(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?---Elvis Costello
- Diane Hoekstra
- Nov 14, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 19, 2025
Elvis Costello was onto something! (I know I date myself here...if you haven't heard this song, you should go give it a listen). What IS so funny about it, anyway? Is Peace, Love and Understanding (PLU) so Pie-in-the-sky, so Naive, so Sappy that we can't hope for it, much less work for it as a society? Is it only reserved for family, friends and people we already love, or is it really for every Human Being (dot, period)?
Being a therapist has taught me so much. Each new client shows me how they have come honestly by their difficulties, JUST LIKE ME and JUST LIKE YOU. Each one shows me how they adapted to less than perfect and sometimes traumatizing environments, and how brilliant their adaptations were. It's just that the adaptations that got them through don't work so well now; they get in the way of connection and feeling present. I try to meet each and every person with PLU. I am not perfect at it and never will be. But either everyone is deserving of PLU or no one is. Judgement never helped or changed anyone, despite how ubiquitous it is. But PLU helps everyone it comes into contact with---every time.
I want to be met with PLU and I want to offer it to others---if you get to know people deeply, you can't help but give it. At least, that is my experience and my belief. Gentleness, Compassion, Being Present, and PLU transform us---when we offer it to ourselves and to others. Let's bring this PLU front and center in this preposterous, upside-down time. Join me in bringing the PLU to every potluck! Let's carry PLU with us at all times (fits easily into a pocket); to sports events, classes, and workplaces everywhere. In fact, let's give it to strangers we meet everywhere we go. Let's try to see through the eyes of PLU when others are in need and are suffering. It's not just for family and friends, it is for all of us and IT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE!
TRUE N0RTH
Diane M. Hoekstra, PhD
Your True North, LLC
571.989.6100 X101