Inner Peace? Maybe it's Not What You Think

Inner peace seems to be the goal of any individual and why wouldn't it be, and when I say "inner peace" I'm not talking about some sort of crazy "live one the top of a mountain and exist on nothing but sunshine and rainbows" sort of thing. I'm simply talking about freeing yourself from that gnawing feeling that most of us carry around in the pit of our stomachs, that intense feeling of "something is wrong, but I don't know what it is" that we all experience on a daily basis. Most of us will blame it on something external from ourselves; we blame this feeling on a general lack of money, or the inability to spend our time doing what we sincerely want to do. We may even resign ourselves to the fact that we will always have that feeling, and that is part of life and that we should just "suck it up" and go along with the status quo.

I have an interesting point to make on this particular topic, and that point is that any anxious feelings that you have right now are not coming from anything outside of you. Now what do I mean by this? Simply put you choose each second of each day how you will feel, you choose each time you are presented with a situation how you will respond to that situation. Here is the boldest message I have for you when you are sad, angry, hurt, nervous, or any one of a myriad of negative emotions it is because you have chosen that emotion as a response to a particular stimulus. Whenever I share this statement with people it always elicits the same response, "but how can I be happy when (insert negative situation) is happening in my life?" and I always say the same thing, "I never said you had to be happy about it, I just said you didn't have to be sad/angry/hurt about it."

I have had people get very angry with me for sharing my thoughts with them on this, especially those who are currently passing through some sort of crisis in life, and there are reasons for that, there's a popular thought in society today that anger is a healthy thing, that if you don't let your anger out you will one day explode. But it is in fact much different than that, anger is not a healthy thing, and letting your raw emotion fly as anger is not helpful nor will it ever be so, modern day psychology will disagree with me but the ancient teachings that have been around and proven to work over hundreds and even thousands of years tell us that anger is not good, for example Confucius taught, "when anger rises, think of the consequences" and in Paul's Epistle to the Colossians we read, "But ye also put off these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy... " (Col 3:8). Now I'm not saying that it's good to hold the anger inside, I am saying that the existence of anger in you is unnecessary that it is an energy that you willingly take on when you encounter a certain experience, you have the ability to always choose your response, the only reason it feels like you have no control is because you have chosen anger as a response so frequently that it is now a habit, but it is still your choice. The same goes for sadness, nervousness, frustration and any other responses that you currently feel are out of your control.

The good news is you can change that choice, and make a better one; it's simple, but not always easy. The first thing you have to do is form the habit of asking yourself the following question before you respond to a situation that can potentially make you respond in a negative way. That question is, "Will responding in this way bring more peace to my life?" This step alone may change the way you do everything, because essentially you are doing as Confucius taught, you are thinking "of the consequences."

The next thing you can do is channel that energy another way. I believe that there is no negative energy that exists that cannot be converted into positive energy. Some of our most beautiful works of music have come from the composer taking what could have been negative energy and channeling that energy into creation of something so sublime that centuries later it is revered as a masterpiece. The suggestion here is to do the same; even something as simple as writing a letter that you will never send can pull that energy in another direction, go running, lift weights, write a poem, write a song, do anything that uses energy in a positive way. The worst possible thing you can do is sit and fester on that negative emotion, as that can only breed more negativity. Go out and do something and you will see that you do not have to respond to a negative situation with a negative response.

And lastly when you feel that uncomfortable feeling rising in your stomach you can make it go away, by doing something. I'm not suggesting that you forget about your responsibilities, just that you approach them with a different response in mind, when things are hard, as they often are you can either make them harder by reacting in your preconditioned way, or you can make them easier by responding with action. There is nothing on this earth that you cannot achieve, nothing!