Choose Peace

“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
—Unknown

It’s rare in life that all of our ducks are in a perfect row; all of our relationships are perfect, things at work and business are perfect, our children are doing just as we want, everything in our homes is working as it should, and our automobiles are running fine, we feel confident in ourselves and our place in the world. In fact, it’s doubtful that all of that ever occurs at the same time, but even when it does things change and eventually somehow things get a little off center.

So how do we get to a place of peace and serenity? We get it because we have faith, because we have a relationship with a Higher Power. We also know from experience that no amount of worry or fret will make things better, but turning whatever is wrong over to God will help bring us peace. Even if we have to turn it over and take it back dozens or hundreds of times, we still turn it over.

We can have peace in the midst of turmoil although it takes an effort. We have to choose peace over what’s happening and do what we know works for us to get to that place.

When we choose peace we make a conscious effort to get to that place and we do the work involved. If we love drama and turmoil that’s what we will stay mired in, but if we want peace we can get that. It’s usually easier to stay in the drama of life, but peace brings much more happiness.

Getting peace means choosing it and doing what it takes to accomplish it.

Offer Blessings Not Curses

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.”
—The Bible, Romans 12:14

When we are hurt by or angry with someone our first thought is usually to curse them. We want them to feel bad. Sometimes we would even like to tell them off. We want them to feel the pain that we think they have bestowed upon us. It’s a natural impulse. And whether or not we’re a believer in the Bible, the teachings in it say we should offer blessings for those who hurt us.

Other religions teach this principle as well and in the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book readers are given this instruction: “If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.”

It’s very difficult to be angry with someone and pray for them at the same time. And if nothing else there is a calm feeling when praying for them and thinking good thoughts. When we curse the person and wish bad things for them, we keep the resentment alive in our own heart and mind.

Bitterness eats away at the person who owns the feeling, not the person they are angry with. When you want to curse someone, stop instead and say “bless this person” and God will hear your prayer.

Curses just keep the anger alive, blessings bring peace and healing.

Don’t Let Disappointment Signal the End of Hope

“The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.”
—Thomas Hardy

The loss of something we had hoped for can feel as disappointing and hurt just as bad as actually losing something that is quite real. When we have hope for something and that something is not quite ours yet we already have grown an attachment to it. Thus when we don’t get it we feel disappointed and when that seems to happen over and over it hurts and makes us wish we could just give up on ever having that thing.

Hope, that courage, the going out on a limb to try again, we show in the midst of so many losses and failures, can be lost as well. But it doesn’t have to be lost. We don’t have to give up.

As we grow and try to extend our lives we do step out of our comfort zones time and again. Sometimes the pain over a loss can make us want to never go to that place again, but we eventually feel pulled back. The pull is strong or we would not have felt so much pain over our loss.

So we step out, we step up to the plate and take yet one more swing. And hope beyond hope that we get what it is that is pulling us this time. There is some reason we keep going through this thing, whatever it is. We hope that in taking the step that the rug does not get pulled out from under us; unfortunately though, it’s very possible that’s what will happen.

It’s life. And we can choose to walk out of disappointment and try again or we can shut down and shut out the world and wallow in our pain. We do have a choice. Choosing hope — again — is a struggle at times. We can ask God to help, we can trust that there’s a reason for the disappointment, and we can risk loss, but at least we are living.

Hope keeps us alive.

What Is Success?

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ever wonder when you are going to be a success? And do you think you’re a failure because you haven’t yet finished that PhD or landed at the top of the corporate ladder. And maybe you think you will never find that right person to spend the rest of your days on earth with.

Well, it’s time to stop thinking like that. We who are living our lives with this kind of thinking are most likely successful well beyond what we imagine.

Anytime we give to someone — a hug, a listening ear, a meal, clothes, shelter, a smile — we succeed. When we cross our own difficult hurdles in life, we are growing and surviving and that’s success. Caring for a child or loved one who is ill is a great thing. Making others laugh or helping them to feel loved is a huge accomplishment. Growing a beautiful garden or fixing our own automobile, those are successes.

There is so much more to life than attaining that top position at a company, or being the best musician in the world, or driving the most expensive car on the block. Success is not measured in dollar amounts at least not the kind of success that really matters.

We can all think back on those moments in life where we touched another person’s heart in some way. If we can remember that feeling we can know what true success is. That’s the kind of thing that is priceless.

How do you measure success?

We Are Who We Make

“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.”
—Thomas S. Szasz

As we go through the days of our lives we are on a journey that offers many choices. It is our challenge and responsibility to determine which route to take when we hit that “Y” in the road.

We meet new people and we wonder if that person is worth investing time and energy in; is there something long-term we wish to carry on with that person. We hear about a job somewhere that interests us and we start to consider if that’s an option we wish to pursue. Or perhaps it’s time to end something and we aren’t sure what to do.

We create our own world. Sometimes we want more; sometimes we are content to stay where we are in our safety and security whether or not we are happy. And often we fear making that move, taking the next step, making changes, and taking risks in order to create something more for ourselves.

We can always keep in mind that even if we move forward into something new and that fails to be what we want or we are not successful in our endeavor life goes on and surely we have gained new knowledge and insight about life and ourselves. We’ve created more of us; more wisdom, knowledge, insight, and possibly self-love.

In order to create who we wish to be, we must take these chances. It’s difficult sometimes because we’ve been jaded and hurt in our lives over relationships, business dealings, jobs, family issues, and other things. But each one of those things taught us something about who and what we are and made us who we are today.

We can take these chances when opportunities arise knowing that even if whatever it is ends in failure we gave it our best shot, we’ve taken a chance on life and love, and we don’t have to crawl in a hole and hide from the world.

Take that chance on the next thing that comes along. You’re strong enough.

Maybe the Problem’s Not Them

“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.”
—J. Michael Straczynski

Anytime we find ourselves having to learn a lesson again and again it may be time to stop blaming people and events outside of ourselves.

If we’ve failed at numerous relationships and the same problems crop up in each, we are attracting something to ourselves that doesn’t work for us. If we don’t change, the same problems will continue to come our way.

And if our problems involve work or business and we keep having the same issues that cause us unnecessary stress and agony, who needs to change? We have some reason to keep getting in these situations or not getting out of them soon enough.

We can stay stuck in our ruts of destruction that end with self-pity and loss of enthusiasm or we can look inside ourselves and learn why we keep getting into the same situations again and again. Only we can break our own cycle of destructiveness.

The first thing we have to do is admit that it is our problem and that we are the only person who can get us out of it. Blaming the boss, parents, exes, current spouses, or anyone else is not going to get us moving and out of the situation. Once we can admit that we have to do something, we can then take action and get unstuck and hopefully not have to keep repeating the lesson because we can’t seem to get it.

Look inside to find the problem and the strength to overcome it.

Seeing the Truth

“We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.”
—The Talmud

How many times in our lives have we argued with another person about something that we both know we are right about? And sometimes we are both right, it’s just that what we see is through our eyes and they through theirs. What one sees as a burden another sees as a chance for growth. Where one person sees venting as a bad thing another knows that sometimes it’s necessary.

A concrete example of not seeing things as they are, but seeing them as we are, would be looking at something through the eyes of someone who is color blind. Just because they see something in one color does not make it that color.

We can only know what we know and see what we see through the eyes of the person we are at the moment. What we know and see today may not be the same thing in a year. We may grow and see things completely different in a matter of time. And often we’ll find that what we thought before, what we were certain about, was not so.

No matter how many times someone tells us “this too shall pass” or some other comforting thing, until we have had enough experiences for ourselves to know this as fact, we won’t truly believe it.

And it’s also true that we may see only the things we wish to see in situations. Sometimes we blame others for something we perceive as us being wronged, when it’s our own incorrect thinking about what’s happened.

We can only see things from the point at which we stand.

Choice Can Be Power

“Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can’t prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you’re presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power.”
—Blaine Lee

We have all had someone ask what we regret in life. People want to know what we wish we had not done at some point in our lives and they also want to know what we wish we would have done differently if we could go back.

The answers to those questions can be easily thought of and at the same time dismissed. For those of us who endeavor to make our lives more meaningful, to live our lives to the fullest, and to give all that we have to give, we understand that it took all of our mistakes and victories and all of the situations in between to make us who we are today.

Take away a painful situation and whatever wisdom was gained would not be with us now. Remove a particular mistake, or certain way we lived our lives for a time and what strength and knowledge we gained from that would be lost. We would not be the whole of who we are today.

It’s what we do with our pain, grief, joy, hurt, disappointment, love, broken heart, with every situation that we gain power; power that is ours and ours alone. And there comes a point in our growth where we know we have made it over that ridge, where we see the prize we have sought. It’s our power, it’s our self-esteem; it’s ours and we earned it with every bump and bruise.

Your actions and choices give you power that nobody can take away.

Go With What You Know

“I feel there are two people inside me — me and my intuition. If I go against her, she’ll screw me every time, and if I follow her, we get along quite nicely.”
—Kim Basinger

Webster’s states that intuition is “knowing things without conscious reasoning.” Whether we know things without having to think them through because of some sixth sense, or because we’ve been there and done that before, it’s the same thing — it’s that we know something and we should go with what we know.

There are all kinds of people in this world who will manipulate and lie to us. And often we will let them do it time after time because even though our gut instinct is to not go there again, we think perhaps they will be different this time, or they need us, or wow, they are actually showing us attention. But often our thinking is as skewed as their behavior if we think of giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Sometimes we just know not to return to certain places with particular people. Our intuition, instinct, intellect, experiences, or something tells us what we should do. And we ought to follow that. We learn, over time and experiences, that more often than not what we really believe about something is correct, especially as we grow in recovery and spiritually.

We learn to trust our gut. We learn that it’s possible to err on either side of an issue, but better than to keep making the same mistakes.

Try following your intuition; it’s more trustworthy than you may think.

You Can Only Achieve What You Believe

“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.”
—Muhammad Ali

Even if we are not trying to be the champion of something, we still have to believe to achieve. Our self-esteem is dependent on what we think about ourselves. It matters not if 100 people tell us how great we are or how well we’ve done something, if we don’t believe it for ourselves it makes no difference to us.

Some of us suffer from social anxieties which means that most of the time in order to do things in public we must talk ourselves into going, and often once we get there we are fine and able to engage. But how many times did we not do things because we were too afraid?

That time is in the past and now we can go in confidence because we know why we are “shy” and we know that we can do it. For those who suffer from this anxiety hold your head high next time you are in a situation that you fear. Most of the time other people are more worried about themselves than you, they have their own anxieties about things. Think of yourself as good enough, honorable enough, outgoing enough and go to that event or put yourself in that situation that you really want to be in, but are afraid.

No matter if we are trying to get up the nerve to attend a party or some other social event, or to get on stage to perform, we must believe we are good enough and strong enough or we won’t be able to make it. Like the old saying, “Fake it ‘til you make it,” it’s up to us to attempt things we fear.

Living a full life means that we often must face our fears and move out of our comfort zones in order to experience all that life has to offer.

If you don’t believe you can do it, you can’t.