You keep reading about inner peace, but where is it?
The few times that you have glimpsed it were temporary and it soon disappeared again. Where did it go?
The seeking of peace requires constant courage. It requires you to be prepared to make yourself vulnerable over and over again, because it requires you to tell the truth. Not in great outpourings of your innermost feelings and insecurities, but moment to moment honesty and authenticity.
Let me tell you - most people are pretending. They are pretending to be in control, that they are happy, that they don’t make mistakes and if you are committed to the idea of being someone who is peaceful, who tells the truth and is calm in the face of life’s vicissitudes, then you will have to be the one who tells the truth.
And other people won’t back you up.
Do you understand? You will say, I am nervous, I am unsure, I am afraid, I am sad … and other people will not join you with a “me too” Sometimes they will look at you as if you are mad.
But what is the alternative? Do you want to continue to be guarded, hidden, quiet? Is that where peace truly lies?
You know the answer lies in something very different: in the calm acceptance of your whole self, with all of its strengths, delights, fears and insecurities and the bravery to admit them out loud instead of hiding them away.
In the courage to be a speaker of AND sentences: I am brave AND I am nervous, I am strong AND I am in pain, there is joy AND there is sorrow.
Because this is a true life. And only a true life will bring you peace.