In order to have life in eternal PEACE, you must find internal PEACE

How many times do you catch yourself replaying negative events from your past?

Do you find that you change the outcome of that event every time you think about it?

Do you kick yourself thinking, “I should have said this or done that instead!”

Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ve all been there at some point in our lives. We’ve all found ourselves ruminating over something we can no longer change.

Why then, do we allow these situations to affect us in the first place?

More importantly, why do we allow it to disrupt our inner peace?

The journey to finding eternal peace is an internal job as peace resides in us always, yet we suppress our peace by allowing the outside experience to dictate how we feel. We are not responsible for the circumstances that surround us, the only thing we are responsible for is how we respond to them.

It is not what happened to us that robs us of our peace, it is how we hold onto it and let it affect us. When we stop talking about yesterday we will find peace today. It is time to let go and let live.

But like anything else in life finding peace can be much easier said than done. To help set you on your journey to peace, here are a few ways to begin:

1. P – Put it into action. The ancient Chinese philosopher and writer Lao Tzu said,

“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

All of those residual feelings of animosity towards something that happened 5 years ago or even 5 minutes ago will continue to be there if you do not commit yourself to change how you think or feel about how those events affected you.

Remember, it’s a “single step”, taking small, actionable steps towards changing your emotional response to negative influence, is one way you can begin your path towards inner peace.

2. E – Take inventory of everything.

Sometimes it’s hard to see past our immediate situation. Take getting stuck behind traffic on your way to work, for example. A majority of people will tell you that 9 times out of 10 they get aggravated with the cars in front of them. Nevermind the actual cause for delay; it’s the people in front of them that’s in the way!

 But what if I told you there is a way to remedy this frustration just by shifting how you think about it?

Take inventory of everything.

Recognize how everything around you functions in group harmony.

 You can choose to either see yourself as late to work or you can:

• Observe where you’re situated within traffic. For example, the closer you are to the front of the traffic jam, the sooner you’ll be on your way once traffic starts to pick up. If you’re at the end of the jam, accept that there’s nothing you can do to make the line move faster.

• If the traffic jam was a result of an accident could you have been involved in that accident if you traveled sooner?

• You’re not alone in your lateness; there are plenty of others sitting in that same traffic jam with you, who are in the same situation.

Additionally, take inventory of how you react in moments of distress. Is there anything that you can do within yourself to alleviate all the tension you feel?

3. A – Move Aside. There is nothing more important to a journey than the direction. If the path you took yesterday or a year ago has not taken you to your peaceful destination; it’s time to choose a different direction.

4. C – Cherish. Cherish is about taking ownership with love and understanding that each experience you have is happening for you, not to you.

Imagine you lost your job.

Did you lose your job? Or did a window of opportunity just open up for you to focus on a passion for profit project you’ve always wanted to try, but never had the time to do because of commitments you made at your job?

5. E – Everyone. Apply peace and love to all those around you as it’s now within you with an overflowing potential to share.

No matter what has happened in our lives, it was an experience we needed to grow through, as we don't go through anything, we grow through everything.

It is ego that likes to hold onto things as it needs justification, where as our inner being/spirit just grows through the experience. It doesn't look back to understand why, it's just what it was and that's it.

Let It Go and enjoy PEACE today.

Decker