What Does It Take To Cultivate And Live Active Peace?

On This Walk

I’ve arrived at a place where central to my purpose in life is peace — when I connect to and from peace, I settle deeply into life, regardless of its perceived ups and downs.

However, in discussions with others, I often get the same response: “Okay, that sounds nice. But how do you get things done? Isn’t that a bit passive? Do you just bliss out and let stuff go by?”

If I read between the lines, those questions are really asking: Do you bypass life? Do you avoid problems? Do you get anything done?

Actually, peace can be quite active and is anything but a spiritually lazy way of being.

And I think my two guests know this quite well.

I’m very fortunate to be joined today by my dear friend and former colleague, Jenny Wiley, who’s been creatively and socially engaged for even longer than I’ve known her!

I’m also joined by Reggie Hubbard, whom I found through one of our recent guests, Aaron Kahlow (Episode #003). Reggie created Active Peace Yoga, and I think that phrase sums up the duality and intention of today’s walk.

In This Episode

• (0:58) My journey to finding active peace in my own life
• (09:44) Reggie’s lifelong mission to understand the idea of active peace
• (14:02) Yoga, Buddhism, the anger of advocacy and marching on Congress
• (19:32) How the death of her father set Jenny on the path to leading from the heart
• (25:28) Does anger create peace?
• (30:26) How shadow elements affect our own minds – and hinder our nation
• (35:31) How Jenny deals with the discomfort that comes with searching for active peace
• (40:06) Why Reggie believes in shining a light on our pain in order to heal from it
• (47:56) Why Jenny holds a place for active compassion among active dialogue and active practice
• (52:09) The role of faith in Jenny’s experience creating community
• (56:39) Reggie’s favorite space-creating practices
• (1:02:15) What do we do when we still don’t have perfect peace?

Notable Quotes

• “The short answer is that we have deluded ourselves into thinking that we're in this alone and we're not, we're in this together. So racism doesn't just hurt black people. Like racism hurts white people, sexism doesn't hurt just women. It hurts men too. Transphobia, all the things that we demonize about other people, it hurts us also. And so when we have the ability as teachers, leaders, but also as humans to see what we have in common, that gives us not only the energy, but the container to hold space with the difficult conversations.” – Reggie (40:06)
• “[In my mid-twenties] there was like the real part of myself that I really wasn't listening to, or even noticing that there was that part of me that I wasn't listening to. I was experiencing the detriment of not being integrated. I was so, so deeply depressed, really, really volatile. I decided, okay, so I'm gonna give myself a tagline and I'm just gonna go with it and try it on and see how it goes. And, and the tagline that I gave for myself was leading from the heart, because to me that meant that I wasn't operating out of that performative, like headspace, like I need to be something for someone else. It was leading from my heart centered place. And I started to see things kind of unfold from there.” – Jenny (23:11)

Our Guests

Reggie Hubbard is an RYT-500 certified yoga teacher and the founder of Active Peace Yoga. He has taught yoga to elected officials, activists and people from all walks of life. His practice is built on the idea that miracles happen when we commit to our personal peace and wellbeing.

Jenny Wiley specializes in creating group experiences for those who want to leverage the power of community. She currently serves as Community Manager for Zencity, which works exclusively with local governments to provide consulting services for data-driven community engagement.

Resources & Links

On This Walk

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