How To Find Your Inner Peace.

How do you define inner peace?

Do you think of inner peace in terms of stress – as in, the absence of stress in your mind?

But is the absence of stress really an “empty” state of mind?

Or is it actually a very full, rich and beautiful state of mind?

Personally I believe it to be the latter!

Why do I believe that?

Because when you’re at peace, some truly wonderful things can happen:

Firstly, your thinking becomes clear, then you begin to feel physically energised, you find a sense of vitality, you’re then in a state of flow – and your outlook/attitude becomes totally positive.

So emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, inner peace is a state rich with LIFE, where nothing is missing except those disempowering and stressful thoughts.

You can achieve your inner peace by spending just a few minutes each day – thinking outside the box.

Here’s a way to achieve this hiatus of happiness:

MEDITATION

It’s no surprise that I put meditation at the top of my to do list every day.

Seriously, if the noise in your head is causing you grief then you must learn to shut it down – all the self-criticism, judgments, anxiety, uncertainty and infinite worry loops.

You need your inner dialogue to make you feel peaceful. If it doesn’t, then you can choose to let the negativity consume you and ultimately destroy your inner peace or you can put a stop to it.

I recommend “STOP”.

Yes, pay attention to your feelings. The instant you notice that you’re feeling less than awesome, stop for a moment – ask yourself why what you were thinking about is upsetting you.

Then say, “STOP” and immediately do one of two things:

a.) Replace the self-defeating thought with a positive thought.

b.) Add a positive “but” statement to it.

For example, take this disempowering phrase, “I’m such an idiot! I should know better than to react in anger”

and add,

“BUT I’m practicing controlling my reactions and that makes me feel good.”

This effectively neutralises the negativity of the original disempowering phrase.

VISUALISE YOUR IDEAL

Hold a vision in your mind of your ideal situation. Let yourself feel how beautiful it is to think about this happy and peaceful state of being and this wonderful situation… basically tell your subconscious mind that THIS positive scenario is more way more important to you than the current situation.

And NO – this is not living in denial! It’s giving your mind a very specific command about a “problem” it needs to solve.

Ultimately this makes you solution-oriented instead of problem-oriented and often means the old problems will sort themselves out in the process.

UNLEASH THE INNER TORNADO

Close your eyes and BREATHE IN your problem. Really take it in. All of it. All the worries, icky feelings, everything. BIG inhale. Hold your breath for a few moments and while you do this, imagine seeing the problem inside you starting to swirl around inside you like a tornado.

Imagine the tornado breaking up the problem (in effect erasing it) and at the same time allowing your intuitive mind/body to work on the problem outside of your logical mind.

Now, while still holding your breath, shift your focus from “problem” to “ideal situation.”

(How this alchemy works is not your immediate concern, it’s now your mind/body’s job to make it happen.)

Then, give a huge, looooong, powerful exhale.

You’ve told your mind what you want, and you have commanded it to erase “this” and create “that.”

By exhaling, you’re RELEASING all of your worry, anxiety and other negative emotions that prevent your subconscious from solving the problem in a way that your logical mind has probably already dismissed.

Repeat x 10.

All you have to do now is take action on the inspiration you recieved.

You can do all of this during meditation.

PREPARE AND CONTROL

A lot of stress is caused by a lack of preparation and a feeling of not being in control.

So always be prepared and take control of everything you can. By taking taking action it will give you positive relief from stress and lots of confidence.

Even if you can’t solve the whole problem in one go, you can take a step. And another. Small steps add up quickly!

ALL SITUATIONS HAVE A LIFESPAN

You can shorten the lifespan of any unwanted situation by steadfastly holding on to the vision/feeling of a more positive situation – and in the same way, you can dramatically extend the lifespan of that positive situation!

Although you can’t always choose what thoughts come up during meditation, you can choose what to do with them – let ‘em rip through you, stop and replace them, or stop and neutralise them.

You and you alone create the mental images that cause you to worry.

With practice you’ll be able to create positive and peaceful images where you are currently creating negative peace-destroying images.

Your inner peace is under your control. You own that power! Control it.

And Finally…

I’ve been practicing these meditation techiques for some time now. They’re great, and being able to visualise what I really want helps me to shift from problem-focus to ideal-situation-focus.

This in turn brings me to a state of happiness, contentment and inner peace.

Does this all happen instantly? No, of course not but the more I practice these techniques the less I worry and the happier I become.

Music

I’d like to mention that listening to music has an enormous effect on how people feel. I’ll be writing more on this subject (and the science behind it) in a later posting.

So on that note let me leave you with Bryan Ferry and a live rendition of Bob Dylan’s hit Knockin’ On Heavens Door.

This song was written for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Enjoy.