People strive for many things in life. Some of these things might be financial, social, or even personal goals. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to accomplish your goals in these categories. In fact, I would highly encourage it. Accomplishing goals enriches your life and makes you a stronger person. There is something more important that you should focus on first. With this important subject, none of the other things that you accomplish will matter. The subject is inner peace.
What is inner peace?
There is a good chance that you heard the term inner peace. It is a term that’s commonly used in the media. People often have a general idea of inner peace. Often, it’s assumed that inner peace is peace coming from within oneself rather than from external sources. This isn’t a wrong assumption. There are far more details that go into it.
Here’s a more specific definition of inner peace. Inner peace is the state of being where the mind, body, and soul are pure, in sync, and work together in harmony. What is meant by pure? The definition of pure is the state of being free of contamination. In this context, the contaminants are the impurities of the mind, body, and soul. Impurities are usually negative emotions, thoughts, actions, words, and frequencies. Here are some of the main things that you can work on gaining inner peace.
Forgiveness
When it comes to obtaining inner peace, this is one of the most common obstacles that people often have to overcome. When someone is wronged, it is difficult to forgive. Naturally, most people want to return the wrongdoing to the offender. It isn’t uncommon to hold a grudge against the offender, which is a direct obstacle to inner peace. I am not stating that no one should be held accountable for what they do. I merely state that you can’t change what the offender did in the past. All you can do is find the best way to deal with the situation in the future.
As we saw from the previous articles, grudges can lead to physical and mental illnesses. If you hold a grudge, you won’t change anything in your life for the positive. The only thing that you’ll do is invite illnesses into your mind and body. People that master inner peace are indestructible because nothing in the external world can put a dent on their mind, body, and soul. How does forgiveness fit into this statement? First, let’s start with this question. What is forgiveness?
Forgiveness is the action of letting go of anger or resentment. If someone wronged you, this doesn’t mean that you have to be friends or hang out with them. This doesn’t even mean you have to talk to them anymore. In fact, it doesn’t even mean that you have to forget about what they did. It means that you shouldn’t hold on to anger or resentment about the cause of the source of the wrongdoing. If you master this skill, then others won’t be able to control you through your anger. No matter what they do, you’ll have peace. This is because peace comes from within. Anger actually comes from within, too. You can choose peace or you can choose anger. The goal is to never allow a person or situation to manipulate you into choosing anger.
If you are struggling with forgiveness, here is a good book that can help you on your journey of self improvement. I highly recommend that you purchase this book. You’ll find valuable information about learning how to use the power of forgiveness and how it can make a positive impact on your life and the lives of others.
Self Love and Self Care
Some people view self love and care as stroking the ego. This isn’t the case. There is a major difference between being egotistical and having confidence. People that are egotistical usually lack confidence within. The confidence that they appear to have comes from an external source rather than internally. This isn’t true confidence because if they lose that external source, then their ego is severely damaged. There are countless stories that were in the news of people that committed suicide because they lost all their money or their job. People often become depressed if they get rejected from a college they didn’t get into. Others gave up when they didn’t win a competition they competed in.
The reason that their lives took that turn was because they lost those external sources of confidence. If their confidence came from within, their self love would be untouchable. There is nothing wrong with striving for your goals or being proud of what your possessions or achievements, but you must realize that these things don’t make you a human being. Your worth as a human being isn’t based on your accomplishments or material objects. Your worth should come from the fact that you’re a human being that deserves respect like everyone else.
On the flip side, low confidence isn’t good either. People that lack confidence usually undercut themselves. They usually think that they don’t deserve good things even if they did nothing wrong. They fabricate or exaggerate any excuse on why they can’t or won’t even try to achieve their goals and get what they want. Since they have this mindset, they typically become targets for people to take advantage of them. These are typically the people that get underpaid in jobs, get abused in relationships, and fail to take opportunities that come their way.
The best way to exclude these problems is by having self confidence. If you want your confidence to come from within, realize that suffering is a guaranteed part of life. Life isn’t always going to be great. You’ll win and lose some battles. This is true for everyone. That means you are no worse than anyone else. Change is an essential part of the universe. Nothing says the same. You might be in an unpleasant situation now, but you won’t be in it forever. Just as your good times ended one day, your bad times will too. Basing your self worth on something that is temporary is illogical.
Connect with Nature
One of the best places to go to work on the development of inner peace is in nature. If you want to develop inner peace, choose a day with fit weather to head to the woods or a park. When you’re at a park or hiking through the woods, you’ll notice that there isn’t the noise pollution that runs rampant through cities, towns, and even some neighborhoods. Noise pollution invades the mind and makes it difficult to think.
If you’re in a natural environment, then that issue will be eliminated. Since you’ll be in a quiet environment, you’ll be able to use the time for some self reflection. Self reflection is something that many people rarely want to attempt or even think to consider entirely. Some people that choose to reflect on themselves make excuses about their errors and try to blame it on everyone but themselves. This way of thinking destroys the self reflection process, rendering it a waste of time.
Many people see self reflection as a weakness, but it’s actually a strength. Many benefits come from studying your faults. One can’t improve if they don’t know what they have to improve on. While in nature, you’re able to think without distractions and discover your faults. Once you pick out these faults, write them down. Once that step is done, you can work on developing solutions to your faults. The more personal struggles that you overcome, the closer you’ll get to achieving inner peace.
I’m not saying that all of your personal struggles have to be solved to achieve inner peace, because there’s no such thing as a perfect human being. We always have something to work on. This helps you achieve inner peace because it builds up confidence. As we saw earlier, confidence that’s rooted from within is an important factor in the development of inner peace.
Hold Yourself Accountable
We saw that inner peace requires mastering the power of forgiveness. The opposite is true too. When you are the one that made the mistake or wronged someone, it is important that you own up to it. People often struggle with this skill just as much, if not more, than forgiveness. We are all born with an ego. Naturally, we want to be the right one in situations and will fight to prove it.
Unfortunately, the fact is that there isn’t a perfect human being. This is an undeniable fact and the ego can’t change that. There were multiple times in history where a human being was worshiped as perfect and proceeded to let down the followers. If you want inner peace, you’ll have to fight against the ego. If it’s your goal to be in the right all the time, then you’ll never reach a state of peace. You’ll be stuck in a state of chasing an unobtainable goal.
The best thing to do to overcome this obstacle is to accept that no human being is perfect, including yourself. When a situation happens where either you or the other person is in the right or wrong, do not jump to the conclusion that you’re in the right. It is tempting to claim being in the right because the ego pushes you to do it. Ignore the ego. Don’t view the situation in first or second person. View the situation in third person. Don’t assume you or the other person is in the right or wrong. Picture yourself as a non biased bystander watching the situation.
After viewing the situation from a third person perspective, meditate on what happened. Write a list on who, how, what, where, when, and why the situation occurred. Read your list and come up with a conclusion. If you are in the wrong, ask for their forgiveness and make sure that you avoid making that error again. If you’re in the right, then either confront or avoid the person who wronged you. There isn’t one way to deal with someone that wronged you. There are too many situations for a set answer. Analyze the situation and judge accordingly. Just make sure that you forgive them. That’s the only guaranteed action that you should take when dealing with someone that wronged you.
Change and Nature is Essentially the Same Thing
It is human nature to be comfortable with life and society if you’ve been living a certain way for a while. The problem is that nothing stays the same for eternity. The universe is in a constant state of motion. Molecules are constantly vibrating. The equation E=MC^2 is a good example of this. It is true that there is a set amount of matter in the universe. The amount of matter in the universe doesn’t change, but it is constantly rearranging. Atoms which are the very essence of nature will continuously rearrange.
There isn’t anything wrong with living a certain lifestyle, but it is important to always remember that events happen that are outside of our control. If you have a good job that allows you to afford an affluent lifestyle, it is important to not believe that you’re invincible. You might get laid off for a reason outside of your control, the company might close, an epidemic might happen causing loss of jobs. Be thankful for what you have, but don’t take it for granted. Understand that your lifestyle can change at any second.
If you want inner peace, you have to accept that one day your life won’t be the same as it is now. It may change for the better or worse. You must understand that this is the nature of the universe and there is nothing wrong with that. The only thing that really matters is how you respond to situations that you’re confronted with.
The best way to get yourself into this frame of mind is by not having too many attachments. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be grateful for what you have. In fact, I’m saying that you should be grateful for what you have because one day you might not have it. Live in the moment but know a future is coming. The less external mental dependencies that you have, the closer you’ll be at obtaining inner peace.
If it’s your goal to develop and strengthen your inner peace, then these are some of the key topics that you should focus on. This is a good way to start your journey of discovering inner peace. If you’re currently working on obtaining inner peace, let me know in the comments below.