Unlike most of our external circumstances, we do have control over how we see our inner experiences. Those that do not believe this, have offered themselves to fate.

This point is very well explored in Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning, but today I want to focus on using this capacity to give ourselves peace.

We could explore the logic of this, but a guided exercise can put the proof in the pudding. Give this a try to see what I mean:

• Take a person, idea, trait or event that you do not accept in some way, that causes you some distress.
• Go over the usual reasons for why you see them or it this way.
• Now, try balanced breathing for a couple of minutes (it’s very nice!), all you do is get relaxed and breathe in and out to the count of 6–8 seconds, whatever suits you.
• After doing this for 2 minutes, come back to the person, idea, or event, and say to yourself ‘I am open to seeing this in a new way and know that it will not cause me to harm to do so’.
• Stay relaxed and expand the possibilities of how and why this unacceptable area exists, is there anything positive that you can see about it? What can you learn from this and yourself? Explore this for as long as you want.

You’ll likely find yourself pleasantly surprised with what happened! Did you find over the course of this exercise that the negative charge was alleviated? It partly comes from relaxing ourselves, as well as expanding the scope of our understanding which goes hand in hand with acceptance.

You can apply this exercise to yourself and the wider world as needed. I hope that it is useful, if you’d like, you can stick around for an exploration of the nature of peace.

The Nature of Peace

If we think of anything that disturbs us, at the root, it is because we want it to be other than what it is.

It is a common defense mechanism to project this disturbance outward, as in: ‘they made me feel this way’, or ‘I wish X was Y’. This sleight of hand diminishes our sense of self-responsibility and self-control, which keeps up the illusion that the external world is disturbing our peace.

Really our attitude is disturbing our peace! This is hard to swallow, I found it hard too. I’m no master of peace, but I have experienced enough of it to know how it works and what we can do to cultivate it further.

Finally, in the exercise notice how the inner state affected the quality of thought and attitude towards the object of your consideration. This again points to peace coming from within, not from without. If you adopt peaceful practices, you will become more peaceful and find it easier to find peace in the face of worldly events. Peace is an inner potential.

Getting to a zen-like peace is a journey. On the way, we can establish healthy and respectful boundaries, continually forget and then remember our space for compassion, and keep expanding our understanding of how things are, thus liberating ourselves from assumptions and narrowness in the process.

I hope this can help you to make further progress toward the peace that you deserve — it is always available and waiting to embrace you.

Kyle