Peace and happiness are paramount to leading a fulfilling life, and often we seek to find both of these things outside of us. We may seek out peace and happiness via work, relationships, exercise, substances, hobbies, travel and more. In fact, we often do. The truth that I keep coming back to is that while the aforementioned exploits are vehicles that may facilitate peace and happiness ultimately the feelings must arise from within. Because as much as meals, drinks, workouts, dates, flights and other diversions can help to keep good feelings on track they still only take up a fraction of our time. Feeling good and happy in the remaining time is often a challenge for active people.
During the past year I have found myself in many quiet moments, alone in my house with just my thoughts to keep me company. I found that it was during these times that I tended to feel unhappy and not at peace. I could imagine that something or someone would manifest out of nothing to settle my feelings. Alas, it never happened. Eventually my mind would settle and I would feel better. Sometimes the change would result from a message I received, a piece of news that I read or an activity I engaged in. This would seem to reinforce the idea that peace and happiness manifests from the outside world into me. Thinking about these situations more deeply it became clear that what really happened was that I would forget to think about feeling unsettled. The distraction from the unsettling feelings that I created with my thoughts in the first place effectively eliminated those feelings. Doing something didn’t generate the good feelings but rather allowed me to settle into a place where the bad feelings were simply forgotten.
The experience of the bad feelings melting away via a distraction lead me to wonder how I might break the reliance on outside stimulus with respect to peaceful and happy feelings. While it’s tempting to rely on outside stimulus as a panacea it’s not something reliable and there have been times when I’ve been unsettled for days on end. So as with many things I realized that the manifesting of peace and happiness from within requires patience and practice. Since unsettling feelings are driven by the mind then it’s the mind that must be settled before good feelings can arise.
Sitting in as peaceful and as quiet a place as possible is critical to settling the mind. The temperature should be comfortable. Your seating position should be comfortable. The room should be devoid of harsh lights with limited possiblity of sudden, harsh noises breaking your concentration. Close your eyes and take deep breaths. Do this until you feel your mind start to wander away from unsettling thoughts. Don’t try to force the unsettling thoughts out of your head though. When those thoughts come, once again focus on your breathing. Eventually your mind will wander away from your unsettling thoughts. Once that happens you can then guide your mind onto more peaceful and happy thoughts like the ones listed below.
- I’m alive and it’s good to be alive.
- I’m capable of facing and dealing with all of life’s challenges.
- I’m grateful for the opportunities I have to improve my life.
- I look forward to the sights, sounds, smells and tastes in this world.
- I choose peace and happiness as my state of mind.
There are many other thoughts that you can focus on as you seek to generate peace and happiness from within and I leave it to your imagination to do so. How often and how long you should practice the above process is up to you. I like to think of it as spiritual medicine. You should definitely take it when you need it most. So if you’re in the midst of challenging times then multiple times per day may be appropriate. And even if you’re not enduring challenging times it can’t hurt to practice this a few times per day. Think of how most people have trained themselves to check social media, news and their phones many times per day. I guarantee that checking in on your level of peace and happiness will be much more fulfilling!
In closing, I want to say that if you take only piece of advice from my writings then you could do worse than taking this one. Know that while the outside stimuli can play a part in your peace and happiness it cannot ultimately sustain your peace and happiness. You have the power to do that by taking time each day to shut down invading thoughts and centering yourself back on the thoughts that guide you back to a peaceful and happy mindset.
In The Midst Of A Journey 