Turning fear into power

 “Be gentle, be truthful, be fearless.”

-M.K. Gandhi

Finding one’s personal path, or sva-dharma, is essential to facilitating the transition to a nonviolent future. Fears and uncertainties can impede us. Community plays an important role in supporting the individual’s unfolding– we can create communities that bow down to fear or we can create communities that foster personal growth and practice, transforming fear into nonviolent power. At the Metta Center, we feel this simple truth is the heart of nonviolence itself. Nonviolence, as we understand it, is the conversion of a negative drive into a positive force that can inspire the same kind of courage in others, and we borrow Kenneth Boulding’s term, calling it “integrative power.” It is something real, not just an idea, that is found within all of us, and we can learn to access that power at deeper levels over time.

This workshop series is designed to help participants deepen their awareness of their heart’s longing or sva-dharma, working with stories and tools that help us to understand the role and effects that fear has or has had in our lives, and with an emphasis and intention to transform what scares us into what might possibly heal ourselves and others. It takes fearlessness to hold onto our highest values and to let go of any habit, any thing or anyone that is not healthy for us as much as it takes to try or do something new–and it all matters.

Facilitators: Linda Sartor, author of Turning Fear into Power: One woman’s journey confronting the war on terror (2014); Michael Nagler, author of The Nonviolence Handbook and Metta Center President, and Stephanie Van Hook, Executive Director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence. (Read this interview Stephanie conducted with Linda for Waging Nonviolence.)

Still open: Option 2: A one-day retreat at the Angela Center in Santa Rosa, California.

Option 2 Date: December 7, 2014 (10 am – 4 pm) 

Please obtain a copy of Turning Fear into Power by Linda Sartor prior to the first session.

Cost: Participants are invited to make a financial or skill-based contribution (i.e. volunteer hours) to support the mission of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.

Contact: Stephanie Van Hook, info@mettacenter.org. 

Register at this link.