“…conscious ongoing use of tools, techniques, and traditions that connect us back to our source and core essence, to our motivation, to each other, to the world, and to our deepest purpose for our work and being on the planet. Inner work practice is the “work” we do within ourselves and within our in our organizations, movements, networks, boardrooms, meeting rooms, community centers, spiritual centers, and offices to embody ways of being that align with and generate the world we long for. These practices help us ground and anchor so deeply in our core being (including purpose, commitments, values and other areas), that the deeper our practice becomes, the less likely it is possible for us to be shaken out of it, no matter the outer conditions or” – Non-profit Quarterly
Let us say, for a minute, that Peace is possible externally. But, without Inner Peace, can there ever be any other peace? We say we highly value Peace. We joust ideals of Peace yet we want justice. When we think of Peace, we weigh it against war. Yet we forget about the gray space between white and black; calm versus violence. We want harmony but at what cost? We want Inner Tranquility, but, can we sustain it when we also want things to be just? Every culture will see and define peace in different terms. Every religion has its own concept(s) of Peace. Peace is symbiotic to justice, to equality, to power, to class, to a fairness that we define individually and apply to every concept from our own perspective.
Before human conflicts, what was peace? Our earliest ancestors knew much conflict of different kinds, mostly, Man versus Nature; Man versus Animals; Hunger versus Feast. First Man, First Woman; whatever story happens to be the basis of your beliefs, had it easier, perhaps, than when another was introduced. Now you have relationship problems, right away, as each tried to assert their dominion, their wants, their needs, their boundaries.
Great men and woman, throughout history, have tried to become peacemakers. They focused their lives towards being warriors for peace. But, their could not be Inner Peace while doing so, for they suffered at the hands of those who sought to destroy the concept of social peace. So, they worked towards, sacrificed for, a type of Peace while exposing themselves to outer chaos, sometimes violence.
Inner Peace is something that inhabits The Within, the serenity and harmony that brings peace and contentment with Self. It may be a moral code. It may be a religious one. It may be just a sense of calmness. Experiencing it once, means that you long forever for it for always, which cannot happen as we live down here on a hard earth. But it helps us cope, inspires us, has us seeking such for the rest of our lives. It helps us know that we must forgive in order to feel inner peace. It helps us be more compassionate. It gives us a sense of justice. It is something spiritual, not of body, nor mind, nor heart. It is what drives us to find positivity in body, mind, and heart. For some, who find misbegotten ways to calmness, etc., may turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the negative feelings rather than work through them, and the negativity piles up until they get lost in all the negativity and it becomes difficult to allow themselves feel the positive.
Inner peace is a sense our character and how we built it. It is how we behave because it becomes the centerpiece of our very foundation, if we have cultivated it, if we have nourished it, if we have fed it more and more opportunities to be felt. It is definitely spending time in reflection and introspection to discover positive ways to feel Inner Peace. Inner Peace truly depends on how we live our life so that those opportunities to sense Inner Peace has a chance to be felt. I truly think that Inner Peace has a whole lot to do with spiritual contentment (note: not religious contentment)
Inner Peace and a sense of Justice are one, I believe. If we have a sense of the world being an unfair place, we will never feel Inner Peace. If we can accept that we cannot control everything and that some conflicts are meant not to be solved ( an acceptance of such) and that all we can do is be fair and just ourselves, then we have a chance at feeling Inner Peace that is more sustaining.
I seek this Inner Peace and sense of Justice, within. I am cultivating it, nourishing it and am beginning to reap the rewards. I wish you this.
©Carol Desjarlais 8.30.20
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