Learn To Be At Peace With Yourself

Peace is one of the most important human experiences. If you do not have peace, then you are not able to appreciate whatever else you do have. In fact, you may not even be able to recognise the good in your life because you have not recognised the good in yourself, yet. Here are a few things that may be getting in your way:

Mistaking Peace for Unconsciousness

Sometimes people feel peaceful when they become very tired. Others think that peace is what you feel after having a few drinks or taking drugs. People use these substances, because they long for inner stillness and quiet. Being half asleep or desensitised by drugs or a few glasses of wine can keep you from feeling your anxiety, fear, anger, resentment or worry. But this relief only lasts a short time. That turmoil is still there because, peace is not unconsciousness. Peace is not being asleep or being numb. It is the opposite. It is a state of heightened aliveness, when we become more conscious rather than less. This requires an awareness of the kinds of thoughts that habitually go through your mind.

Mistake Peace for Happiness

Many people think of happiness as a goal, something you are working toward that will eventually make you feel good or at peace with your life. However, happiness is usually associated with a high that occurs when something nice happens. You feel happy when you get a new job or find a $100 bill on the street. You feel happy leaving for a vacation. But very often the vacation does not turn out the way it is supposed to, or it comes to an end.  Whilst on that vacation you only think about the problems you are going to find when you come back home. In all of these cases, the happiness is temporary. After a while it subsides, and then, quite often, you will even feel suddenly low. Because happiness is not peace.

Happiness is actually quite superficial, whereas peace is deeper. Peace is immune to the polarities of life, the highs and lows, the hot and cold, the so called good and bad times. This is why peace is so crucial. Nobody goes through life without encountering all these experiences, inspiring or upsetting. When someone close to you dies, you have a health problem or you lose your possessions, you probably cannot feel happy. Nobody could. But do you need to feel in absolute despair? Do you need to feel devastated? If you are at peace and connected with that deeper level in you, those kind of emotional extremes do not occur. You will have a calm that is not affected by whatever happens in the world, because you have an acceptance and understanding of whatever happens in the world.

Keep Looking Ahead or at the Past
All too often there is something that has not happened yet , or something that already has, which seems to prevent you from inner peace. There is the job you did not get or the job you lost. There is the child you have not had or the child that you used to be. But ultimately these are misperceptions, it is your mind keeping you from peace, especially the thoughts that you keep having.

The little voice in your head takes you away from what is happening now. You are out in some future moment where things might go wrong or you are trapped in the past where you are continuously replaying an old movie in your mind, about the time you failed a school examination or someone said something unkind. You are stuck, but you cannot see it. The movie feels like an absolute reality, and it keeps you from acknowledging or appreciating life as it is now. But it is not reality. You cannot see the present. You are too busy with where you want to be next, or where you were, which causes continual stress. The only solution is awareness,  that the voice in your head is really just repeating thoughts, no more, no less.

Straying Away from the Present Moment

Not only does your mind stray away from the calm of the present moment, it also judges and interprets such a moment, usually negatively. For example, pretend a co-worker has just received a promotion, the voice in your head says that you should have been given that promotion or that your boss just prefers that co-worker, even though you are the stronger candidate.

In this case and, most cases, it is not the external circumstance (not getting the job) that is making you unhappy but, what you are telling yourself about those circumstances ("It is not fair!"). In other words, your thoughts are making you unhappy. When you change this habit, you will stop resisting what is happening in your life. You can become friendly with the present moment and find an opening into the spiritual dimension. This is one of the most important spiritual practices in the search for peace. Old irritations, like being trapped in a traffic jam, are no longer upsetting or anxiety provoking. You become internally aligned with the reality of what is happening: You are in a car, you are not moving, that is all. You do not have a problem, right this second. You might even notice a mother singing to a child in a neighbouring car or the vibrant blue of the sky. You have become friendly with life itself, and with the experiences offered you everywhere.

Not Fully Trusting...Yet

There is an intelligence in the movement of life, which goes far beyond the limited intelligence of your thinking mind. This is the spirit. When you begin to trust in your spirit and life itself, you begin to feel a peace. You are no longer separate from that greater intelligence from which life unfolds, you are no longer to trying to get somewhere else or find something missing.

The old religious word for this kind of trust is "faith." Some Christians would say they have faith in God, some would say they have faith in a higher power, but whatever name people choose, they are talking about that which underlies all life. Peace comes from this trust. Peace comes from being aligned with the present moment. Wherever you are, you feel that you are home, because you are home.

With thanks to Eckhart Tolle and Oprah

 http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Why-Youre-Not-at-Peace-Yet-How-to-Find-Peace-Eckhart-Tolle/2