Occupy Your Heart Initiative: A movement for world Peace
Today’s world is shaped by division and constant noise, taking a toll on our well-being and making it easy to feel disconnected from each other.
Occupy Your Heart is a free global initiative inviting all to take a stand, not by choosing sides, but by choosing connection, compassion and community.
This direct appeal to the heart is an invitation to rise above it all and embody respect, dignity, belonging, freedom and collaboration for all.
When you join the Occupy Your Heart initiative, you will have access to inspiring events, conversations, and community experiences. Together, we will explore practical ways to:
- Build deeper human connection
- Navigate conflict with compassion and courage
- Strengthen emotional resilience
- Foster peace within yourself and your community
- Become part of a worldwide movement for positive change
True peace does not begin with politics or policy. It begins in the heart.
We can work together to restore what Joe Weston calls the “Global Heart” — one conversation, one connection, one courageous act of humanity at a time.
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Sign up for updates, upcoming events, and opportunities to be part of this global initiative.
"Nonviolence—and lasting peace—is a quality of the heart. They cannot be achieved through an appeal to the intellect."
Ways to
Get Involved
Lasting peace… one step at a time
Become a Heartwalker
Heartwalks are reflective, nonviolent walks through cities worldwide, tracing the shape of a heart. They create a welcoming space where people from all backgrounds—cultural, religious, and political—come together to connect rather than separate, dreaming collectively of peace, compassion, and equality.
These walks are not protests—they are celebrations of our shared humanity. Past events have included guided public meditations at the US White House and Occupy Oakland, and Heartwalks in cities such as Amsterdam, Shanghai, Milan, Jerusalem, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Denver.
The Occupy Your Heart initiative is a call to reclaim the power of our hearts as a force for positive change, especially during times of division.
It’s about choosing connection over conflict, fierce love over antagonism, and leading by example. By occupying your heart, you become a safe haven for others and a visible ambassador for peace.
Stay InformedA monthly global meditation for world peace
Global Heart Gathering
We cannot solve the complicated world problems with complicated solutions. We need simple solutions.
The Global Heart Gathering is a simple way to cultivate your personal practice. We gather monthly online to unite individuals worldwide in the vision of peace and compassion. Together, participants:
Offer support and honor those in pain
Sow seeds of healing and reconciliation
Develop resilience and fierce compassion
Reflect, release stress, and connect with a like-minded community
Every second Tuesday of the month, 12:00–1:00 ET. Free to attend via Zoom. Everyone is encouraged to join.
Through this collective practice, we aim to create peaceful solutions that respect the dignity of all beings. Together, we can create peace. 🌏💙
Stay Informed
Why Heartwalking?
Despite unprecedented global connectivity and technological advances, lasting peace cannot be achieved through intellect alone. It begins with the restoration of what Joe Weston calls the “Global Heart”—starting with each of us.
By transforming the habits, assumptions, and patterns that create separation, we can consciously reach out to others, even strangers, to rediscover their humanity—and our own. This requires patience, courage, compassion, and resilience, and a commitment to move from reactive division toward bridge-building and respectful encounter.
These gatherings are not protests against anything. They are a celebration of what binds us as human beings. And we celebrate that connection by walking a heart together.
New alliances can emerge in unexpected places, the sharp edges of polarization soften, and pathways for healing and reconciliation open.
Who is Joe Weston?
Founder Joe Weston began the Occupy Your Heart initiative with his first Heartwalk during the Amsterdam Marathon in 2003. Since then, thousands of peace movement builders and committed citizens have joined him in Heartwalks and public in-person and online meditations and gatherings around the globe.
Born in Queens, NY and witnessing conflict in his everyday environment, Joe grew a sense of determination to understand the roots of conflict and transform the experience. As a result, he embarked on a lifelong quest to live in other countries, explore human behavior across cultures and study communication models, martial arts and Tai Chi, meditation, neuroscience and somatic practices.
He built a 30+ year career in conflict prevention and communication, creating pathways for lasting peace throughout the world, from corporate innovators and government leaders to humanitarian organizations and conflict-impacted communities.
- Founder of The Weston Network, a hub for respectful, empowered communication.
- Founder of the nonprofit Fierce Civility Project, which equips individuals and communities to “un-divide the world.”
- Author of Mastering Respectful Confrontation and the Amazon bestseller Fierce Civility.
- TEDx Speaker on the topic of Chronic Niceness
Being in one’s heart is not some saccharine-sweet greeting card sentiment. It is a strategy that enables us to embody courage, wisdom, patience and skill in order to artfully and respectfully meet the challenges of our time, while bringing out the best in every one of us.
Walk with us. Stand with us. Occupy your heart—and together,
let’s un-divide the world.
