Pursuing Peace- Day 31

Pursuing peace has become a perspective for me.  Whether it is slowing down, speeding up, letting go or digging in.  It is accepting what is and allowing where you are to be enough.  You are enough. I am enough. Just as we are.  No, really. Just as we are.  We may not be who we want to be, what we want to be, or where we wish to finish, but we are enough just as we are. Below are the lessons that revealed themselves in my life…perhaps they might be of use in yours as well….

1.  Become Aware.  As Lolly Daskal would share, take time to feel.  Check in with yourself.  Is your heart happy, sad, frustrated, tired, glad…afraid, concerned….take time to feel where you are and notice.  Those emotions are the clue to what is happening in any situation. At times the feelings may be falsely leading you to analyze incorrectly…but they are always REAL emotions and you need to hear and respect what is at the core of them.
2. Listen.  The room gathered forty entrepreneurs who were sharing openly.  They were all strangers to one another but they were all in the same space, making business work in forty different fields.  Much is to be gained by listening to people’s experiences and accepting or rejecting what they say only after taking time to observe, hear, and listen to what their perspective is…..your own experiences may have blinded you to possibilities.
3. Learn Where You Are.   If you are lost and cannot find the peace you wanted in your life, you have to stop first and figure out where that peace is not coming from and where you are.  Perhaps its unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment, hopelessness….something is happening inside you to be at unrest.  Preparation of our hearts, our minds, our space, our lives for change.  Some parts of the day I realized that peace comes when I prepare to honestly set expectations only AFTER I accept where I am, with full disclosure. It has been true my entire life.  You first must put in where you are for Tom Tom or Yahoo Maps to tell you how to get to the next stop. Learn where that place is for you right now…own the emotions of your heart. You don’t have to own them forever though if they aren’t the ones that bring you joy and peace.
4. Do the Work.  When we learn where we are, often we then have uncovered mess in our lives or from our past that look a lot like yuck where we are today.  I always say, “what are the repetitive episodes of your soap opera”…what character are you playing in the drama?  The emotion you express concerning others probably is your clue.  I was from a home where someone kept implying I was this or that and would always be so. It was ingrained in their words that I would never be “enough” in order to keep me emotionally dependent upon them. That is a silly, reckless thing to do to a child.  How does that hurt show up in your adult life? What does that belief, experience, or upset look like in life today?  You cannot find peace if you do not face head-on what you are stressing, sad, or deny the existence of.
5. Forgive.   People are simply imperfect.  Most of us wish we weren’t. We make mistakes, we repeat mistakes of others, we make new ones of our own.  Pardon those who hurt you.  If you can’t, take it to the throne of God and release them to His judgment….visualize it….it’s really his problem to “fix” them, not yours. Walk away, pardon, forgive, and let go of that which you cannot control anyway.  It doesn’t mean you have to restore the person to your life, situation, or expectation of being different…it simply releases you from thinking you can change them. They have to change them. You have to simply allow them not to hurt you anymore.
6. Forge On.  Pursuing peace has allowed me the most beautiful month.  We really focused on it in our home, our schedules, our time together as individuals and as a family in business.  We celebrated where we have been this month and long ago. We took notice of what we are, and what we hope to be. We learned to value the process and celebrate the commitment of change as it unfolded in our lives.
7. Be teachable.  As an educator I notice in all facets of the life I live as a writer, a facilitator, a trainer, a mother, a wife, an entrepreneur that in every area of professional and personal life, people do not learn what they will not be taught.  People surround you that will help, will teach, will share their experience, both good and bad….be teachable. Use their experience, use their knowledge, apply the lessons to your situation.
8. Be willing to learn what peace in your life feels like.  If you’ve been riding the drama llama, the scenery may be so normal to you that you don’t appreciate what a calm ride looks like, how to enjoy the scenery, or where such a life may take you.  Learning peace is like learning to tie your shoes, it takes practice but pretty soon you know what that looks like and can find it without thinking. You recognize when its gone and re-tie it again.  If you’ve not lived in a peaceful existence, it may be a while before it feels “okay” to be at peace.