Peace of mind is the ever-elusive piece that we all seek. Everyone at some point must ask the question; How is it possible to have peace in this war-riddled world? More often than not, we answer that question with; It simply is not possible.
There is a reason for this. We place contingencies on having peace of mind. We inwardly believe that we can only have peace once certain things are in place. It goes like this; I will be at ease once I have my retirement in place, I will have peace when the kids are off to college or have another rental property. On and on it goes; there always needs to be something else. This seeking is driven by the deep internal rule of the ego. Seek and do not find.
The only thing that deserves our steadfast vigilance is peace of mind. Even if you do believe everything you just read, the question is still; How then is this possible? How do I attain peace of mind amid all the chaos in the world? The first part of the problem is the belief that there must be peace in the world to have peace in my mind. My co-workers, my spouse, my children, my spouse must behave as I need them to for me to have peace. As long as this is the forethought, peace of mind will stay just out of reach and be one more unattainable dream. We will never get the billions of people on this planet to act as we see fit. We will probably never get the people in our own house to behave as we deem necessary.
Some in our journey have come to the place where we want to help others have peace of mind. People learn from our actions, probably even more so than they do our words. We have to ask a straightforward question of ourselves; Is my life and the way I live it a demonstration of the peace I teach?
Peace of mind is an inside job. We will never attain it as long as we are basing it on the external world. I must come from within, and it must come amidst the chaos of the surrounding world. It is most helpful to teach what we are trying ourselves to learn. “We teach best what we most need to learn.”
It takes work, an open mind to the possibility of being wrong, honesty about the thoughts we hold onto that do not serve the goal, and a willingness to believe personal peace is possible even when all the evidence we see in the world says it is impossible. For me, it has taken a thorough investigation of all the thoughts I carried that founded in love. I have had to forgive; what most had told me was unforgivable, I had to learn to love, those that most said were unlovable, I have had to step outside the box of the old beliefs that made peace impossible. I have had to come to realize that I could change the old thoughts and replace them with new ones. It is challenging to find peace while holding on to how right we think we are about someone or something that we resent.
Forgiveness is the path to peace. Forgiveness, of ALL that we think, is in the way of our peace of mind.