The seasons are beginning to shift, gradually going inward. Yet, even in this transition, many of our lives may not reflect that inward rest and reset flow of nature.
We may not get the chance to hibernate or tend to the settling energies of the summer months. Our everyday lives often still require us to be do, go, strategize, connect, and create with rest remaining on the seemingly distant horizons.
In recently moving to New York City, I set an intention: to move at my own pace.
Everyone always talks about the rush of NYC and just about any big city. This place is basically a gigantic battery, powering dreams, money, ideas, and more.
But if you’re not careful, New York can chew you up and spit you out beaten, battered, and burnt out.
There’s endless things to do here, endless people to meet and places to see. Yet, with its almost 10 million population, it’s possible to still set your own pace and be your own peace.
When we’re constantly looking to other people to be the peace for us, we may be met with resistance, confusion, or disappointment. Just like how you’re navigating through a mass of feelings, thoughts, and expectations daily, so are the very people you may seeking peace in.
In truth, that’s quite the task to put on them just as it would be quite the task for someone to place onto you.
Yet, in this outer searching, something is masked — the fact that what you’re yearning for is the peace within yourself. This is a call for accountability, beckoning you to learn how to meet and be the internal peace you seek.
A journey to (re)finding the peace you seek
Truth be told, it won’t always be easy.
If you’re used to constant stress, it make take some time to even recognize the feeling, visual, and overall essence of peace.
And even after you get a hang of the practice of being your own peace, you won’t erase all feelings of unease, but you will have more trust in yourself that you can return to your own peace with clearer insight and ease.
The key here is that it’s 100% possible to be your own peace.
Just like with any skill or muscle, if you want to build it, you have to work it out consistently. If you know that taking more time to yourself would be the key to solving your creative problems or keep you from perpetual burnout, then the mission is clear: create space to cultivate peace.
Let’s first define peace
In it’s noun form it means freedom from disturbance; tranquility. If we use it as an action (verb) we have “at peace”, meaning free from anxiety or distress. We also have “making peace” which means to become reconciled or to re-establish friendly relations.
In my practice, I’ve had to learn to first make peace with myself, my decisions, my past, that I can’t control it all, and the simple fact that I was addicted to stress.
I had to make peace with the fact that I found joy in using people as distractions from the real work, which was to learn to feel safe, calm, and at peace in my own body.
It started with a lot of sitting with myself, reflection, and acknowledgment — the very things I didn’t really want to do.
Because then, I’d have to admit that all the this seeking outside of myself for validation (which I thought would bring me peace) or love from others (which I also thought would solve my problems, boost my self-worth, and, consequently, bring me peace) were all false ideas.
I learned to find peace in…
- Nature — the wind in the trees, the rushing of water, the buzzing of the bees.
- Routines — waking up daily to sit on my mat and move my body even if it was just 5 or 10 minutes. I had to believe that my brain and body deserved the time to be with itself and no one else.
- Spaciousness — the time in between things that I often wanted to fill with scrolling on social media or checking my DMs or my inbox because ew boredom (which is actually great for you) and believing that someone else giving me attention or opportunities would bring me peace.
- Breath — being the anchor of my life and existence, for without breath, I’d be 6 feet under.
- The unknown — since worrying myself sick (literally) wasn’t going to get me any closer to peace or the things I thought would bring me peace. Instead, I had to learn how to trust myself, my intuition, God, and the unknown working out in my favor.
- My own power — as realizing that I can indeed control my reality, being my reactions and responses to my own emotions. That I, in fact, have the power to (re)create my reality, my sense of self, my perceptions and expectations through sheer will, focus, and feeling (with of course action dribbled in).
- My sensitivities and feelings — it’s a wild gift to be able to feel so deeply. We are sentient (feeling) beings after all. And time and again I’ve realized that I can’t think myself through it all. That actually, when I give myself time to feel, I begin to acknowledge my body and the energies that are ready to move, rather than running from the first plight of discomfort or fear. When I started doing this, I realized that there is nothing to fear; that instead peace lies beneath the allowance to feel.
In this, you realize that peace is more than a feeling, it’s a state of being — the state of being that you naturally exist at. For a crashing wave knows not to be anything else other than a collection of water droplets that crash time and again.
There is peace in that knowing, in that flow, in that allowance.
So why would I take something that is me naturally away from myself?
Peace lies in radically accepting yourself and knowing that it is okay to be wrong, or to fail, or to love, or be right.
It’s in the acceptance that you can’t and probably shouldn’t control it all, or else you’ll miss out on the magic that each moment has in store for you.
We can choose peace, we can choose to return to it, to cultivate it, to share it. We can choose to set the intention to be the peace in the midst of clamor and chaos even while walking down a busy street.
Nothing is lost when we decide to be the peace that we’ve been seeking in the external world, the peace we’re yearning to get us through a hard time. In fact, there’s so much more to be gained.
A practice for learning to be your own peace
Notice where you are right now. What you’re thinking, what you’re feeling. It can be as simple as the clothes on your skin or an emotion.
Give each of these things a name:
- Where you are
- What you’re thinking
- What you’re feeling
List them out.
Bring yourself into the present moment. Learn to create space for peace to peak through.
That stillness between breaths, that calmness between thoughts; bring yourself to exist there more often than not, even in the midst of unrest, racing thoughts, a pounding heart beat, or discomfort.
There is space in between each of these moments; so repeatedly find that space and begin to reside there. And use your breath as an anchor to keep you there for as long as you can without judgment or expectation.
This is the work. So remember to:
- Become aware of and name what is happening right here and now
- Take a deep breath into that thing and the space in between it
- Drop your shoulders
- And give yourself these few moments to sit with the things you’ve named
Repeat this over and over again until it becomes automatic for you to accept and give space to yourself to be here right now, safely home within yourself.
With this practice, you’ll gradually find your way to being your own peace, the peace you once thought you had to seek instead of just be.
Share your journey with me: What is it like learning how to be your own peace?
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EcoWell Co. 