By Kimberly Snyder
There really is no price we can put on peace. Inner peace is perhaps the most invaluable resource that we have. In many ways, we think that we’re chasing the love, the financial security, the vacations, the health, and yes, all of these are important. But if even when we are able to create these things in our lives, one by one, and yet you don’t have inner peace, we don’t actually enjoy them! So what’s the point really? Is it just checking things off a box in the external world, or is it the experience of our actual inner state that matters? Despite what society may lead us to believe, I would say the latter!
It’s very important that we work towards creating peace in our everyday lives in practical ways. And what I mean by that is not just seeing peace as some abstract concept, or simply liking some happy quote on social media…but actually integrating tools and practices to support you in building inner peace.
Here are 5 practical tips to gain more peace in your life:
- Speak with kindness. It is so important that you create the gentle, soft, loving energy of kindness in your expression with yourself and others. This is living peace! The jagged, chaotic energy that comes from drama, and acting harshly creates so much restlessness in the mind. It means that we often have to clean up a mess, and it takes us away from inner peace. Aim to move away from speaking sharply, and instead speak with gentleness and kindness…even if that means following the old kindergarten rule of counting to 10 before saying anything!
- Witness instead of judging. Observing the world, and other people in it, over judging things as good/bad, right/wrong, better than/less than and so on means that we are creating more acceptance. It means we are merging with surrender into the present moment, with simply what is, and this is a powerful way to create more peace in your life.
This includes merging into acceptance with wherever anybody else is on their particular path on their particular journey. We are all in it! In this great battle of life so to speak. We are on this journey of moving towards unconditional love and oneness and truth and aligning to the True Self, and to act in ways that are judgmental are the opposite of peace and love. In the ancient text, the Bhagavad Gita, there is a section outlining the 26 soul qualities that humans must develop in order to reach their fullest potential. And one of them is “absence of fault finding”, which in Sanskrit is apaisunam. When we gossip about other people and when we try to find faults, when we judge, we end up diminishing our own character. And we also attract judgment and wrath, because what we put out tends to come back to us. So in order to create more peace, strive to bring in compassionate witnessing of the world around you, instead of the roughness of judgment.
- Create a lifestyle that will allow you to feel good in your body and create peace throughout your life. Peace is something that you can experience moment to moment, and when you create more harmony in your life and in your health, you will increase the levels of peace in your life. I recommend nurturing yourself across all 4 Cornerstones of True Well-Being that I teach within my lifestyle brand Solluna, which are: Food, Body, Emotional Well-being and Spiritual Growth.
From a food standpoint, focus on eating foods that are natural, from the earth and largely or all plant-based. Ayurveda, which is written about in the Atharvaveda, as well as other ancient Vedic texts, teaches that eating excessive meat, which involves the killing of animals, creates more rajasic energy in your body, which induces stress, anxiety and restlessness. Within the Body Cornerstone, make sure that you are tuning in to your unique body’s needs, including making more space for rest, creating an evening routine to foster great sleep hygiene, and moving and exercising in ways that are non-jarring to the body. Emotional Well-being is the third cornerstone, which I encourage you to nurture through practices like journaling, sitting with feelings to “digest them” (which is different than thinking about situations- go into the feelings in the body!), and connecting with community on a regular basis. Our fourth Cornerstone is Spiritual Growth. This is all about creating deeper self-connection, which we build through meditation and other inward practices.
- Ask yourself if your opinion is needed. So many times we direct, and consequently waste our energy in places that are better left alone! The truth is we don’t always have to give our opinion. Do we always have to voice what we like or dislike? As the Buddha taught, the more we are able to transcend likes and dislikes, the more we reach a state of equanimity and deep unshakable inner peace, which is not tethered to outer circumstances and external happenings. So anytime you can just sit back and go with the flow and not insert your opinion, unless it’s important for a decision, it will be much more conducive to increasing the peace in your life!
- Meditate daily. Meditation is the most powerful daily practice, I believe, for creating more peace, because you shift your attention and awareness away from the daily fluctuations and the ups and downs of life, and instead direct it towards the calm center that can only be found within. If you spend all your time and attention in the external world, you are like the boat that is constantly tossed around on the waves of life. But in contrast, if you pull your energy and attention back inward to the eternal anchor, which is inside of all of us, you create true strength and resiliency and inner peace, knowing that you can rise up to no matter what life brings you.
I hope that some or all of these resonate with you! For more tools and support I can offer you, please do check out my Practical Enlightenment Meditations which are free on our Solluna App. And please read the new book, You Are More Than You Think You Are, where you will take a far deeper journey with to help you create the life you really want.
Namaste and love!
