Paths to Liberation From Suffering
Aletheia Luna – Having a nervous breakdown was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Before reaching the absolute end of my stress threshold, I never thought that finding inner peace – especially for a highly sensitive person prone to anxiety – was possible. Peace was a completely foreign concept to me.
But after undergoing multiple instances of mental breakdown, I finally learned what inner peace is. And it’s not what I expected.
As a highly sought after state or experience on the spiritual journey, inner peace is every spiritual seeker’s secret desire.
But what actually is it? And how do we ‘find’ or ‘attain’ it?
What is Inner Peace?
Inner peace is what we feel when our body, mind, heart, and soul is at rest. Instead of striving to control or resist ourselves and others, we feel a sense of profound acceptance, forgiveness, love, and compassion. Inner peace is synonymous with being in touch with your True Nature or Soul. And above all, inner peace can only and ever occur in the present moment (which is all we truly have).
The Key to Finding Inner Peace
Put simply, inner peace is the byproduct of letting go and surrendering.
It’s not about chasing, striving, and trying to ‘earn’ tranquility. You can’t. Trying to ‘fight’ for inner peace is contradictory and pointless: it just deepens our suffering.
Instead, finding inner peace is about relinquishing our need to control and fight. Essentially, you could say it’s about giving up – but not in a disempowering way. Rather, it’s a form of resignation that is based on a deeper understanding that Life is perfectly orchestrating everything we’re experiencing for our growth and expansion. Therefore, why the need to constantly resist everything?
“But doesn’t this mean I’ll become a pushover or doormat that people can abuse?” you may wonder. No. Living life from a place of letting go and surrendering isn’t about letting ourselves be used or abused. We still need to practice self-care, self-respect, and self-love. This can mean setting boundaries, saying no, and removing ourselves from harmful situations. But it also means surrendering our resentment, blame, and hatred toward others. Do you see the difference? Life is about balance.
Let’s try a simple exercise that will help you to viscerally understand what inner peace is like:
Sit down somewhere quiet. Then tense up your entire body. Imagine you’re being scrunched into a tight ball. Hold that for 30 seconds. Become as contracted as possible. Make yourself super stiff and uncomfortable. Then, release. Can you feel how spacious your body is now? That’s what inner peace is like – except it radiates from the inside out.
12 Ways to Find Inner Peace
Image of a boat on a calm ocean that represents inner peace
As we now know, inner peace is a movement of opening, surrendering, and letting go.
But what exactly do we let go of?
As always, let’s look within ourselves first and see all the forms of inner conflict we carry. This might be a painful and challenging practice for our egos to handle, but it’s profoundly important.
Here are twelve ways to find inner peace summarized:
♦ Be aware of the self-improvement treadmill
♦ Stop expecting that life and people should be different
♦ Release grudges and resentments
♦ Sit with your emotions (and embrace them)
♦ Quit getting lost in the past or future
♦ Be aware of your obsessive need to control
♦ Embrace being dislikable
♦ Let go of playing the martyr or victim
♦ Forgive yourself (and therefore others)
♦ You don’t need to be “perfect”
♦ Release the need to be right
♦ Stop dwelling in the past (or future)
I’ll elaborate below:
1. Be aware of the self-improvement treadmill
To prevent this article from becoming another “X-Ways-to-Change-Yourself” kind of post, I want to point out that the spiritual search itself can be counterproductive. The desire to constantly improve, fix, and heal ourselves can (very rapidly!) become a kind of treadmill that traps us. There’s nothing wrong with seeking growth and change. But please know that at a core level, you are already Whole. Your mind might be fragmented, yes, but your essence is already Whole and Complete. Understanding this can save you a lot of stress and burnout, which keeps you from tasting the peace that is already there deep within you.
So in this context, please read the rest of this article with a light mind and heart. Everything will happen when it needs to happen. The following pieces of advice are simply pointers and places you can decide to explore and delve into at your level. No stress, no rush.
So with that caveat, let’s move onto the next mental contraction that deprives you of peace:
2. Stop expecting that life and people should be different
Here’s the reality: you can expect, and expect, and expect, and expect … but what happens at the end of the day? You feel worn out, resentful, bitter, stressed, and hopeless. What a waste of time, energy, and effort! So much of our unhappiness stems from expectations. And usually, our expectations are totally unconscious, in other words, we aren’t aware that we’re demanding so much from other people and life itself. Why are expectations burdensome? Expectations change nothing at all: they are like brain farts. Can you change other people? No. And that’s just life. People only change when they decide to. Understanding this is the beginning of inner peace.
Reflection:
Would you prefer to resist the truth of this present moment, or would you prefer to become an embracer of reality? Try to pinpoint what lofty and unrealistic expectations you have for other people. Here are some examples, “My husband should be tidier,” “My boss should care more about my feelings,” “My friend should not be such a loud-mouth; I wish she could be different,” “That driver should learn how to drive properly!” etc.
Notice the prevalence of the word “should” here. What to do instead? Let people be what they are, understanding that when the time is right, they’ll change (or not). Ultimately, it’s not your place to force change within them (because you can’t).
3. Release grudges and resentments
Grudges + resentments = self-righteousness … and let’s face it, feeling righteously indignant is extremely addictive in a toxic way. When we obsessively store away past wrongdoings from others we are essentially telling ourselves, “I have a right to perpetuate my own misery.” But on your deathbed will you really care about who is right and who is wrong? Holding on to grudges is not only infantile, but it is also poorly spent time focusing on the details of life.
Reflection:
Visualizations and rituals can help you to let go of past hurt and start a fresh chapter in life. For instance, you may like to write down what someone did to you on a piece of paper. Once you are done, burn that piece of paper until it crumbles to ash. This is a powerful ritual that can help symbolize “letting go.” Alternatively, you may like to focus on cultivating forgiveness by focusing on how to forgive yourself first.
4. Sit with your emotions (and embrace them)
None of us like feeling uncomfortable emotions, and so it’s very common for us to suppress, resist, or avoid them. Unfortunately, this creates emotional repression which is a block to inner peace. Here’s the thing: hiding your feelings isn’t the same as dealing with them. Just because your feelings temporarily disappear doesn’t mean that they are completely gone. In fact, the longer you suppress them, the bigger they grow. And the bigger these emotions become, the more you feel an extreme lack of inner peace.
Reflection:
SF Source Wake Up World Mar 2020