What is inner peace? A clear conscience? Total acceptance of self? Reckless abandon? Inner peace is a state of being that supercedes any and all circumstances taking place in one's life. The trick to finding inner peace is to shift our sense of power and control from doing to being. The demands of everyday life are immersed inside people, places and events that come at us from all sides. It's hard not to feel as if life is happening "to us" instead of "with us". The only thing we truly have control over at all times is how we let life's circumstances affect us. This control -this choice- is not an easy one to see amidst the pressures and demands we continually face. Cultivating inner peace requires a priority shift that values quality of experience over productivity, efficiency, or outcome. Regardless of the circumstance or task at hand, choosing to be -to flow- with a situation grounds us in the experience. It also grounds us inside self. More oftentimes than not, the biggest obstacles to being at peace with self are the thoughts that run around in our heads throughout the day. Thoughts about what we could be doing, what we should be doing, or what we'd rather be doing carry undertones of lack, loss, and worthlessness which eat away at our core self-essence, and preempt any possibility of inner harmony from taking root. Inner peace and negative thinking patterns cannot exist in the same mind-space. In obtaining inner peace we enter into the essence of who and what we are as individuals, unfettered by the "mental" requirements of roles, expectations, or circumstances. Realizing that life is meant to be lived rather than endured, or conquered, or ignored puts us back in the driver's seat. If we make up our minds that our primary objective within any circumstance is to experience it to the fullest, we've in a sense made peace with the circumstance at hand, and made "a peace" inside self
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