It’s part of the human condition to sometimes feel like peace is illusive and out of reach. How can this happen when we understand that peace comes from within? Continue reading to grasp the dichotomy of our experience with peace.
Illusive Peace
Ironically the more we chase after peace and feeling inner joy, the more illusive it becomes. That’s because chasing something infers that we don’t already have it. To chase is an ego response within us – convincing us that we must do something or be something or have something to enjoy peace.
We are conditioned to think of peace like it’s a goal to reach, or perhaps our cherished prize when we rid ourselves of the stress of everyday life. That thinking gets us nowhere, of course, in part because simply being human comes with stress and one cannot eliminate it. All we can do is learn to manage our response to stress.
Place and Peace
Consider this. Wherever you are you can experience peace.
The “where” could be an actual place. We sometimes, without thinking about it, associate a place like home or work with a certain dynamic unfolding. This could involve other people, or it could be us alone with ourselves.
Wherever you are, you take yourself and your consciousness with you. This means that “place” refers to wherever you are – alone or with others. You are always with you.
What Blocks Inner Joy
From an early age we learned to seek external gratification. It’s more than our upbringing, though we do learn from our parents. In our DNA we can trace ancestral conditioning, that over thousands of years, caused us to look outside of ourselves for joy.
The more that we seek joy externally, the less we are likely to find it inside of ourselves where it actually IS. As we do this relentless seeking in the wrong place, our ego will try to convince us that we will find our joy through linear world markers of success.
Examples of Linear Markers
- Work in a job or service that confers status, money, prestige
- Having a “perfect” body or look – or “perfect” health
- Being with a certain type of partner
- Having a “perfect” family situation
- Owning an expensive property
- Knowing one’s exact life path, down to the details and timings
- Validations that X situation equates with living one’s purpose
- Being well-known or in demand
- Having substantial wealth
None of these linear world markers of success equate to joy.
All outer world markers are temporary manifestations.
To be sure, there can be moments of fleeting joy when accomplishing something or meeting a goal.
That type of joy, however, is not the boundless joy one can feel within — for no particular “reason” – as one is able to “be” the joy that naturally exists inside. It is that type of joy – the quantum eternal type – that is associated with true inner peace. No one and no thing can take away this peace naturally housed within.
I look forward to your feedback on this article and knowing how I can serve you in an expanded way in 2021. Feel free to contact me at my website.