The International Day of Peace is celebrated on September 21. Talking about how to establish more harmonious relationships between individuals, society, or even countries might be a very broad topic to begin a discussion on peace. Observe yourself, have you made peace and quiet your mind within yourself? Inner peace is the essential key to true happiness. So, start today!
Be Present
Past is past, and how to achieve your goals and dreams in the future is determined by how to act upon your thoughts in the present. Realize that we all can learn from our past bad experiences, because what is life without failures and obstacles anyway? Focus in the now and let those lessons you gained from your past experiences shape a better- you now in order to prepare you to achieve bigger goals in the future.
Don’t Push Too Hard
Oftentimes when a failure occurs, you would get hurt because of your high expectation itself, not how you experience the failure. You have to learn to let go and avoid pushing yourself too hard since no one can do everything in a perfect way.
Know your capabilities, keep learning, but do not forget to take a proper break!
Forgive Yourself
Before forgiving others, take time to forgive yourself for anything you’ve done wrong in the past. Forgiving ourselves, in fact, can liberate our heart and set us free.
Quality Time with Your Loved Ones
Don’t be too busy working that you forget to spare your time to the loved ones, be it family or close friends. The fact is, spending time with those who matter to you can rejuvenate your mind. They are among a few people who understand you inside and out, they know the-unmasked you, not to mention loved ones are surely the sources of motivation and support.
Practice patience
People come from various backgrounds and at some point, you may cross path with people you can’t stand. While you do not how they fight their own battle, do respect them by choosing wisely the responses you want to take. By doing this, you can also practice patience at the same time and this will give you peace of mind too.
Make amends as soon as possible
One day you will unintentionally hurt someone’s feeling, make them sad. Once you realize that you do so, make amends for that immediately. If you are willing to correct your mistakes—intentionally or unintentionally—quickly, you are open to self- acceptance and peace within yourself will be easier to achieve.
Think Long-term
It is easy to get angry or annoyed over the simplest things. But if you are in this kind of condition where you can choose whether to keep it low or act out of your anger, just think about how you will feel after you react. Will it make you happy? Will it bring peace of mind?
Meditate
Too many benefits from doing meditation and one of them is as stress reduction. Both mental and physical stress can stimulate the production of cortisol—stress hormone which is responsible for sleep deprivation, high blood pressure, and tiredness. While these effects surely block our way to achieve inner peace, meditation can help get rid of the stress effects.
Detach Yourself from Negative Emotions
We are not perfect and we can’t always be positive all the time. There are times when we get jealous over a friend’s achievements, or as simple as being angry while reality does not match with your expectations. Let us tell you, it is pretty normal. It is normal to experience a range of negative emotions from time to time even over the silliest reason, but the way you handle it will determine your level of inner peace. So, every time you encounter negative emotions, try to detach yourself from the feelings and begin to ask yourself: Why should I be angry with them? Have they told me the reasons why they did something I dislike? Do the reasons make any sense? Why am I angry, is it because of my expectation?
By throwing many questions to yourself and answer them honestly, you can detach yourself from those negative emotions, where you see yourself and those emotions as two different entities. You will observe your behaviours from a very objective perspective.
Be Thankful
Gratitude plays an important role in creating happiness. It is easier to give ways to negativity and it takes more effort to keep being thankful for whatever we have right now. To keep us grounded, every day remind yourself to always list at least 10 things you are grateful for. At the end of the month, keep reading the list and you will be amazed that you are actually blessed beyond you thought you were.