Gandhi’s Nine Steps for Decreasing Violence

1
Define the Conflict:
When you clarify, you can deal.
2
It’s not you against me;
it’s you and me against the problem.
3
List the relationship’s many shared concerns –
not the one unshared separation.
4
When people have fought, don’t ask what happened:
Instead ask, “What did you do?”
5
Active listening is better than passive hearing:
Don’t be a know-it-all gasbage
6
Choose a neutral place to resolve the conflict –
Not on the “battlefield” itself (a peace room?).
7
Start with what’s doable.
8
Increase forgiveness skills, decrease vengeance urges.
Leave the garbage of the last fight behind!
9
Purify our hearts.
Get my own messy life in order before I tell others how to live!

*From Colman McCarthy’s book, I’d Rather Teach Peace (Orbis Books, 2002, pp 39-44), as interpreted by Dudley Weeks