When I started coaching people 10 years ago, they came to me wanting to do, be, and accomplish more. They wanted to hit bigger goals, make more money, be bolder, more daring, more powerful. Now the whole landscape has shifted. These days, most people come to me asking for one thing: peace.
Funnily enough, most of the people asking me to help them find peace were originally the ones who wanted to do more. They wanted the money, the power, the respect, the validation — and after getting it, they realized it wasn’t the answer. In fact, in many cases, those very things made matters worse. Which begs the questions… Why is peace becoming something we all crave so badly? And why, instead of craving more of the tangible stuff we were raised to chase, are we longing for an intangible state of being?
I believe this is happening for two reasons.
First, we’re so inundated with stuff now that we’re overstimulated and fed up. In other words, we’re becoming resentful of all the things we thought would fix us… that didn’t.
Second, we’re starting to wake up to what really matters. We’re remembering that our joy doesn’t come from more. In most cases, it comes from less.
So if this is true — and I’m not totally out on a limb here — how do we actually find peace? And what does feeling more peace even look like?
To be honest, I don’t know. I’m still figuring this one out. Personally, I ebb and flow between believing peace is a state of enlightened grace we work hard to acquire “someday,” and believing it’s always available to us in the pure, mundane stillness of everyday life.
What I can say is that over the years, I’ve glimpsed peace many times. But no matter how many times I grasp it, it always seems to slip through my fingers again. I’ll find it and hold it… until something blows up in my business, or I get dramatic news, or—for some ungodly reason—I have a panic attack sitting on the couch thinking about everything I need to do.
Which inevitably leads me to considering whether I should drop it all and head to an ashram in the Himalayas.
See my dilemma?
So what stops me? Why not opt out?
The truth is, there’s a deep-rooted knowing in me that that’s not the answer. It’s a knowing that peace is something I have to learn to find no matter where I am or what’s happening around me. Peace is something I have to cultivate from within—not achieve outwardly through effort or escape.
Truthfully, I feel the most at peace when I’m grateful for the meal in front of me or when I feel the first rays of sunrise on my face. It’s in the laughs with friends, the deep hug from someone I love, the licks all over my face from my dog while we wrestle on the living room floor. It’s in the moments in between. It’s in the pauses. It’s in the times when I stop my mind, sink into the moment, and just be with what is.
What I’m learning is that peace can only be cultivated when I set the intention to do so. I only really feel it when I drop into the present moment. Whenever I’m trapped in my mind—ruminating on the to-do lists and the rigamarole of life—I miss it. When I’m stuck in my head, the laughs with friends are just another fleeting moment, the sunrise is just another morning to get shit done, and the kisses from my dog annoy me because I’m trying to get out the door.
What I’m getting at is this:
If I’m not looking for peace, I miss it.
I might not know how to stay in a permanent state of peace yet 😛
But what I do know is that I have to actively look for it in every moment of stillness using intentionality, presence, and awareness. To make it even more blunt: I have to choose peace.
Truth bomb: Life isn’t slowing down for any of us. In fact, being human is becoming more intense every week. There will always be chaos; it’s woven into the fabric of the universe. Just look at what happens when a star dies — it’s not chill.
Therefore, finding peace isn’t about eliminating chaos; it’s about finding the moments in between that make it all worth it.
So what are those moments for you?
And how can you create more of them?
I know it’s cliché, but what if everything you’re looking for is sitting right in front of you in the stillness between moments?
What if you’re just too busy to see it?
If so… what would you change?
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