal experiences have interacted much in the same way
as two rivers floating next to each other, sometimes interweaving, other times
separating, but both circulate, glide and flow into the same vast ocean in this
chapter.
During my practice I have encountered a lot of different sensations,
patterns, observations, many of which have been included in (and also led to)
these chapters, such as the chapter on trauma, self-compassion and healing. The
skeleton of this book three years ago did, however, not include a chapter on love;
the necessity for the inclusion of this chapter has been created through my
practice. Breathing meditation has therefore taken me deeper and made me
understand additional aspects, than I would have apprehended without the
practice.
In this work, trauma, suffering, healing the healer, self-compassion- it all
stems from the same need, a need of being loved. Through my meditation
practice, by simply just being, I have come to learn a lot about myself. My

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118 13 Love – A Practice for Awakening the Heart
intense fears, my wounds, my insecurity, it is all reflecting my search for love.

John Welwood writes the following in his book Perfect Love, Imperfect
Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart; “Not trusting that you are loved
or lovable has given rise to all the most beastly emotional reactions- anger,
arrogance, hatred, jealousy, meanness, depression, insecurity, greedy attachment,
fear of loss and abandonment” (Welwood, 2006: 55). I have been tapping into all
of these virtues, and some of the emotional reactions have been so present that I
have considered them to be part of my personality, part of who I am deep inside.
It is especially during the last five years that these virtues have affected me. I
have felt a strong suspicion towards meeting new people as well as experienced
problems connecting with old friends.
Difficulty trusting, fear of being misused or rejected, harboring jealousy and

vindictiveness, defensively stonewalling, having to argue and prove we’re right,
feeling easily hurt or offended and blaming others for our pain- these are just a few
of the ways that our insecurity about being loved or lovable shows up (Welwood,
2006: 4-5).
It is terrifying to write about these experiences, as there is constantly a voice

within me whispering that I should remove this chapter, that it is embarrassing to
write about love and that I will be perceived as weak and pathetic. Deleting this
chapter would, however, be the same as escaping and as I wrote on the first page
of this work; when I have experienced situations as overwhelming or unbearable
my coping strategy has been to run away. As fast as my legs were able to carry
me I ran away from confrontations, presentations, responsibility, from anxiety
and from shame. To sit, to breathe, to be, is what I came into this process to do,
as well as allowing transformations. Standing in this chapter, feeling how it
evolves from my own experiences and at the same time sensing the need to
justify the inclusion of this chapter, I will try to embrace my insecurity and use it
as a source of inspiration.
13.2 What is Love?

13.2 What is Love?
For the ultimate time in this work I am about to roll up my sleeves and dig more
deeply into a vast concept that has been part of the underlying fuel for this work;
love. Contrary to my psychology studies, where the lectures on love were more
concerned about locating love within the limbic system, this sub-chapter will
attempt to go beyond the mechanistic rationalizations of love set by modern
institutions. As an example I will begin by illustrating how love is described in
the psychology encyclopedia used at the University of Bergen, where love is
13.2 What is Love? 119
being defined as; “Sammensatt følelse av hengivenhet, omtanke og deltakelse,

koplet til motiver som generøsitet, åpenhet, fortrolighet og forelskelse, samt attrå
og intens lystfylt oppmerksomhet rettet mot den som er objekt for kjærligheten”27
(Egidius, 2006: 254). Love is thus comprehended as a sensation of devotion,
dedication and participation, and is hence quite diverse from my current under-
standing. In constructing this chapter on the work of Fromm, Welwood and
Hạnh, I will try to approach a love that is reflecting a doing and giving more than
a having, and a process more than an inflexible being.
In the chapter Peace Work As Art, I quoted Lederach who stated that “art is
a form of love” (2005: 161). Almost 50 years earlier Erich Fromm wrote The Art
of Loving, a book that has had great influence on the creation of this chapter.
Instead of saying that art is love, Fromm uses the phrase the other way around
and asks: “Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a
pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one
'falls into' if one is lucky?” (Fromm, 1956: 1). The Art of Loving is based on the
former premises, while he claims that the majority of people believe in the latter.
There is no coincidence that Fromm uses the verb form of love, loving, in the
book title. “Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a 'standing in', not a
'falling for'. In the most general way, the active character of love can be
described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving” (Fromm, 1956:
40).
By understanding love as an activity, an art and a doing instead of a having
and a constant being, it changes the way I have been viewing love earlier. As
Fromm states; “Love is not a thing that one can have, but a process, an inner
activity that one is the subject of. I can love, I can be in love, but in loving, I
have ... nothing. In fact, the less I have, the more I can love” (1997: 19). This
idea then, consequently, also comprises an added value; love requires practice.
As love flourishes from doing, it is the little seeds in the mind and body that
nourishes the process. Being loving will thenceforth be reflected in all of our
doing.
Genuine love is an expression of productiveness and implies care, respect,

responsibility and knowledge. It is not an 'affect' in the sense of being affected by
somebody, but an active striving for the growth and happiness of the loved person,
rooted in one’s own capacity to love (Fromm, 1956: 54).
27 "Combined sensation of devotion, dedication and participation, linked to motives such as

generosity, openness, confidentiality and affection, as well as desire, and intense blissfully
attention to the one who is the object of love" (Translated by author).
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Both Fromm and Welwood describe different types of love, and various ways of
loving. John Welwood compares unlove, conditional love, and unconditional
love in his works, and in the coming subchapter I will devote some pages to
grasp and explain some of the differences within the love spectrum.
13.3 Conditional and Unconditional Love & The Energy of The Heart
13.3 Conditional and Unconditional Love & The Energy of The Heart
Conditional love is a feeling of pleasure and attraction based on how fully someone
matches our needs, desires, and personal considerations. It is a response to a person's
looks, style, personal presence, emotional support- what he or she does for us. It is
not something bad, but it is a lesser form of love, in that it can be negated by a
reversal of the conditions under which it formed (Welwood, 1985: 34-35).
'A lesser form of love' is how Welwood describes a love that is granted on
certain terms. Throughout this work I have questioned whether conditional love
deserves to be entitled as a form of love, since it is limited, restrictive and comes
with strings attached. However, I have come to see the human aspect in the
conditional; the uncertainty, insecurity and anxiety. The conditional love is to a
large degree grounded within me, as I tend to measure my own self-value against
certain criteria; if I can only get/do/look/create this and that, it will lead to love.
According to Welwood this thought pattern is based on our previous relation-
ships.
It’s important to recognize that all the emotional and psychological wounding we
carry with us from the past is relational in nature: It has to do with not feeling fully
loved […]. As a result, the ego's relational patterns have largely developed as
protection schemes to insulate us from the vulnerable openness that love entails
(Welwood, 2011: 170).
This raw wound of the heart of not feeling fully loved is being reflected in our
patterns and in our relationships. Comparing a love that is granted on certain
terms with the unconditional love, the differences are quite apparent.
Unconditional love is present in all of us, and we all have an intuitive sense of its
deep-rooted value (Welwood, 1985).
Unconditional love arises from and responds to an entirely different place in people
than conditional like and dislike, attraction and resistance. It is a being-to-being
recognition and acknowledgment. It is an expression of that which is itself
unconditional- the intrinsic goodness of our tender, open hearts, beneath all our
defenses and pretenses. It does not necessarily involve 'loving' in the narrow sense
of amorous, when the two orders do not mesh the revitalizing presence of
13.3 Conditional and Unconditional Love & The Energy of The Heart 121
unconditional love desirous, adoring sentiments. It is rather, an unconditional

openness, or sense of connection that could be characterized by the qualities of
letting be and being-with (Welwood, 1985: 35-36).
When unfolding unconditional love, Welwood points towards an unconditional

openness. Compared to trauma reactions, where closing down and harden one's
shell tends to be an ordinary coping strategy (Levine, 2010), the unconditional
openness allows the fear, sadness and anger, and opens up for letting be. “The
light of unconditional love awakens the dormant seed potentials of the soul,
helping them ripen blossom, and bear fruit, allowing us to bring forth the unique
gifts that are ours to offer in this life” (Welwood, 2006: 33). The unconditional
openness is accordingly linked to the abilities of opening and softening our
hearts, as; “the expression of unconditional love follows the movements of the
heart, which is its source” (Welwood, 1985: 34).
Welwood emphasizes on the heart qualities when describing unconditional
love, and writes that it is the hearts nature to love freely, “back and forth, without
putting limiting conditions on that exchange” (1985: 34). Heart is here being
defined as “that 'part' of us where we are most tender and open to the world
around us, where we can let others in and feel moved by them; as well as reach
outside ourselves to contact them more fully” (Welwood, 1985: 34). The energy
of our hearts is located beneath our fortifications and facades, beneath our masks
and fears, beneath our insecurities and egos. “Unconditional love has tremendous
power, activating a larger energy which connects us with the vastness and
profundity of what it is to be human. This energy is the energy of the heart
(Welwood, 1985: 33).
My morning session is over and I have rolled down from the cushion to the hard
wooden floor. I am laying in shavasana 28 , with my head touching the soft,
woolen carpet. I am searching for my heart, longing for its rhythm. Breathing in,
a long and deep inhaling, that goes over in an exhale, pouring air out of my
lungs, slowly. Again inhale, the 'ocean breath' comes from deep within, and I feel
my heart pounding between my shoulder blades, touching into the floor. Hard,
clear and steady beats. When I have my full attention to the rhythm of my heart I
envision an expansion of my heart. I use the little warm sensation that is tingling
around my chest, and I visualize how this warmth is growing within me.
Suddenly a thought interrupts the feeling, but with a couple of deep breaths I am
able to refocus on the enlargement of the heart and continue to nourish the
warmth that increases. When I sense that my whole body is containing and
28 Yoga pose, also called dead man's pose, where the body is placed in a neutral position on the
floor.
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swaying in the balminess, I gently start to send out the heart-warmth. First to the
living room around me, filling the entire space, then further, to the whole
building. To the couple living above me, to the dogs in the apartment across the
hall, Oslo city is bathing in the light from my heart. I keep extending the light
until I envision that my heart is embracing everything and everyone, and I lie in
this wonder for a couple of minutes before I redirect my awareness back to my
heart. Sensing how the heart has expanded and how it is beating synchronously
with the breath of the world.
∼ January 21, 2016.
Understanding love solely through reason is a difficult, if not an impossible,

task. By going beyond reason, by searching within, I have learnt to find I way of
connect with my heart, and I am using the meditation practice for accepting and
being with my loving, and it is a wonderful feeling to sense how the heart is
expanding. Encouraged by this sensation I am also bringing the experience into
my daily life, and I try to be unconditionally open to everything, including
myself. As Hạnh writes, it is of great importance that meditation on love is not
just practiced alone in the living room, as visualization is not enough. “It is in the
midst of our daily life and in our actual contact with others that we can know
whether our mind of love is really present and how stable it is. If love is real, it
will be evident in our daily life, in the way we relate with people and the world”
(Hạnh, 1992: 105). Radiating love will have effects far beyond your bodied self.
An attitude of love can be beautifully contagious.
The source of love is deep in us, and we can help others realize a lot of happiness.
One word, one action, or one thought can reduce another person's suffering and
bring him joy. One word can give comfort and confidence, destroy doubt, help
someone avoid a mistake, reconcile a conflict, or open the door to liberation. One
action can save a person’s life or help him take advantage of a rare opportunity. One
thought can do the same, because thoughts always lead to words and actions. If love
is in our heart, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle. Because
understanding is the very foundation of love, words and actions that emerge from
our love are always helpful (Hạnh, 1992: 105).
13.4 Self-Love
13.4 Self-Love
While it raises no objection to apply the concept of love to various objects, it is a
widespread belief that, while it is virtuous to love others, it is sinful to love oneself.
It is assumed that to the degree to which I love myself I do not love others, that self-
love is the same as selfishness. This view goes far back in Western though (Fromm,
1956: 52).
13.4 Self-Love 123
Self-love and love for others are not alternatives but mutually inclusive and
dependent expressions. A comparable reflection can be drawn to the chapter
concerning self-compassion, where the accentuation was guided by the belief
that working only with compassion outwards implies a blocking one's own needs
for compassion.
“The love for my own self is inseparably connected with the love for any
other being” (Fromm, 1956: 53). This is a central concept within elicitive
conflict transformation, once again reflecting the Tantric principle: 'as above, so
below; as within, so without; as the universe, so the soul'. Hạnh is mirroring this
balance throughout his texts (2012; 2011; 2004 & 1992), and underlines in his
work that everyone is connected and interrelated with everyone and everything,
and that self-love is furthermore a source for being present for others.
Caring for yourself, reestablishing peace in yourself, is the basic condition for
helping someone else. So that the other can stop being a bomb, a source of pain for
ourselves and others, you really have to help him to defuse the bomb. To be able to
provide help, we have to have a little calm, a little joy, a little compassion in
ourselves (Hạnh, 2011: 33).
Self-love and love for others are thus not opposites that you have to choose
between; on the contrary, they are mutually dependent expressions. Neglecting
love inwards will affect your ability to love outwards, and vice versa. Welwood
points out that connecting with our own hearts permits us to also connect with
others, transrationally.
Touching the depth of feeling in our heart also helps us see through others'
imperfections, allowing us to touch their hearts more readily. Breaking open the
heart awakens us to the mystery of love- that we can't help loving others, in spite of
and including all the things we don't like about them, for no other reason than that
they move and touch us in ways that we can never fully understand (Welwood,
1985: 39-40).
The same apply for unconditionally loving yourself. Opening up and allowing
the heart to beat and blossom freely is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves
and the people around us. According to Hạnh is true presence the most precious
gift you can give to the one you love (2004).
To love […] is above all to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some
training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being
there is very much an art, an art of meditation, because meditating is bringing your
true presence to the here and now (Hạnh, 2004: 5-6).
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13.5 My Practice/ How Do We Love?

13.5 My Practice/ How Do We Love?
“Having dealt with the theoretical aspect of the art of loving, we now are
confronted with a much more difficult problem, that of the practice of the art of
loving. Can anything be learned about the practice of an art, except by practicing
it?” (Fromm, 1956: 143). Just as fire needs heat, air and fuel for burning, love
requires effort and practice to not extinguish. In sub-chapter 5.3 Peace Workers
Encountering Trauma, I reflected on the bodily manifestations that PTSD,
secondary trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout can have. In the aftermath of
the assault, I recognize that I have built a shell around me, which again has
created a conditional openness. Practicing breathing meditation is what made me
perceive this shield and has also helped me to open up, slowly, slowly, and to
embrace the deeply internalized suffering. Erich Fromm writes that there is no
such thing as a prescription on 'how to love'. “To love is a personal experience
which everyone can only have by and for him [/her] self” (Fromm, 1956: 143).
He does, however, recommend meditation as a method for practicing love;
It would be helpful to practice a few very simple exercises, as, for instance, to sit in
a relaxed position (neither slouching, nor rigid), to close one's eyes, and to try to see
a white screen in front of one's eyes, and to try to remove all interfering pictures and
thoughts, then to try to follow one's breathing; not to think about it, nor force it, but
to follow it—and in doing so to sense it; furthermore to try to have a sense of 'I'; I =
myself, as the center of my powers, as the creator of my world. One should, at least,
do such a concentration exercise every morning for twenty minutes (and if possible
longer) and every evening before going to bed (Fromm, 1956: 149).
Fromm presents three virtues that the practice of the art of loving requires,
namely; discipline, concentration and patience (1956), all of which is embedded
in a meditation practice. Welwood gives quite a similar recommendation on how
to practice, and further explains how the meditation can connect us with loving.
Through this practice, we can gradually realize that our existence is basically good
and wholesome, simply because we are present, awake, responsive to life, and
facing the world with a tender heart. Underneath all our confusions, we can glimpse
what is unconditioned in us- our availability for facing and experiencing what is. In
appreciating this unconditioned goodness, we can begin to let ourselves be because
we don't have to try to prove that we are good (Welwood, 1985: 37).
What resonates most deeply with me in the quote above is the last sentence; 'we
don't have to try to prove that we are good'. In practicing breathing meditation
there is nothing to prove, nothing to get feedback on and no standards to be
judged by. Healing lays in accepting things as they are, moment by moment,
13.6 Letting Love 125
loving and hence freeing others and myself. Through breathing there is love and
through love there is freedom.
13.6 Letting Love

13.6 Letting Love
“To let love in requires us to melt- to dissolve our hardened defenses and let
down our guard” (Welwood, 2006: 72). This is not an easy process, at least not
for me. Fear has unquestionably been the most prominent quality accompanying
my process. Kornfield writes; “All spiritual journeys require that we directly face
these energies of grasping anger, pride, fear, restlessness, and doubt- the habits
that keep the heart close” (2000: 31). Fear has kept me from looking directly at
the source of pain, while suspicion and distrust has showed up every once in
awhile, trying to shake me off my trail.
A lot of suffering has also come with realizing my patterns and perceiving
how I am imposing certain requirements on the people I love. One of the most
tormenting apprehensions is related to the understanding that I am the only one
responsible for giving the love I need. Only I can provide myself with what I am
searching for, and what I am searching for is not found somewhere separated
from me.
The painful truth is that probably no one else can ever give us all that we need in
just the way we want. When we use that pain to help us touch what is most tender
and alive in us, we begin to wake up from the poverty of depending on others to the
majesty and richness we carry inside (Welwood, 1985: 39).
Sylvester Walch illustrates that the pain can also be a source for discovering a
healing potential. “We can often find the solution in the middle of hurting
experiences, where we can find healing powers of the transpersonal self such as
pulsating energies and all-embracing love that are flowing through the cosmic
consciousness” (Walch, 2006: 14).
Unveiling what I truly want to achieve with my practice, I wind up
picturing a captivity searching for liberty. I want to break free from the
constraints I have put on my heart and consequently let my heart move freely.
My process continues with each breath I take, but most of the time it feels as if I
am going one step forward and two steps back. My greatest challenge in these
moments is to realize that this too is well, this is exactly how it should be in this
moment, and to trust that the unfolding is following its own time, its own
rhythm. As Kabat-Zinn delightfully expresses; “You have to work gently around
the edges, a little here and a little there, keeping your vision alive in your heart,
particularly during the times of greatest pain and difficulty” (2013: 385).
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Just as healing implies grasping that our intrinsic wholeness is already

within, unconditional love similarly grows out of ourselves as we are its source.
“When you recognize that the absolute beauty within you cannot be tarnished by
your flaws, then this beauty you are can begin to care for the best you sometimes
seem to be” (Welwood, 2006: 55). Letting myself be loved and loving without
constrictions requires me to unwind, to stop creating internal movies, to stop
overthinking and just be present.
That in us which is unconditioned, beyond all our images and stories about who we
are, is our pure primordial presence, openness, and receptivity to what is. Because it
is always present, if only in the dimly perceived background, unconditioned being is
not something 'special', or an ideal to be achieved. It is, rather, 'ordinary mind'. In
this sense, unconditional love is also quite ordinary, and so regarding it as a high
ideal to strive after can distance us from it by obscuring its basic simple nature
(Welwood, 1985: 36).
Unconditional love is, however, not an ideal to achieve, I do not aim at

mastering an art of unconditional love. The love is already within, and my task is
solely to be present and to share and cultivate love. Practicing breathing
meditation thus becomes a daily reminder to let down my guard and to nourish
both self-love and love for others. Kabat-Zinn writes that the most important
action one can take is to continue the practice, to keep on breathing and being
attentive. “[…] to just keep looking at whatever arises in nonjudgmental
awareness and with kindness, especially if it is a recurring pattern, conundrum,
thought, or feeling” (Kabat-Zinn, 2013: 575).
Pusten er et verktøy til å stoppe opp i øyeblikket og være så tilstede at klare tanker i
stedet for ubevisste gjentagende mønstre blir styrende for ditt liv. Pust er livet. Den
dype innpusten er det aller beste hjelpemiddelet til et mer energifyllt og gledesfyllt,
bevisst liv. Friheten i utpusten reflekterer vår evne til å gi slipp med letthet og vår
forståelse for hvordan vi kan gå videre 29 (Magelssen, 2008: 97).
29 "The breath is a tool to stop in the moment and be so present that clear thoughts, instead of
unconscious repetitive patterns, will rule your life. Breath is life. The deep inhalation is the
best way to a more energy-filled, joyful and conscious life. The freedom of exhaling reflects
our ability to let go with ease, and echoes our understanding of how we can move onward
14 Concluding Thoughts
14 Concluding Thoughts
It has taken me three years to complete the writings of this work, and I could
certainly have used ten more. Whenever one experience ceases to exist, another
seed starts blooming within which provides novel aspects and different twists to
my current understanding. In previous academic writings, I have always known
the main lines of the content and the outcomes even before starting to write. In
this work, however, I have been forced to find the path as I walk, comparable to
a journey without a roadmap. I have been following the sensations that come up
during the meditation sessions, I have been directed by the internal light bulbs
that suddenly blink, and by enhancing my awareness on the interruptions in my
breathing pattern. Including the empirical approach through an experiential
understanding has been immensely rewarding for my own process. Recollecting
sensory details after a meditation session is helping me relive the experience, and
thus become aware of additional inputs from my overall body sensations.
Capsuling my entire breathing meditation practice on a few pages is not
possible, but a little glimpse into my use of the breath as a tool of trans-
formations has been presented. Some of the experiences I have had are harder to
put into words. Converting transpersonal experiences into written language takes
away some of the fertility that accompanies an embodied experience. Using
words to describe parts of the process does, nevertheless, not reduce the ex-
perience; it is rather a welcomed challenge to use my senses for writing. As
Anderson and Braud delightfully express; “In the act of writing, slowing down
and looking for resonance within one's own body seems to reveal the tangibly
unique- and sometimes ineffable- qualities of the writer's experience and way of
being in the world” (2011: 268).
How can breathing meditation, as a transrational method, be a tool for peace
work? The question has been pulsating in my veins as I have focused on peace
work, trauma, healing, wounds and love. The key words for answering the
question are presence and awareness. By being present in my own life I am
learning to enhance my awareness, and by being aware I am learning to be
present in the here and now. When I practice breathing meditation I can connect
with and experience peace. Kabat-Zinn writes the following about experiencing
peace in the here and now; “If we can simply realize the fullness of this moment,
of this breath, we can find stillness and peace right here” (2013: 594, italics in

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128 14 Concluding Thoughts
original). In the third chapter of this book I gave a personal perception of peace
for me, a perception that I will repeat here, because it continues to resonate with
me.
Peace for me. Inner harmonious resonance and reflection of energy, both
without and within. Perceived in stillness and wind, ocean and fire, bathing in
colors and gratification. Peace is letting go and allowing. A flow, experienced in
the ever-changing moment, breathing in the worlds, dancing life, collective
creating and tranquility. Peace is melodious poetry vibrating in the awareness
as equanimity. ∼ September 29, 2014.
During the commencement phase of my meditation practice there were certain

features that had to be present before I could enter this state of peacefulness,
such as a silent room, my meditation cushion, no background noise or external
disturbances. Today I am able to touch and arrive in this peaceful state of being
just by turning inwards and breathing a few deep breathes. Nevertheless, there is
still a division between this state of awareness and my habitual state of existence,
and I consciously have to work with being present.
14.1 Further Applicability

14.1 Further Applicability
For the peace worker who aims at holding a safe space for other's transfor-
mations to take place, it is of utmost importance to be fully present. The figure of
the aware peace worker has been an imperative character in this work, but as I
have talked to friends, family, peers and colleagues I have come to learn that
breathing meditation, as a transrational method for peace work, is applicable far
beyond the figure of the peace worker. One of my closest friends works as a
gastroenterology nurse, and her job includes being with patients who experience
severe pain, to take difficult decisions concerning their lives and holding their
hands on their deathbeds. “No one who works in a hospital can be unmoved by
the infinite variations of the full catastrophe that are encountered every day”
(Kabat-Zinn, 2013: Iv). Another friend is working as a psychologist at a recep-
tion center for refugees in Oslo. Every day she is listening to heavy personal
stories of despair and grief, sometimes with a hint of hope, and at the same time
she is facing budget cuts and violent threats from the outside.
“Humanitarian aid workers are often psychologically unprepared for field
missions” Alessandra Pigni wrote in the Humanitarian Professionals Group on
LinkedIn (2011a: 2). The same can be said about numerous workplaces where
traumatic episodes are shaping the working environment. Those who work with
14.2 The Art of Going Beyond 129
traumatized may become traumatized themselves (Breire & Scott, 2015), and
“[…] only someone who consciously feels herself/himself, can be conscious
about the suffering of others and will not do violence to them” (Dietrich, 2012:
241). Working in surroundings shaped by stress, conflicts, trauma, high pressure,
language and cultural barriers, patient/family grief and difficult contacts, require
preparations on self-reflection and awareness on all layers.
Breathing meditation as a transrational method for peace work is therefore
not limited to the peace worker. “In terms of elicitive conflict work, the trans-
formation of the external world begins with the awareness of one's inner life”
(Dietrich, 2013: 228). An additional statement that needs to be addressed is that
breathing meditation is not solely a practice for working with trauma and
negative elements. Koppensteiner explains the same notion connected to the
practices of an Art of the Self. “Rather than seeing them [transrational methods]
just as tools to help the injured and traumatized life, they additionally can also
function as the affirmative practice for an active life. It is needless to say that the
former cannot always be clearly distinguished from the latter” (Koppensteiner,
2009: 175).
As all the states of being, energies, words and expressions float freely in
spaces where people encounter each other, tools for being self-conscious and
aware, and for being able to separate oneself from the work one do is vital.
Awareness of one's inner life is thus important for all occupations where the
employee is working with individuals and societies, as we become part of the
situations simply by entering the space.
14.2 The Art of Going Beyond

14.2 The Art of Going Beyond
Whenever I quiet the persistent chatter of words within my head, I find this silent or
wordless dance always already going on—this improvised duet between my animal
body and the fluid, breathing landscape that it inhabits (Abram, 1996: 53).
Art lies within all of us, however, it cannot be forced out by our rational minds.
In Chapter 6 I asked the question 'what is an artist?' and thenceforth united the
elicitive peace worker and the artist by highlighting the transrational approach
that is fertilizing both concepts, beyond the limits of the persona. Beyond is
another keyword in this work, as I have engaged with reaching beyond reason,
beyond my rational mind, beyond conditional love and beyond my own masks.
As elicitive peace workers attempt to go beyond the rational and thus use the
energy created in the creative processes for transformations, the aspects of the
artist play a crucial role.
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The art of going beyond the conventional and intellectual is furthermore a

fundamental fragment of healing. As I have written several times, breathing
meditation forms a bridge between my body, mind and spirit, and the wisdom
and knowledge of the body has been interconnected with various topics
throughout the text, such as the centrality of body awareness in trauma work.
Tara Brach similarly accentuates the importance of fully processing painful
experiences, as unprocessed pain is being stored in our body. “[I]f the process of
including difficult emotions in awareness stops at the level of cognitive
understanding without a fully embodied experience, the genuine acceptance,
insight and inner freedom that are the essence of true healing will not be
complete” (Brach, 2014: para. 10).
By including an experiential understanding throughout this text, I have been
able to connect more profoundly with the embodied experiences, and the
embodied writing has furthermore made it possible to invite the readers to take
part in my experiences. “The body speaks for itself through the vehicle of
words” (Anderson & Braud, 2011: 269). Through the art of breathing meditation
and embodied writing I have therefore tried to connect both the artist and the
peace worker within me, which has led to deeply personal and intimate sections
of the text.
14.3 Lessons Learnt

14.3 Lessons Learnt
Exploring the spectrum of transpersonal manifestations involves an abandoning
of the notion of self as a constant being limited by our physical body, and instead
accepting whatever comes into existence. Breathing meditation is a continuous
process that never stops, where I experience a constant rediscovery and re-
creation of the existence. Through breathing meditation I am conscious, present
and aware, and in this continuation I learn to integrate and embody my
experiences. Breathing meditation thus allows me to be in the here and now,
which furthermore encourages me to recognize my past and therefore accen-
tuates that the past is not happening right now.
Beginning on this journey I yearned for solutions, answers and remedies,
but through these years I have learnt that there is no such thing as a quick fix. By
committing to my breathing meditation practice I have learnt that all I can do is
breathe, continue my practice and be present. Accepting that the process in itself
is beautiful and mysterious has been a supportive mantra in times where unpre-
dictability has been the only apparent constant. This journey will continue for as
long as I am. New turns will be taken, new doors will open up and new visions
will appear, and it is exactly this unpredictability that is life itself.
14.3 Lessons Learnt 131
It might not seem surprising when reading through these pages, that one of
the main subjects of this work is love. For me, however, the inclusion of love
caught me off guard. I have come to understand that the assault (and my
life after) has reinforced and strengthened an understanding of myself as
unlovable. It is exhausting to be constantly scared and feeling relentlessly weak.
Through this writing process, I am experiencing a rediscovery and a
coming back to myself, working and integrating the Tantric principle within
Elicitive Conflict Transformation: 'as above, so below; as within, so without; as
the universe, so the soul'. Through these months, breathing with and being with
pain, I have realized that all I ever want is already inside of me. Through an
enhanced presence I have cultivated an increased quality of life. It has always
been about love, and even more so after the attack. Trying to track down
and achieve love from the outside has hampered me more from loving, as love
grows out of love. The more I dare to give of myself and my journey, the
more I feel is reverberating within.
I have learned the value of being alone, without any external stimuli, only
in the company of my own breath, turning inwardly. I have learned that
breathing meditation never opens up more doors than I can handle, but
even more essential, I have learnt that there is no shame in asking for help.
This journey would not have been possible if it was not for the wonderful
people around me. I am nothing without you, I am everything with you.
Several times during these years I have felt cut off from my networks and
experienced that I have wilted away from dear friends. I have made
choices that have affected important relationships and at times I have taken
shelter within instead of sharing what I am going through. This process has
certainly flowered into new knowledge and new understandings, illuminating
that it is important for me not to take refuge inside, but share the love and the
experiences.
In the beginning of Chapter 5 I wrote the following: “my healing
process has already had beautiful repercussions, although I still carry a heavy
load within that I cannot seem to fully understand”. Today I understand more
of the heavy load and have come to see that my journey has opened up
journeys for people around me. The main subject of this journey is by and large
connected to healing the healer and, as Roger Walsh writes in The World of
Shamanism, “Having been healed oneself may also inspire confidence in
potential for healing others” (2007: 218).
With a floating understanding of the self and the prudence of
writing genuinely I have tried to paint a picture with some of the aspects
that have followed and led me on the journey to where I am, and consequently I
have tried to transform the confusion and chaos of life into art. I began
this written voyage determined to use that which was already inside, no
matter which labels labels they were carrying.
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As this book comes to an end, a new door opens up and the journey
continues within a new frame. Wherever I go and whatever I do, my breath
will accompany me, and I will keep on practicing to sit, to breathe and to be.
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Masters of Peace

Jennie Helene Sandstad

More information about this series at

ISSN 2364-463X ISSN 2364-4648 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955538

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

Editorial work of current volume: Norbert Koppensteiner, Austria

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

Roger Walsh, MD, PhD, DHL.

Foreword (Roger Walsh).................................................................................... 7

5 Peace Work, Traumas & The Here and Now ......................................... 49

12 My Healing Process ................................................................................ 109

14 Concluding Thoughts ............................................................................. 127

Figure 1: Burmese posture,

When I have experienced situations as overwhelming or unbearable, my coping

1.1 Why write? – The Author is Not Dead

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

1 The death of the author (Translated by author).

1.2 A Wonderer and a Wanderer

1.3 The Journey Towards Breathing Meditation

[T]his is what we want to educate in our program: reflective practitioners of elicitive

2.1 Why This Topic Now?

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

has had. “Today peacework is multilateral, multinational, multidimensional and

The danger is emotional as well as physical; ongoing occupational trauma exposure

3 http://www.nofaio.no The website is written in Norwegian.

2.2 Identifying the Problem

2.3 The Question

Throughout the human sciences and humanities, it is generally acknowledged

3.1 A Transpersonal and Academic Voyage

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

3.2 Definitions of Relevant Concepts

3.2.1 The Families of Peaces

Peace-researcher Wolfgang Dietrich has explored different interpretations and

3.2.2 Transrational Peaces

called this trans-rational, because it appreciates and applies the rationality of

3.2.3 Elicitive Conflict Transformation

“Elicitive conflict transformation is a working principle that is rooted in the

The aspect of transpersonal is closely related to the transrational, as

3.3 Theoretical Approach

The bibliographical research allows me to explore that which is already

3.4 Empirical Approach- An Experiential Understanding

embodiment of transpersonal experiences and the process of healing, and

3.5 The Experiential Understanding – Breathing Meditation

Being an academic, a practitioner and a peace worker requires a delicate balance.

Stanislav Grof, psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, and the founder of

After each meditation session I have my research journal and my drawing

5 Holotropic Breathwork is a powerful approach to self-exploration and healing that combines

body, mind and spirit, it enhances my self-awareness in the moment and it is an

3.6 Embodied Writing

transpersonal research methods, I apply the method of Embodied Writing

4.1 The Family of Peaces

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

We do however, as Dietrich notes, have to be grateful to postmodernism “mainly

Dietrich is UNESCO Chairholder for Peace Studies at the University of

4.2 The Transrational Approach

Transrationality, explained by peace researcher, facilitator and coordinator of the

practice of self-transformation could concretely be lived, and his work is

[T]ranspersonal work on consciousness is work on peace, because it not only

4.3 Transpersonal Psychology

To sketch out a picture of transpersonal psychology today require, as with

6 For a thorough overview on Humanistic psychology related to Elicitive Conflict Transfor-

differences in both epistemology and methodology. Michael Washburn's model