Having True Peace

Having true peace is not a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream. It is possible to have a certain peace that allows a person to look at whatever the circumstances are and say "life is okay". This peace doesn't come without practice; however, it is attainable with some effort.

The first component of true peace is, as Hamlet said, "to thine own self be true". If we aren't true to ourselves, then there is a turmoil within us. Where there is turmoil, there will never be peace. The battle rages within us and causes inner dysfunction because the inner self doesn't know who he/she is or how to act. When faced with seeing who we are and what we are, we come to the realization that we are who we are, and we are unique individuals with unique characteristics, unique ideas, and unique personalities. Being true to ourselves is simply to look into the mirror and see ourselves as we really are, not as others see us or as we want them to see us or even as we want to see ourselves. We see us in all our glory and faults and still, we love ourselves. Loving self is oftentimes the hardest part of life. We are our own worse critic, seeing only the negative things about ourselves. This is not being true to ourselves. We are individuals who have positive and negative attributes and we need to realize that, even though there are some things we want to change or need to change in ourselves, there are many things that are good about ourselves that we need to share with others. There was a song many years ago that stated "accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative". If we are to be true to ourselves, we must see both the positive and negative, and then begin to accentuate those positive points and, at the same time, diminish the negative points.

Once we have been true to ourselves, then we can move on to the next component that leads to true peace -- loving ourselves. While this is part of the first component, it is such an important aspect of inner peace that it should be counted as a component in itself. After seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly, we need to take time to ingest those characteristics. We love our friends even though we know that they have faults. If we love them with their faults, then we should also love ourselves with our faults. Loving ourselves means that we are accepting our entire being, faults and all. One exercise that may be beneficial is to look into the mirror each morning and simply say "I love you" to yourself. During the day when you pass a mirror, glance into the mirror and once again say "I love you". We tell others that we love them, and we should tell ourselves that we love ourselves. This is not giving free reign and taking time to tell ourselves how great we are and admire our physical appearance. It's a time to see beyond our physical appearance to the real "us", the part the makes us "us". Our physical appearance doesn't define us (hopefully); our internal characteristics define us. I'm sure we all remember the saying that beauty is only skin deep but ugly is to the bone. Well, this is true. Beauty will fade away, but our internal characteristics will be with us until our dying days. We must love the person within more than the person without.

Once we are true to ourselves and we begin to love ourselves, we begin to see the world differently, which leads to our third component of inner peace. We have begun to see the positive in ourselves which will reflect the positive that surrounds us. While negativity will always be around us, we do not have to focus on it. When we begin to see the positive within us, then we will automatically begin to see the positive around us. It is the domino effect. Once we are true to ourselves and see ourselves as we truly are and begin to love ourselves, then we begin to love our surroundings and focus on the positive aspects of ourselves and our surroundings.

This domino effect finally leads to the final component of inner peace, which is the peace itself. Once we have trained ourselves to view the positive, we will begin to have peace within ourselves because we realize that life is what we perceive it to be. If we see it as negative and horrible, then it will be that way and that will, in turn, cause us to absorb the negativity. However, if we see life as positive and encouraging, then we will absorb the positive aspects of life.

I realize that by now some people have already compiled a list of points as a rebuttal; however, it doesn't change the fact that we make life what it is for us. It's not as much what happens to us that is important as it is how we handle what happens to us. By focusing on our positive attributes, loving ourselves, and viewing life as positive, we begin to feel an inner peace. Again, it takes time; however, it's well worth the effort.