Making peace with the conditions of my life is a required daily practice. It is frequently annoying in its simplicity and accessibility because I realize I am the one in the way of my own happiness and solace. I am the block in the road, the one that splits it into two or more complicated lanes and spins myself dizzy before journeying down a dreaded path. Peace is not elusive when I stay in touch with myself and welcome what has happened, when I allow myself to see and love who I am and what I can imagine, let alone build. Peace, harmony, and connection with myself and others are clearer when I accept what is, no matter how it occurred. Acceptance can feel so far out of grasp when I want to grieve the hurt and inadequacies by maintaining conditions that make these losses persist. When I resist and retract, I kill a bit of myself, or at minimum I put into a deep sleep all joyful and exploratory possibilities that I can create. I uproot what has been sown in me, prophesied, affirmed. I stymy the options I’ve manifested successfully, beautifully many times over and despite this concrete proof, I convince myself that I’m stuck with no way out. I become a slave to my mind and narrative instead of a beacon of my power. And I only look outward for comfort and validation, for escape, lamenting when I don’t get it from others on auto-pilot or command, or when I actually get it I shun the purveyor for not giving more. It’s like pouring out a full cup of actual goodness onto the ground at every refill and blaming someone else for my being parched.
In this state, I simply don’t ask for help and encourage others to pity me and agree that all is lost. Or I isolate entirely and allow abandonment to poison me instead. It’s also possible in this self-made misery, many would call it suffering, to resent people who believe in me when I reject my own peace in this way. When I don’t accept myself, the ones who lied, died, met their expiration in my life in other ways, didn’t choose me, or when I allow myself to feel cast out after a rejection that had nothing to do with me, I create pain, not peace. When I seek anything in my resistance that will further keep me separate from myself, I have intentionally anchored myself in despair and delusion.
So I’m aware in this hard moment and committed to working on the art of being at peace. Because I know what’s on the inside of it and have tasted this balance before. I’m beginning by forgiving myself and saying “I love you, just as you are”. Manifesting peace will be, as it has always been, the labor of my lifetime. I’m accepting this process as a sliver of lessons in impermanence. Everything ends, including my own life and I get to choose joy in this awareness. I’m breathing in a bit more patience to get me through to yet another breath. This is the constant necessity even when nothing else is apparent.