While joining workshops, training, or events on peacebuilding is not new to him, Maguidala Usman is still working on making peace his way of life.

Finding the Path to Inner Peace

Maguidala grew up with the privilege of growing up in a family that can support his studies from elementary to senior high school. Maguidala understands the compassion and effort that his parents are making sure that he receives the education that he deserves.

However, despite the respect that he provides to his family, he is yet to extend this understanding to other people. Maguidala admitted that he is prone to having an uncontrollable temper and annoyance at slight inconveniences. These outbursts affect his environment in which he gets angry at someone and says hurtful words that are brought by these negative emotions.

One of his recent encounters was during a provincial competition at Lanao del Sur in which he lost because of cheating. He knew about the injustice due to a video of the incident where the judges tampered with the scores and favored one of the contestants that went viral. Upon seeing it, he immediately shared it with hurtful comments to the judges and the organizers. This situation is one of the moments in which he harbored negative emotions that nurtured a toxic online environment where other people can be triggered to join the hateful discourse.

Knowing yourself to understand the situation

Maguidala has not been able to see the extent of his temper until he joined Teach Peace Build Peace Movement. During one of the activities in which they were made to understand the effects of sharing negative emotions and not controlling your outburst, he realized that his reactions build on the negative narratives that affect other people and can be entry points for violent ideology. The exposure to these reactions can affect other people’s perception of their homes and communities and of themselves.

After being made aware of this concern, he went to his social media and deleted those posts in which he shared his feelings and emotions. In addition to that, he proactively reached out to the organizers to ask for their side of the story and apologized for his behavior. This action led to him being invited by the judges and organizers who explained the situation and apologized to him as well.

Through the training, he also discovered a way to express these emotions in a peaceful manner – spoken poetry. He recognized that spoken poetry can be used as a platform not only to say what is in his heart but also to spread peace and happiness.

Maguidala became more mindful of his actions and knew that his spoken poetry can include messages promoting peaceful values.

While he acknowledges that negative emotions cannot be avoided, he is now taking time to pause and reflect on his thoughts or actions before expressing them to the world. After contemplating them, he started writing what he feels through poems and integrating what he learned from the training.

By integrating peace into his day-to-day actions, he noticed a change within himself and his environment. He feels happier and lighter, and these feelings are also complemented by the people around him. Usman, in his way, knew what it meant to contribute to hateful narratives and strived to make a peaceful world through spoken poetry.