There are many ways to achieve a state of inner peace, tranquillity and harmony within ourselves although the road to doing so can be long and arduous. Some people find it in religion, others in the likes of yoga and meditation and there is a whole raft of other outlets which people will turn to in order to feel at peace with themselves and with the world around them.
People who often turn to the kinds of methods mentioned will often be looking for an even deeper sense of inner harmony and a total awareness of themselves and their place in the world but on a fundamental level, it all begins with us feeling that something is amiss from our lives and that our lives are, somewhat, out of kilter with the world around us.
Identifying What Might be Wrong
The first step to working towards finding our inner peace is to try to seek the answers as to what is causing us not to feel peaceful and tranquil. You may be troubled by issues relating to your health, career, relationships, family, finances, the world around you and you might not even feel comfortable in your own skin. The important thing is to analyse these areas of your life and identify which areas aren’t working for you.
Once you’ve done that, the next step is to respond compassionately and not beat yourself up over what’s gone wrong with any certain aspect of your life. A compassionate response and accepting your feelings, even if they are negative feelings at present form the initiation process into the healing stage.
Quietly contemplate the areas where you do not feel at peace and think of how that makes you feel. Deep breathing exercises whilst you’re doing this can help you to focus and give you clarity of thought. Allow yourself to feel any emotion that washes over you. It could be pain, frustration, grief, anger or disappointment but it’s important that you allow yourself to feel these emotions and to identify what each of them is connected to.
Once you’ve done this, breathe deeply again and allow yourself to feel loved and accepted for whoever you are right there and then. Consciously adopt a sense that you are breathing in peace and as you draw strength from the peaceful feelings you’ll experience, breathe out any fear, confusion, insecurity or any negative emotion which has been troubling you. These initial simple steps will be the beginning of you walking along a path of renewal towards finding peace and inner harmony.
Personal Acceptance
It’s important that we accept ourselves for who we are with all our strengths, weaknesses and limitations which each and every one of us has. Too often our struggles begin with low self-esteem and we feel inferior because we imagine falsely that we should conform to some kind of stereotype. Remember though that we are all unique with unique individual talents and special qualities. Be proud of those qualities and skills and nurture and cultivate them regularly. By suppressing them, you’ll be denying yourself the inner peace you most crave.
Live a balanced life. Balance the hurly burly of day to day life with some time spent regularly each day in a tranquil setting where you can simply reflect on the day’s events in the form of a ‘peace break’. Remember to make time for play as well as for work and to also factor in enough time for restful sleep too.
Make mindful choices in life. So many things we choose to do, say or buy are the result of us being caught amidst a busy life where we’ve little time to ponder our words and actions before we say or take them. Take time to reflect on how you feel about something you may wish to say or do before you do it and ask yourself is it healthy, is it positive, is it necessary and will it bring greater peace to my life.
False Happiness
Unfortunately, most of us experience unhappiness and a lack of inner peace as we have become confused or are simply ignorant about what happiness and peace are. We tend to believe that possessions and external factors such as money, friends, cars, houses etc. are the real causes to make us happy and we are driven, almost to the point of self destruction, to acquire these possessions yet to find that the type of happiness and gratification we get in acquiring them is only fleeting and temporary before we have to do it all over again to get our next happiness ‘fix’.
The fact of the matter is that happiness and peace come from the inside. If our mind is at peace we will be happy all of the time regardless of the influence of external factors.
We are all entitled to feel at peace and in harmony with ourselves and the world around us but it does take some working at. Once we examine ourselves and put into practice some of the things we have learned many of us go on to explore this even more deeply through the likes of meditation, yoga, tai chi and through exploring other religious beliefs.
