Living Peace, Living Love, Living Now:
Healing and Deepening Relationships
in the Way of the Love

With John Abd al-Qadir Davies

A 12-Session Webinar Series Starting May 21, 2015

This webinar supports individuals and couples in healing, deepening and enriching relationships between spouses, within families, or with partners or friends, using transformative insights and tools grounded in the Sufi Way of Love. It helps those in transition or in conflict or struggling to find love, peace or compassion to connect more intimately with the life-sustaining flow of love.

Sufis embrace love as the core of what brings us to completion of our spiritual journey, through deeper knowing of ourselves and each other, to opening into the Divine Unity. In weekly evening sessions, participants will explore and taste the deeper meanings of what love is, what peace is, and what is possible now in enlivening the reality of both for ourselves and the world.

Themes for the sessions may include topics such as: Embracing vulnerability; Neutralizing triggers; Healing a wounded heart; Family dynamics; Sexuality, gender and love; Bringing peace in a turbulent world; Opening to divine love  –  with flexibility based on the group’s needs.

Students will discover how to:

  • Bring healing, love and intimacy to your relationships
  • Free yourself from self-judgment and limiting beliefs
  • Live the peace you wish to see in the world
  • Deepen your experience of divine love and connection
  • Find peace and contentment in all areas of your life

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Living Peace, Living Love, Living Now: Healing and Deepening Relationships in the Way of the Love

Dates:
12 Thursdays beginning May 21, 2015

May 21, May 28
June 4, June 11, June 18
July 16, July 23, July 30
August 6, 13, 20, 27

Note: There is a short break for three Thursdays starting June 25th. Then we resume for 7 sessions from July 16 through August 27.

Time:
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm PT/8:00 am – 9:30 pm ET

Tuition:
$999 paid in full or 4 payments of $249.75

Prerequisites: None. This class is open to people of all faiths, to those unfamiliar with the path and those already walking it, including USHS students and alumni. No familiarity with the Sufi tradition is required, nor any particular stage of relationship: each participant will be supported to work from where they are.

Course format: Each session will include experiential learning (“tasting”), beginning with presentation and discussion on a particular theme, followed by an exercise applying a specific technique or insight in the context of ongoing relationship challenges. Homework assignments will be offered between classes to help build a firm foundation for integrating new experiences, skills and insights.

Equipment and materials: No books are required – readings, main points and handouts will be made available as needed for each class, using Zoom videoconferencing software. *Students must have a computer and Internet access to participate in the course.*

Bio: John Abd al-Qadir Davies

Dr. Davies serves as faculty with the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism; as Co-Director of Partners in Peacebuilding at the Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland; as Director of the Living Peace Program at the Farm of Peace and Sufi Center East; and as Professorial Lecturer in Conflict Management, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

As a life-long peacemaker and as a teacher in the Sufi way, he integrates professional and spiritual insights into his transformative work in mediation, reconciliation and teaching, helping individuals, families and groups across all faiths move through difficult times to renewed love and sustained peace and freedom. Having led peace initiatives in over 30 countries, he devotes his energy now to creating peace at home, a much overlooked foundation for a peaceful world.

Sample syllabus

Themes for the sessions may include the following – with flexibility based on the needs of the group:

  1. What is peace? What is love? How do we live them – now?
  2. Bringing peace in a turbulent world
  3. Releasing the walls we put up for safety – embracing vulnerability
  4. Speaking truth from love, leading from love, opening the door of compassion
  5. Recognizing triggers from unacknowledged issues or wounds – ours and theirs
  6. Healing wounds from past trauma
  7. Gender, sexuality and love
  8. Understanding family dynamics, relationships with children and teens
  9. Loving and letting go – discerning when to end a relationship
  10. Reconciling and finding common ground – beyond coping and compromise
  11. Opening to divine guidance and revelation of divine love
  12. Planning next steps for living peace

Students will also have opportunities to bring up topics they wish to address to help them move closer to peace and Divine connection.