THE PEAK LIVING NETWORK STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES
1) People have a profound and apparently limitless capacity for emotional healing and well-being. Therefore, we take an orientation toward ourselves and each other that assumes that we can all find ways to make our lives work better and that we will succeed in doing so. We are all healing and growing.
2) Our potential for healing jumps dramatically when we form supportive relationships and develop a commitment to each other’s well-being. Healing is, in some of its most important aspects, a collective process.
3) We strive to create an atmosphere where people feel free to feel their feelings, talk about them, express them, and release them. We don’t try to talk each other out of our feelings or tell people that they are feeling the wrong thing. Feelings are okay.
4) Crying and laughter are the single most potent healing processes that we have access to. We strive to stop interfering with other people’s attempts to cry or laugh, and with our own.
5) Anything that anyone shares at a Peak Living gathering is to be kept confidential by everyone.
6) All human beings are of equal value. Therefore, we choose to treat each other with respect at all times, even (or perhaps especially) when we are angry or when we have disagreements or conflicts.
7) We strive for an orientation toward each other that is kind, loving, and supportive.
8) People are naturally loving and caring. Our healing processes carry us back toward the people we truly are.
9) Destructive behavior patterns are signs of things that have gone wrong in a person’s life, and signs of a lack of opportunities to heal. As far as we know, no one is inherently bad, lazy, unintelligent, or selfish.
10) Most of what we are all struggling with emotionally, and in how we treat ourselves, has its roots in trauma.
11) There is nothing to be gained from blaming people for their own difficulties.
12) We assume that people are telling the truth about what has happened to them. Our world is rife with mistreatment, so there is no reason to jump to the conclusion that people are exaggerating the wrongs that have they have endured.
13) People are their own ultimate authorities on what will best help them to heal and move forward at any given time in life. There are many paths to healing, and what works well for one person may not work for another.
14) Our focus is on providing support, not on trying to solve other people’s difficulties or impose our solutions on them. Therefore we keep advice and suggestions to a minimum, and make sure that it’s wanted before it’s given.
15) Time spent speaking needs to be shared equally. Everyone has the equal right, and the equal need, to be heard. Even when we’re in crisis, we need to listen well to others.
16) Listening well to others not only contributes to the healing of people around us, but is also crucial to our own healing. We work to constantly improve our listening skills.
17) We strive to think about each other well, and to do so all the time.
18) We take an orientation toward each other that sees each person as smart and capable. Everyone has skills and insights that other people can benefit from, so we need everybody’s best thinking to be brought into everything we do.
20) You have a tremendous amount to offer others. Your love, support, caring, and thinking can make a large difference in people’s lives.
21) We gather for the purpose of supporting each other’s healing. It is not acceptable to attend PLN activities toward a goal of finding a dating or sexual partner, networking for your business, or any purpose other than the stated one.
24) We strive to make sure that all touch and affection between participants occurs awarely, respects boundaries, and is wanted.
25) Each of us has the capacity to live at a higher level of satisfaction, energy, and connection than we are currently experiencing. To reach for peak living makes sense.
These ideas are discussed in detail in the The Joyous Recovery (PLN Book 1), available in the late summer of 2017. The Joyous Recovery is recommended reading for all Peak Living Network participants.
