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When was the last time you have experienced a lasting feeling of peacefulness? And by that, I not only mean peace with others but peace within yourself.
The feeling of having no conflicts in your life, no unfinished discussions, no pending uncomfortable decisions, no urge for validations of any kind.
When was the last time you have felt the sweetness of true peace?
What is True Peace?
Finding true peace is recognizing that you don’t need to fight. It is about giving up the outer and inner conflict.
True peace is not just about making peace but no longer having the need for making peace. You only need to make peace when there is a conflict to begin with.
Finding true peace is less about searching and then discovering it but rather about recognizing that it’s here all the time. All it takes is a decision.
Although it seems hard, it can be easier than we’d like to acknowledge.
Yet, at the same time, there are a few roadblocks that often trip us up. The best and most elegant way to overcome those is to be aware of them when they appear.
5 Hurdles to Finding True Peace
Following are the hurdles you have to recognize. Whenever you are aware of them when they occur, you are one step closer to true peace.
Defending Your Opinion
This is something all of us are familiar with. You are talking about a topic with another person or a group and there are several opinions in the room.
And without you being aware of how it happened you find yourself in a debate about who’s right and who’s wrong. This is especially common when the topic is important to you.
Maybe you intended to just state your opinion but because someone disagreed, you have an urge to defend your position. This is the exact moment where you surrender your inner peace for the need of winning an argument.
Your smaller self wants to convince you that winning an argument is a good feeling.
If you ever had the experience of winning an argument, however, you know that it doesn’t feel as good as you thought it would.
Despite having “successfully” defended your position, the other person is now secretly resenting you. You have invited conflict into your life.
The tragic thing is that most of us know that the juice of winning an argument is not worth giving up the peace with yourself or other people. Yet, when another situation wants to test our knowledge, we usually fall back into the same behavior.
The reason is that we have identified so deeply with our opinions and preferences that it’s hard to dissociate our being from them.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t state your opinion. It means to state your opinion but not fight anyone about it.
More so, we all know that when we try to convince someone about something they usually just get stronger in their opinion. So, defending your opinion is not only fruitless but also counterproductive.
If your goal is peace, happiness, and good relationships, arguing and defending is not the best way to go about it.
Whenever you are about to emotionally defend your opinion step back and ask yourself if this is really necessary.
What do you hope to gain from it? Will this reaction cost you your peace of mind?
Don’t hold on too tightly to your opinions and keep an open mind when hearing other opinions. You’ll be surprised how much more you’ll learn in conversations with others when you don’t just try to defend your views.
Trying to Please Others and Yourself
How often have you tried to make it right for someone just to see someone else disliking what you did?
Pleasing others is a habit that is in the way of finding inner peace because as soon as you have started there is no end to it.
It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. Good luck with that.
The basis of pleasing others is caring what others think. We have been conditioned to always look out for what others are doing and hoping that what we are doing is ok with them.
But honestly, it’s none of your business what other people think, and I mean this in the nicest way possible.
Think about all the worries and restless times you had, pondering if this one person thinks you are weird because you said something in a certain way.
Is this really how you want to live?
Finding inner peace is about going inside and being peaceful from there. It’s not about rearranging your environment and the people around you, so nothing triggers your negative emotions.
Now here comes a controversial statement: Don’t try to please yourself either.
The reason I say this is because the person we are trying to please inside is never going to be satisfied. You give him one thing, he wants another, you give him the next thing, now he wants something else.
This doesn’t mean to ditch all your goals and desires, it just means to develop unconditional inner peace.
Every time your inner voice demands something from you, trying to convince you that you need it for your happiness, ask yourself if this is not really an escapism tactic.
Perhaps what you are doing by following this demand, for instance going to the fridge even though you are not hungry, is avoiding your emotions.
Whenever you feel an inner demand ask yourself if you are avoiding an emotion right now.
If you are not, well then feel free to follow the demand.
Develop the habit to reflect if your actions are aligned with what you are about or if you are pleasing others (or yourself) for a temporary ego boost or to avoid negative emotions.
Avoiding Your Emotions
I have briefly touched upon this point earlier but here I want to get deeper into the subject of avoiding your emotions.
The main reason why you are not experiencing deep inner peace is that it’s clouded by undigested emotions.
You see, whenever you suppress, repress or escape an emotion you are not getting rid of it.
You are just pushing those emotions out of your conscious mind. And now they are lingering in your subconsciousness where they can harm you on the physical and mental level.
Feeling negative emotions is uncomfortable, especially those that you have avoided for a long time. But when you allow them to be there without trying to change them, you will see that they can’t hurt you.
What’s more, is that by letting them be as they are the energy behind them will change.
Your fear might turn into anger, which then turns into pride, which then turns into acceptance, and finally, all that’s left is peace.
Finding true peace is about surrendering to your inner experience.
Shine the light of awareness on all the emotions you experience and you will see your life transform.
By allowing yourself to feel the emotions, thoughts will get less as they are often the result of suppressed emotions. Hence, your mind will become much more silent and a sense of peace will prevail.
Whenever something triggers an emotional response, see it as an opportunity to observe your emotions instead of reacting.
Accept that the emotions are inside you, not out there. No one else is responsible for your emotions.
Oh and changing the environment so nothing is there to trigger you is a fruitless exercise. The emotional triggers are always around you.
The question is how ready are you to embrace your emotions when they are triggered?
Having an Overactive Conscience
“You don’t need conscience when you have consciousness; you don’t need conscience when you have sensitivity.” — Anthony De Mello, Awareness
This might be controversial to some, but having a conscience is overrated.
How do you know if your actions are right or wrong you ask?
Well, when you have awareness there is no question about what’s right or wrong anymore.
We like to justify our self-inflicted suffering by telling ourselves that it has an altruistic motive. Yet, by doing so we create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Our inner peace is constantly disturbed by something that we think is necessary for being able to care about other people.
Here is something to consider: You don’t need a conscience when you have awareness.
When you increase the awareness in your life, you’ll be aware of your thoughts, emotions, and actions; which includes “bad” behavior.
This will also make you realize that every “bad” behavior was done out of unawareness, out of naiveté.
You did what you thought was right at that moment. If you had been aware that your actions are not aligned with your morals and values, you would have acted differently.
When you internalize this you’ll know that there is no need for conscience and the resulting feelings of guilt.
You are already aware that you are unsatisfied with your action so why keep beating the drum about it?
Every time you feel guilty, first, feel the feelings and allow them to be there. Second, let this be the trigger to remind yourself to be more aware next time.
Because we like stories with a proper end, you can end this internal drama with a concluding remark such as: “My action was done out of unawareness and that’s ok. I’ll do my best to be more aware next time.”
Being Overly Critical
Critical thinking is a valuable skill, but it becomes a crutch when it turns into judgment about yourself and others.
Being too critical is a hindrance to inner peace because it leads to doubt. And as soon as you start to doubt yourself, others, and the world a lot, inner conflict will arise.
If you pride yourself on having a critical attitude, you might be paying the price of lacking peace of mind.
Being critical about concepts, ideas, beliefs, and so on is usually less problematic. Then come other people, which is a little bit more problematic but still not too bad.
But the one thing we are most critical about, and which leads to the most inner turmoil, is ourselves. It’s fair to say that each of us is his own worst critic.
While your friends and family primarily see your good attributes, you primarily pay attention to the bad ones.
I have grappled with being too critical about myself for a long time.
What helped tremendously in silencing the inner critic is the decision that my happiness and inner peace are more important than the harsh evaluation of my personality.
Then, whenever the critic arose again I made a game of it.
I invited him onto my mental red carpet. This might seem like you are enabling the critic but it actually has the opposite effect.
What you do is giving this part of yourself a separate identity. Then you can disidentify from it and observe it more objectively.
Eventually, you’ll no longer take the remarks by your inner critic personally and he’ll appear less and less.
This is also true regarding other people. I know, dealing with people can be difficult.
Yet by giving others the benefit of the doubt and giving your best to see good intentions in them, your understanding of others will improve.
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When you embrace the mindset that you and everyone else are giving their best in each moment you’ll relax a little more.
In the end, it all comes down to being gentle with yourself and others. And who knows, by being more gentle, you might find true peace along the way.
“True peace of mind can be obtained only when one is personally awakened to the stark-naked fact that every effort is ultimately in vain.” — Zenkei Shibayama
Luka
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