Peace Starts with Knowing Yourself
Peace starts with knowing yourself.
Knowing yourself and accepting yourself, warts and all, is the foundation for self-love.
Self-love inoculates us from outside influences.
When you come from a core of self-knowledge and self-love, you have the power to stay centered in yourself no matter what happens around you.
You have the inner resources to resist, be resilient, rebound, from the storms of life.
You want your center to be a warm, welcoming, loving environment. How do you make sure your inner world is a comfortable place that feeds your inner peace and power?
Get to know yourself really well:
- Understand your needs. Basic needs like eating well, sleeping well, hydrating, exercising, and more advanced needs like socializing, being creative, feeding your soul.
- Make friends with your emotions. Knowing how to manage our feelings might be the number one essential key to a sane and happy life. When we let them arise, express, and pass through, we don’t get bogged down or bottled up and we have healthier emotional energy to bring to our relationships and the world.
- Know your values. What’s important to you and how well do you reflect those values in how you think, feel, and act?
- Look at your attitudes. Do you approach life with an open, curious mind or a negative, pessimistic one? When conflict arises, do you catastrophize or stay calm and rational?
I have gotten to know myself well through life challenges that include alcoholism and mental illness in my family of origin, living with an alcoholic/drug addict, depression and anxiety, having a child after 45, breast cancer, and more.
When problems arise, I might freak out at first, but I know that if I allow and process my feelings, I’ll be able to tackle the issues from a balanced, centered place inside.
I know myself, I know how to handle hardships, and I can fall back on those methods whatever the new challenge.
Lately it’s been a family member going through a divorce. I’m worried for her and her child to end up in a good financial and emotional place.
The best thing I can do is be centered in strength and calm so that I can be there for her to lean on.
I make sure to take care of myself. To focus on my strengths in offering emotional support and in researching and finding resources for her. To let go of the things I can’t control and that if I focus on will put me in a tailspin.
I have to detach from the situation and the outcomes, and just focus on taking the next step that is within my power. And I do all of this from a centered certainty, a core of peace and integrity that guides my thoughts, feelings, and actions.
I can’t control the outcome of this challenging situation, but I can do my part, and I can do it with calm, with caring, and with comfort both for myself and for the others involved.
If you want more inner peace and to build a calm, comfortable, powerful center from which to handle any challenge in your life, please contact me at insanelyserene at gmail.com.
