achieving inner peace
ANOTHER IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): A growing understanding that life is all about “multiple bottom lines” and the way you balance the lot of them promotes inner peace or inner chaos. [If you start getting frazzled, you know something’s gotten out of whack and you have to go hunt it down and bonk it back into line…which doesn’t SOUND particularly peaceful, but is kinda fun.] For weeks now I’ve been mired in a bog of paradoxes of the finest kind….
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that what you already have is the starting point for building the space where you want to be. [Gather your resources and see what you’ve got. What you choose to use and how you choose to use them breathes life and form and definition into the Why you are already living.] The Light of My Light (LOML) and I made some “What-Get Soup” again the other day. The soup is a throwback to…
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that anger energy can be used to unify rather than divide. [Anger is a wake-up call, a signal that change is needed. If you can respect other people’s ways of dancing while working towards making room to do your own dance, the anger can lead to more understanding, communication, and caring. Not easy, but doable….] Three ‘R’s make up the Anger Trifecta: Resentment, Rage, and Regret. We all know that. And almost every…
Urgency, the repeated hammering on the direness of some situation or other that absolutely requires your personal immediate attention (or else), has become the go-to stance for so many of the professional and amateur persuaders in our lives these days. They tell us that urgency is different than panic. Panic is a freak-out. You run around like a chicken without a head, not knowing where you are going, bumping into things and falling down a lot. The proper response to…
One of the more intriguing bits in Nilofer Merchant’s book about the care and feeding of wild ideas that can dent the world, THE POWER OF ONLYNESS, is the one about taking a closer and more considered look at “the question that you can’t answer but can’t stop thinking about.” That annoying question is like a bedraggled, adorable con-artist mutt that follows you around and accepts occasional handouts from you but warily stays out of reach. It hangs around.
“Sanctuary” is a word derived from the Latin, “sanctarium,” which means “a container that keeps a cherished or sacred thing safe.” The word, as used by the Greco-Romans referred to places of holiness or safety. Even though the word is often traced only as far as the Greek and Roman empires and their temples, the concept of a place of refuge is universal. It appears in almost all of the cultural and spiritual traditions from all over the world and…
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that every form of Making is ultimately another way of practicing being human. [Humans make things. It’s how we connect with one another and with the World.] I am pleased when I can wander through poet Mary Oliver’s words and borrow her eyes and her heart to see again the beauty and the mystery of Life-Its-Own-Self. The words remind me: I am not alone. That one helps me get back to peace again amid…
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): a tendency to notice what you are noticing and to ask why you’re noticing it. [Sometimes you notice things that call to your heart and your heart responds by dancing. The best move then is to go do more of that dance….] Have you noticed the latest trend (especially after the pandemic lockdown) toward hugging trees, galaxy-gazing, mooning over wilderness landscapes and generally dissing our man-made constructs and urban follies? Going-Outside-with-the-capital-O has become the new…
One day I happened to overhear a good friend of mine – one of the most generous and selflessly giving people I know – beating up on herself unmercifully. She was spazzing about how she had fallen down off her (very high) standards-of-conduct bar because she had not stopped to listen (yet again) to a high-maintenance friend’s continuing saga about how everybody was picking on her and how not-right everything in her life was.
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): a tendency to take action opportunely. Not tied to past accomplishments, not attached to any outcomes, you’re free to take effective action. [It’s another water thing, I am thinking. If you watch a stream, you notice that the water moves the best way it can over, under, around…and gets to the sea eventually just doing that. Cool.] I bet you’ve heard it a time or two, the old chestnut about how “timing is everything.” I…