The path to peace seems to elude many people throughout life, myself included. There may be moments of peace experienced in one’s life in which we consciously reflect on the fact that we are undergoing this transaction of harmony within ourselves. However, the question begging to be asked is, “How long does that inner peace last?”.
It depends on your journey and where you are in life. For some, peace is almost illusory. One moment it seems to appear before them and as they tighten their hand in an attempt to grasp it it slips away, like a mirage. For others, they’ve found a way to instill peace within their lives and to hold onto it regardless of their situations or circumstances.
When it comes down to it:
Peace Is a Mindset
“Everything hangs on one’s thinking. A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.”
Seneca
My article from last week, Stop Magnifying Your Problems, delves into the topic of the thinking/ feeling mind and body phenomenon that makes up our human experience. It goes in-depth into the why and how we think and feel the way we do based on the work and research done by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
Dispenza’s work, however, isn’t a new idea. Spiritual teachers across various religions and traditions have spoken about the power of the mind throughout the millennia.
Unfortunately, as I wrote in another article, We Are But a Breath, our society, the “Western” society lives by the credo “I think therefore I am” as famously stated by René Descartes. This, however, seems to be counter to our actual experience.
We do not “Think” ourselves into being. Instead, we show up on the planet as a result of being born human and undergo the process of thinking as a result. We are therefore we think.
Throughout the ages, spiritual teachers have taught how to control one’s mind and use it as a means to direct one’s life, as opposed to allowing the adventures of life around you to hijack your consciousness and do it for you.
The path to peace, therefore, is simply understanding how to orient yourself in a way so that you make conscious decisions on how you act and respond to whatever circumstances or situations you may find yourself in.
Actively engaging in consciousness on a regular basis, meaning; you watch and control your thoughts instead of letting them control you is how you find peace.
In my journey, I struggled to find peace for a very long time. I was angry, depressed and anxious, bitter and resentful at moments. I felt lost and hopeless as if I didn’t have a say in how my life progressed, whether in the physical or emotional realms.
I was a ship without a rudder being tossed to and fro by the waves, which filled my mind with worry, doubt, fear, and all sorts of insecurities that I couldn’t seem to get a handle on.
Regardless of which direction I turned, there seemed to be insurmountable obstacles standing in my way.
Nothing seemed to ease the pain.
Thoughts of suicide plagued me for many years.
It seemed like the only way to find some semblance of solace. Some form of rest.
Although I knew I would no longer struggle with the emotional disturbances I continually dealt with, I also knew suicide wasn’t the way out.
In the three separate moments in which I almost took my own life, and in subsequent thoughts over the course of a decade, my logical mind would kick in and remind me that even if I eliminated the suffering I was experiencing on this plane of existence, it would only cause additional suffering for those I left behind.
Losing someone is never easy. I didn’t want to put my family and friends through that torment and leave them holding the bag of suffering in my place just so I could escape my own pain.
Everyone Desires More Peace
A few have achieved their own eternal peace built up from within, but sadly, most still haven’t found a way to accept life as it comes to them. Most people continue to run around searching for meaning and purpose, joy, harmony, love, and happiness.
Running from one experience to the next seems to be the defining action most of us take as we search for that next dopamine hit that will temporarily make us feel good.
Escapism is a burgeoning economy throughout the world. We latch on to anything that makes us forget how miserable we feel inside.
Yet, in doing so, we merely prolong our experience of suffering by putting it off until we reach those moments when it stands there staring us down, nose to nose. At which point we turn and run attempting to find something, anything that will distract us from the fact that suffering is on our heels hunting us down.
Maybe if we run hard enough and fast enough we can outrun our misery and suffering. In my experience, it didn’t matter how fast or how far I ran, when I turned to look behind me, suffering was there.
When I “arrived” at my escapism destination, suffering was silently waiting.
Over several years, I began to understand more and more that it was my choice to suffer or not.
I began to embrace the idea that it doesn’t matter where I go, or what I do, if I don’t have my mind right, then suffering will stand beside me like the closest of friends.
Eventually, I started to realize how all the running and blaming, conniving, and hiding wasn’t the answer.
As Epictetus said,
“Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace”
Epictetus
As I began to embody this idea more and more, as I began to understand that I have the choice to change my thoughts, behaviors, and actions, I began to experience more peace.
I was no longer being blown around on the whim of circumstances and situations. There was clarity on how to live life in a state of peace and joy.
The path to peace seemed to be opening up to me, and surprisingly, much quicker than I ever thought possible.
Letting Go Is the Key
I wish I could have understood this concept much sooner, but alas, I did not. In this case, ignorance was not bliss.
Over time as I’ve been slowly learning and growing, as well as practicing how to consciously direct my thoughts, peace has been flooding my life as never before.
Of course, there are still days where my knee-jerk reactions throw my peace off balance, but the recovery time is much quicker.
Nearly instantaneous in some cases.
I attribute this to the fact that I have been working on this for years. I have been actively working to let go. To let go of all my doubts, fears, and insecurities. The more comfortable I get in releasing them, the easier life becomes. I don’t tend to hold onto much anymore, not nearly in the sense that I used to.
Though as I mentioned, I’m not perfect, far from it. Yet the fact that I no longer feel depressed and rarely anxious is a huge testament to where I came from, where I currently am in my journey, and where I’m going.
How Does This Relate to You?
I firmly believe that all of us can learn how to control our minds. The problem is we haven’t been taught how to do this. Our school systems don’t teach emotional self-awareness.
They don’t teach us how to step back from a situation and choose an appropriate, conscious response, notice I didn’t say reaction.
Reactions are unconscious responses born out of fear, anger, insecurity, hurt, etc. They aren’t necessarily bad either. Sometimes we need an immediate reaction to certain situations.
However, many of our reactions are unjustified because they’re born from hurt feelings or a bruised ego. The majority of our reactions come from a lifetime of watching others react the way they do, which only trains us to follow suit.
If we want to see a real change, we have to be the ones to make the change.
Continually pushing change off onto someone else, and blaming them for your problems, will only keep you bound in a prison constructed from your own mind.
Freedom cannot be found there.
Radical acceptance that you are the one to blame is where you begin to find the freedom you’re looking for.
It’s not what somebody else did. It’s not your circumstances.
You can’t go at this from an outside-in mentality. You have to approach this from an inside-out mentality.
Change who you are inside. Change your emotional response. Change how you interact with the world.
When you begin to do this, suffering begins to dissipate and peace begins to enter.
Interestingly enough, all the spiritual teachers are right. The pain of the world still exists. Your problems don’t magically disappear, and yet, you don’t seem to be as affected by them as you used to.
Change Can Be Hard
Many people search for peace but do not find it. Many struggle to fill their lives with worldly things hoping to find peace. Money, houses, cars, vacations, video games, movies and television, relationships, etc.
These items in and of themselves are neither good nor bad, they are just things. Yet if we rely on them to fulfill us, then we don’t learn how to deal with the underlying issues because we continue to cover the problems with our band-aide escapism solutions.
Learning to change takes time. We have programmed ourselves to think and feel the way we do, usually, over the course of many years.
How long have you been writing with your dominant hand?
If you were forced to use your other hand to write for the rest of your life, how long would it take for you to write as fluently with your less dominant hand as you do with your dominant one?
Working out can illustrate the same point whether you’re attempting to lose weight or gain muscle mass.
If you’ve lived life at a certain weight, without doing anything to alter your physicality, how long will it take to lose the weight you want to lose or gain the muscle you want to gain?
Answering these questions is dependent on how much time, effort, and energy you put into these various tasks.
The same goes for your mental and emotional life.
I spent close to ten years learning how to overcome depression and anxiety. It took this long because, at the outset, I floundered. I was stuck in and struggled through my old mindset.
In the beginning, the amount of actual work I put into overcoming these issues was minimal. At the time, I didn’t understand that I could even get better.
Realistically speaking, I was just looking for something to ease the suffering. Now I realize I could have overcome depression and anxiety much quicker if I had been focused, had a plan, and stuck to it.
Even when I did have a plan and was sticking to it, it wasn’t easy. I wanted to quit so many times. I wanted to lie down and give in to my circumstances. Just go back to blaming and complaining about how life wasn’t fair.
What a waste of time that would have been.
There were moments when I did that, albeit briefly, and in those moments I knew that if I stayed there it would mean the end for me.
How could I continue living that way for the next 30 – 40 years of my life? Such misery! Such suffering!
Instead, I picked myself back up.
I decided that I had to finish this race.
When I look back, there isn’t a definite or defining moment that I can point to and say, “Ah, that’s when it all turned around for me.”
There were no real mile markers along the way.
Sometimes I would experience bouts of respite from my usual thinking and feeling, and those moments were the revelation that something was happening to me, that somehow I was changing.
Revelation after slow revelation, grasping onto them for dear life and implementing the actions that led me to more and more of them eventually opened me up to freedom.
Freedom Usually Comes at a Cost
In religion, freedom comes at the sacrifice of one’s self. You put on hold the desires of your mind and heart for something greater than you.
In business, freedom comes at the sacrifice of one’s self. You sacrifice your time and energy to build or create the dream you have to be successful.
In relationships, freedom comes at the sacrifice of one’s self. You often put your wants and desires on hold to foster a relationship that will hopefully bring a sense of fulfillment.
In exercising or getting into shape, freedom comes at the sacrifice of one’s self. You sacrifice time and energy, foods you love, and binge eating, and you swap comfort for sore muscles.
In overcoming your mind, freedom comes at the sacrifice of one’s self. You dedicate your time and energy to counter old thought patterns and paradigms and replace them with the thoughts and paradigms of the person you want to become.
Millions of people over the ages have sacrificed their very lives to help various people groups find freedom.
If you want freedom from whatever you’re struggling with. It will come at a cost.
The question is, do you want freedom badly enough to pay the price?
There are things you can begin to do today as a way to find freedom.
You can use any of these items on this list to start your journey. You can find other ways not listed here to move you out of your comfort zone and into the life you want to live.
- Meditation
- Cold showers
- Exercise (walking, running, swimming, weight lifting, bicycling, etc.)
- Reading inspiring books
- Following people on social media who are where you want to be (Watch out for scams, there are plenty out there)
- Therapy
- Breathwork
- Staying present with your thoughts as you go through your day (Being conscious of your unconscious thinking)
- Journaling
These are just a small number of things to try. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide how you want to move forward on your journey. For me, I did all of these things, plus a few others not on the list. Most of them I did in congruence with the others.
I was trying to hit it from all angles. The further along in my journey, the more I did and the easier it became.
You will have moments when you want to quit. Don’t.
If you start this process and feel like quitting, come back here and read through my writings. The whole point of me writing these newsletters and articles is to encourage you to continue on.
It doesn’t matter what your issue is either. My major issues were depression and anxiety, yours may be something else. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter what it is because we are all emotional beings and we all need to learn how to get a grip and handle on our emotions.
When you feel like you are going to falter, come back and read through these writings and encourage yourself.
That’s one of the main things that has kept and still keeps me going. I am constantly reminding myself that I can become who I want to be, and that usually comes as a result of reading or listening to someone else who has overcome challenges in their own life. It comes from learning about how people became successful at whatever it is they’re successful at, across all walks of life.
Believe in yourself. You have what it takes inside of you. When you fall, make yourself stand back up. Maybe it takes a day. Maybe it takes two. Maybe it will take a week. It doesn’t matter, just get back up and keep going.
I hope this encourages you to fight for the freedom you deserve.
Be sure to share this message with someone else and let’s learn how to change ourselves from within so that we can change the world without.
Much love to you all.
Josiah
