INNER PEACE SYMPTOMS — The Stack
[Header photo credit: “Connection” by Przemko Stachowski via Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
One IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): a tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than act in response to fears based on past experience. [The goal is to get to being a Conscious Innocent, which really feels like a dumb thing to do, but seems to work out just fine when you step back and see what-is after the hoo-hah dies down. It is a really strange phenomenon.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 2: an unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 3: a loss of interest in judging other people. [Frankly, you’re too busy watching what happens when they do whatever it is they do and the show can get pretty impressive.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 4: a loss of interest in judging oneself. [Watching where you’re walking and seeing what happens when you go wherever you go turns the whole thing into a travelogue. You’re busy watching the story unfold….and if you’re lucky you actually get the lessons sometimes.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 5: a loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others. [People’s motivations are always a surprise. They do what they do and then put the best face on it they can. It’s kinda interesting listening to their stories, but.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 6: a loss of interest in conflict. [I notice that all conflicts tend to degenerate into arguments about WHO IS RIGHT. I started wondering, why can’t EVERYBODY be right?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 7: a loss of the ability to worry. [If I hadn’t lost a bunch of this ability, I would probably be very worried about this one right now.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 8: frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation. [HEE!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 9: contented feelings of connectedness with others and with nature.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 10: frequent attacks of smiling. [This is getting so bad that I get the feeling other folks sometimes think I don’t understand “the problem.” I figure THEY don’t understand that I am looking for possibilities and solutions, and “the problem” just blocks my vision.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 11: an increasing tendency to let things happen (rather than make them happen). [This tendency dramatically increased after I resigned as General Manager of the Universe. As a recovering control freak, it is a Biggie…continues to be.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 12: an increased susceptibility to love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it. [Love, I think, is the way we manage to merge the energies of Earth and Heaven in this World. It’s our job as humans to do that, you know.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 13: enjoying an inordinate number of hugs. [This is my absolute favorite symptom….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 14: feeling other people’s smiles inside you. [This is my second-favorite symptom.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 15: feeling there’s time enough to do what you like. [A Hawaiian healer explained the literal translation of the word “ho’omanawanui,” which Hawaiians today use to mean, “no worries.” “Ho’o” = “to make.” “Manawa” = “time.” “Nui” = “big.” If you can make time big, you have lots of room to play. Put in breathing spaces too.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 16: an increasing tendency to try new things. [From a place of peacefulness and sanctuary, new doesn’t look so scary.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 17: an increasing tendency to spontaneous generosity and performing random acts of kindness. [When you’re full, it just naturally overflows.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 18: frequent episodes of wonderment and delight in the beauty in the world and in other people. [Joy arises naturally when you can see how beautiful it all is, and you only get to see beauty when you can take off your fear filters.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 19: frequent episodes of empathy for other sentient beings — people, animals, trees, even rocks…hey, where does sentience begin and end?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 20: an increasing tendency towards radical trust in the Universe. [It’s a cool thing to feel that there’s a conspiracy afoot to enhance your well-being. Hawaiians say, “Akua take care.”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 21: a decreased capacity for indulging in developing catastrophic, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios. [Trusting that you CAN handle most of the things that come up is a benefit of getting older, I think. After all, you got this far, didn’t ya?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 22: a feeling that you are a favored child of the Universe (and not guilty about it one bit)! [When this thought occurred to me, I smiled for days and days….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 23: a loss of interest in temper tantrums — mine or other people’s. [Temper tantrums just mean the Baby in there is feeling all helpless and frustrated. It’s a body-thing. If you don’t release all the tight energy in more positive ways, it comes out as stomping around and yelling. Feeling stupid afterwards is a really painful consequence.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 24: an increasing curiosity about how to help things work out for the highest good of everybody involved. [It’s a funny thing, when you make THAT your intention, you can very often find a solution that works out pretty good.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 25: feeling enfolded in a big warm hug as you walk around. [That is a really cool feeling….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 26: an inclination to foster sanity whenever it comes into your life. [Because, for real, being human can sure make you crazy!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 27: an understanding that all things are impermanent, but the cycle of change remains eternal: arising, becoming, passing away, new arising. [There really isn’t anything else, and when you feel everything falling away, THAT is the time to be looking for the new, next thing and inviting it to come closer.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 28: a decreased capacity for suffering over your suffering. [This one’s a major asset. So much time and energy gets freed up.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 29: a growing disinclination to loll around in piles of guilt and a reluctance to sling it around. [It’s a major relief to realize that a lot of the sucky things that happen are NOT YOUR FAULT. It can also be a major pin that bursts the bubble of your self-importance, but that’s another story….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 30: a growing ability to dissipate guilt and shame attacks by other people. [Whew! This one’s an asset! When you realize that each of us walks in our own world, since we only connect in spots, and that you don’t need to take what others do personally, it helps you listen to your own voice, keep focused on your own self-definition.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 31: an increasing tendency towards feeling tenderness towards others and yourself. [The big trick is being tender to yourself. Every one of us is SO good at attacking ourselves. It is so easy…we know the weak spots and we’ve got the ammunition.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 32: a tendency to focus on solutions. [It helps to remember that any situation that makes you aware of your dissatisfaction with the “how-it-is” always holds the resources to foster what you really want. The trick is noticing that these resources are there.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 33: a tendency to accept each moment as a gift from the Universe and to savor the whole thing. [This one tends to make you so grateful all of the time.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 34: a tendency to luxuriate in the senses. [“Savor” is just one letter away from “Savior.” There’s gotta be a reason why.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 35: a loss of interest in making comparisons between yourself and other people. [Hmmm…I’m not really sure WHY this is happening, but it is. Maybe I’m so busy looking at what I’m doing and seeing where that goes, it leaves little time to check out how other folks are walking their walk. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad one.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 36: an increasing acceptance of the fact that the Universe really is full of plenty for everybody. [This is a really good one….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 37: an increasing ability to be truthful with yourself. [I notice when you stop believing the lies you tell yourself, it makes it easier to see where you are and what would be good to do next. I also notice it’s hardest to let go of the lies about motivation.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 38: a tendency to be humble. [Mostly, that’s because I’ve got a heck of a lot of reasons for being humble and most of them are about being just human…which is not a bad thing to be, actually.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 39: an unwillingness to play with petty-philes) (or be one). [“Petty-philism” is a word I’ve coined and it means the love for all the little things in life…all the myriad little concerns and dust-mote details of the World. Petty-philes are often afflicted by major anxiety caused by massive overload of petty details and trying to get it all JUST-RIGHT. Poor things.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 40: a fascination with the under-story in the mundane, consensus world. [I’m reading Clotaire Raaille’s THE CULTURE CODE: An Ingenious Way To Learn Why People Around the World Buy and Live As They Do. Rapaille is the man who helped Chrysler develop the PT Cruiser, the most stylin’ car in recent decades, and helped keep the Jeep Wrangler from being turned into another SUV. He did it by decoding the thoughts and feelings of people raised in a specific culture for certain basic life components — health, love, work, money, and so on. He then translated his research into factoids about how people relate to products. Fascinating! It seems to me that if you know the under-story, the story behind people’s way of thinking, very often you can hold on to your equanimity when folks raised in a different culture react to things in ways that make no sense to you.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 41: an unwillingness to suffer over my suffering. This one increased when I discovered that “suffer” means “to undergo.” THAT’S ALL. All the rest of it are add-ons. Reminds me of the Country Western song lyric: “When you’re going through hell, just keep goin’….” Maybe if you get through it fast enough, the song says, the Devil won’t even know you’re there.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Syndrome) 42: an expanding clarity of vision and a better acceptance of what-is. [Molokai people have a mindset that can best be summarized as ‘as how….that’s-how-it-is. It allows you to see what is in front of you in all of its many aspects, and if you don’t rail about it and protest, and you don’t waste energy doing trauma-dramas, then you’ve got more energy to figure out how to respond.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 43: a growing tendency to live according to your own self-definition. [Nobody can tell you how to get to your joys. Nobody can tell you what your joy “ought”/”should” be. Your job’s to find your joy and follow it (or them — if you happen to be a greedy-guts like me.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 44: an acceptance that all things are impermanent (even you) and that the only constant is change. [It’s a funny thing how being able to stand quietly in ambiguity allows you to notice stuff better. Trauma-dramas tend to be very distracting.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 45: a growing understanding that emotions and moods pass through like the weather. [While they are as useful as radar and sonar blips of where things are trending, they really are only “fingers pointing at the moon.” Living in the middle of constant trauma-drama is exciting and all, but not real fulfilling and driving into potholes all the time ruins good vehicles.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 46: a growing awareness that all phenomena are empty and illusory and the only meaning and mana in any situation is what the people involved bring to it. [It’s a cool thing to realize that we humans are the arbiters of the meaning and mana in our own lives.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 47: a growing understanding that the “enlightenment” (freedom from delusion) that the wise guys talk about all the time is kinda like snaking out the toilet plumbing….
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 48: a growing ability to face transitions and change with equanimity. [Most of this seems to come from being willing to see what-is and perceive where it could lead.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 49: a tendency to see good as well as bad. [Every calamity and horrible thing that happens in this world is balanced by something that’s inspiring and beautiful. The trick is developing the eyes to see all of it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 50: a growing tendency to take yourself lightly. [Hauling around a dump-truck load of issues sure makes it hard to dance!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 51: a growing ability to stand up whenever you fall down. [I figure it’s a given: you will always fall down or else you don’t learn anything new. It’s how you learn. Standing up again means you got the lesson.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 52: an inclination to walk in the middle. [“Me first” often means you get to be the soggiest carrot in the stew. (Not a pretty picture.) However, going last is only an advantage if you use it as an opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes. Otherwise, all it means is waiting, waiting, waiting for your turn…because you know all the me-firsters are going to cut in line. (Sigh!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 53: a tendency to be truthful. [I figured out you need a way better memory than I’ve got to be a good liar. If you never lie, you’ll never have to remember what you said….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 54: an inclination to let somebody else be Number One. [It seems to me Number Ones come and go, but a Number Two can last forever. Longevity for Number Ones depends on fresh product, new winning moves and fancy dancing, all of which gets really tiring after a while and Number Ones tend to get adamant after a while that their way is THE way. Then there’s a palace rebellion, or else boredom sets in. Then there’s a new Number One…the King is dead, long live the King. Being support crew, on the other hand, only depends on lending a hand and cheering, which is a lot easier and makes you very popular with everybody so you get to hang around longer.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 55: a growing ability to learn from other people’s mistakes. [There’s a lot less wear-and-tear if you don’t insist on D.I.Y. — repeating other people’s mistakes your own self, figuring it’ll be different because YOU did it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 56: a growing tendency to stay calm when faced by yet another setback, and to keep on moving forward one-step, one-step, one-step. [A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. It ends after taking many steps one at a time.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 57: a growing ability to evolve in response to change. [A lot of that, I’ve found, is letting go of what happened BEFORE — good AND bad.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom 58: a disinclination to get stuck in what you’ve already done. [“Been there, done that” is all well and good. “What’s next?” can work better.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 59: a tendency to walk away from “quick” — get rich quick, get thin quick, get out of debt quick… [The older I get the more I notice that shortcuts are very often the longest distance between two places.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 60: a growing understanding that happiness and joy only come to you when you’re deeply committed to making or doing something excellent. [What’s really cool is that you get to define “excellent.”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 61: an understanding that the low points in your life are actually opportunities to do something else that will make you happy. [The trick to that is focusing on the success that is just around the corner rather than on the latest skinned knee. Mostly, I figure that one’s a head-game to make yourself keep doing one-step, one-step, one-step until you get out of the Valley of Gloom.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 62: a growing understanding that life is all about “multiple bottom lines,” and the way you balance all of them either 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.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 63: an understanding that without communication you lose the love. [I always have to remind myself that it’s my fence to mend, even if I didn’t break it….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 64: an inclination to surround yourself with people who are optimistic and nurturing. [Maybe vampires can be optimistic and nurturing, but I’ve never met any like that.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 65: an understanding that you CAN control your memories. [Cultivate long-term memories that nurture and sustain you; develop short-term memories about insults and injuries. It works better that way.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 66: an understanding that laughter’s just there, waiting. [You can make a rainbow when you take a piece of broken glass and turn it to the light.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 67: a tendency to avoid striving for the high places. [I notice those who walk on a high tightrope always need to look for balance points. Someone who walks on the ground really doesn’t need an open parasol or a long pole…unless they are for stylin’ purposes, I suppose.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 68: an inclination to go deep. [Think of the deep ocean. The depths are not disturbed by the waves on the surface.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 69: a tendency to value sincerity and faithfulness. [Water always flows toward the sea…and that’s the most valuable thing to learn from water: it holds to its true course.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 70: a tendency to deal gently with other people and with yourself. [Water moves gently…and overcomes the hardest obstacles under Heaven.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 71: a tendency to focus on cooperation rather than competition. [But, I think it only works if you stay clear about who you are and where you stand. It’s another water thing. Water can fit what is square or what is round. It keeps its true nature in any containment or circumstance.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 72: 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 ocean eventually just doing that. Cool.]
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Another (IPS) Inner Peace Symptom 73: a tendency towards generosity. [Water is the most generous substance there is. Where there is water, there is life.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 74: a tendency to look for the Divine in every person and the potential in each situation. [This seems to be an outgrowth of the premise that each of us is born perfect and that life is an ongoing slow process.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 75: an understanding that Freedom is the basis of this Universe and that the Real is that you are so free that you can choose bondage — or not. [This one sorta puts you on notice that it really does not matter what other people do or don’t do. That’s not yours. How you respond — that’s yours; you CAN choose or not choose.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 76: an understanding that the moment of power is Now and that Now is the platform from which you can launch into what is Next. [It’s really an amazing thing how easy it is to lose sight of Now. Past successes and future maybe-downers suck out your eyes; future benefits put stars in them.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 77: a tendency to trust other people to do what comes naturally to them. [It’s a cool thing when you surround yourself with folks who are into hugs and laughing and looking for the beauty and good stuff in every situation (i.e., Winnie-the-Pooh clones). It ain’t so hot when you surround yourself with Eeyore and Rabbit clones.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 78: a growing awareness that the only thing that abides is the way you walk. [It’s a proven fact that the way you walk down the street increases your chances of being a victim, a target for challenge, or a welcome addition to a group. If that’s so, it seems to me, then all your behaviors evoke responses from the people around you and tend to determine how you’ll be treated.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 79: a disinclination to carve rules in stone (especially with dull chisels), [Rules have always been the bane of my life…mostly ’cause I am SO good at making up more. I bet Moses started down that mountain with The 56 Commandments, and he kept dumping the dumb tablets ’cause they were so heavy! If the mountain had been higher, maybe we’d have ended up with the One Commandment: Love one another.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 80: a tendency to talk less. [When all is said and done, it seems to me that more gets done when less is said.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 81: an understanding that while all emotions taken too far bring pain and suffering, moods pass. [Even the grandest passions get kinda mundane after a while. The trick is always finding a way to reactivate the enchantment. As Einstein said (more or less) it’s either all a miracle or none of it is.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 82: an understanding that we are all building dreams on shifting sand and we might as well get used to walking around inside buildings that tilt some.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 83: an understanding that while enlightenment may be a release from delusion, being the one-eyed guy in the country of the blind mostly means you’re bumping into all these blind guys who don’t know there’s a shortcut.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 84: a realization that you cannot live somebody else’s lessons for them and you cannot love somebody else to safety. [The World’s a hairy place sometimes, but every one of us is a warrior fighting our own fight, and the best we can do for each other is to recognize this and catch each other’s back as needed.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 85: an acknowledgment that EVERYBODY has an opinion, and that those opinions don’t necessarily hold true for your path. [It’s also a truth that your own opinion might not hold true for your own path. Reality checks are a good thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 86: a growing sense of curiosity about how others see the World we share. [Oh, you see it THAT way? Cool!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 87: a growing understanding that the Beatles were right: Love is all you need. [The problem, of course, is figuring out whether what you love is worth all that effort.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 88: a feeling of respect for every person one meets. [If every person is a conduit for the Creative, and if, as the Buddha says, the learning that comes from experience is the highest form there is, then every person is a repository of such learning and knowledge that the only response CAN be respect.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 89: a tendency to listen for each person’s heartsong and honoring it. [Listening, according to Mark Nepo, is the best way of knowing]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 90: an inclination to become involved in situations that contain potential for beauty and benefit. [It seems to me that involvement is the best persuasion. If you start lending a hand, other hands join in.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 91: a feeling of compassion for all sentient beings. [Compassion opens you up and you are seeing What-Is without passing judgment. Sometimes you can see a way to help; sometimes not, but always, I find, compassion is an appropriate response.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 92: a feeling that love is the best way to decipher the meaning of life. [Looking at the origins of all situations with a warm and loving eye allows you to see where and how each one came about and what (if anything) you can do to help foster a good resolution.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 93: a tendency to appreciate all you have. [When you know that you are responsible for creating your own life out of the way you respond to the world, it does free you to enjoy and appreciate the good things and to look at the rest with at least a hope that maybe you can alter them so they match the picture in your head.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 94: a growing understanding about the difference between helping and interfering. [It boils down to knowing everyone has their own journeys to make and the ones you love want and need your permission to work on their own happiness in their own way. ‘Course, I’ve never figured out how to handle it when the one you love decides to head down some scary path that you KNOW ends up heading off a cliff. I have NEVER managed to be calm about that one. Mostly, I do tackles and strangleholds and stuff like that, with a lot of screaming and hair-pulling and so on. It ain’t pretty and it ain’t peaceful, but I figure even peacefulness can be taken too far. I’m not letting the Dumb-Ass eat up people I love!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 95: a growing tendency to forgive. [Old resentments clutter up your heart-space and take up room that could be used for loving better.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 96: a growing understanding that inner peace is always a choice. [You can get all bent out of shape because other people aren’t doing this and the World isn’t like that, or you can choose to sing your own heartsong and share THAT with the World. One leads to constant turmoil, the other makes a solid road along which you can travel lightly.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 97: an understanding that nothing stands alone. [Hawaiians have a concept regarding aka threads — the connections between every single thing and sentient being in the Universe. Any being, action or event is connected to every other. This is another good thing to ponder, but it always makes me pause. I figgah it means that you are never alone and everything you do affects everyone and everything else. (Kinda scary when you think about it…every dumb-ass thing I do lands on everybody else’s plate. Yeesh!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 98: an understanding that the need for “making peace” can interfere with having peace. [A major problem with perfect peace and harmony is it gets really boring after a while. Humans seem to have this innate tendency to stir things up, rationalizing it all by saying matters could be “new and improved.” I’ve gotta watch that my own self.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 99: an understanding that peace is an absence of “againstness.” [Making a circle that includes the one who shuts you out is a most effective way to open them up more to the possibilities you see. ( It’s also really sneaky. I like that.)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 100: an understanding that directing your energies AGAINST something traps you in what you think is wrong and separates you from what you want to achieve. [This one’s such a weird head-space, but it seems to work. All the anger and outrage fuels indignation and heart-burning…which distracts you from your walk and keeps you stuck.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 101: an understanding that your wants and needs are as valid as other people’s, but not MORE valid. [Self-interest is not a bad thing, as long as it ain’t the ONLY thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 102: an understanding that every day there is beauty in the world and in every person wandering through your life. [You have to be ready to see it, but.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 103: an understanding that you are in a procession, walking through this time, this place, to who-knows-what. [I am the fruit of my ancestors. I am the seed of my descendants. I am only one in a procession, but I am still one. Without me, without my song, the line is diminished. There is a blank spot nobody else can fill.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 104: a growing tendency to make choices that support your own growth and development — whether you or anyone else is inconvenienced or not. [Heartsongs can be most insistent about being heard, and really disruptive when they’re stifled.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 105: a growing tendency to hold off on being self-righteous. F’r real, self-righteousness arises out of a need for others to validate your viewpoint. [The only one you have to convince of the validity of your viewpoint is you. Throwing tantrums and making dire prophecies because others disagree does not help make you more right.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 106: a growing understanding that the World will NOT live up to your highest expectations all the time, but it can be okay anyway. [“Okay” can be good too, you know.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 107: a growing tendency to yield to other people’s process without losing sight of where you’re going. [As long as you’re all headed in the same direction, it probably doesn’t matter if some people walk funny.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 108: a growing tendency to make sure the rabbit you’re chasing is real. [Mutual fund magnate John C. Bogle, in his book, ENOUGH: True Measures of Money, Business and Life, retells an old story about the old champion racing greyhound who quit racing because he found out that the rabbit he was chasing around and around the track year after year was not real.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 109: An understanding that the world has its own balance, which can look REALLY unbalanced to your eye. [Your job’s keeping your inner balance even when the world goes nuts on you. (Sigh!) Nothing’s easy]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 110: a growing understanding that even when you know your best effort will not be good enough, it is important that you do it anyway. [Maybe your not-good-enough best efforts will combine with everybody else’s not-good-enough best efforts and roll that big boulder of an obstacle out of the way.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 111: a growing inclination to ask for what you need. [The more you know about what makes you peaceful and peaceable, the easier it is to ask for what fosters that.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 112: a growing understanding that you will find peace in the world only if you can find it in yourself. [The World is a mirror of your mind.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 113: an understanding that forgiveness is NOT about denying or pretending away something that hurt you. [Forgiveness is about releasing the anger you feel and that need of yours to retaliate.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 114: a disinclination to let life harden your heart. [This from Pema Chodron’s THE PLACES THAT SCARE YOU: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times. She quotes an old woman sitting in the sun as she (Pema) slouched along feeling put-upon by the world: “Little girl, don’t you go letting life harden your heart.”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 115: an acknowledgment that a decent ego is not a bad thing, and allowing yourself to be debased to show how “good” you are is just a fake-out. [Cultivating your ability to nurture your own self keeps you on course through your days.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 116: a growing understanding that there really is more than one way to do things [and most of them are NOT your way].
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 117: a growing appreciation of process. [Creativity moves through every situation you encounter. Enjoy the ride ’cause there ain’t no going back!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 118: an appreciation of the power of kindness. [Kindness comes from a full and open heart. Thank you, all you kind people!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 119: a tendency to choose to face life as a conscious innocent. [Zen guys tell you that Beginner’s Mind — alert, open, with no preset prejudices — is the best kind there is. You have to be brave to do it, though. Not being afraid of looking like a fool (as Trungpa Rinpoche says) IS a requirement.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 120: a tendency to let everybody wandering around in your life go their own way. [Suffering fools to come unto you (and STAY there) does not make you a saint. It just drives you crazy.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 121: a tendency to honor and respect time. [Ho’omanawanui, make time big, and you’ll have all the time you need to do all you need to do.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 122: a tendency towards optimism. [The alternative’s kinda like a seedling trying to bury its growing tip back into the ground. It ain’t natural!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 123: a growing ability to recognize good habits and practice them. [Habits, like beliefs, are built one repetition at a time.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 124: a tendency to work to please yourself. [Your heartsong’s the only real one you can sing. F’r real, Ego’s got a TERRIBLE voice, and singing someone else’s song is a waste of your time.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 125: an appreciation of the fact that the imperfections of humanity add to the beauty of our natures. [It’s funny how you love the people you do partly BECAUSE of their flaws, which help define them as their own selves in your heart.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 126: a recognition that there’s a magnificent order that’s already in place and it will continue — with or without your agreement or willing participation. [The whole “let-it-be” thing used to make me irritable and snarky. Funny, but…the buggah works, more often than not.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 127: a tendency to use your intention to enjoy yourself WHEREVER you are in the scheme of things. [It’s a lot more fun for everybody.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 128: an acknowledgment that while excellence is a good thing and is certainly achievable, “perfect” is too much to ask of anybody — even yourself. [It seems to me “perfect” just sits there being perfect. It’s not funny and it’s not fun either. What good is it?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 129: an understanding that the need to achieve goals and be “best in show” is a preference, and NOT a prerequisite for your adequacy or worthiness. [It counts that you try with all your mind, and heart, and self, and if you don’t get to the ultimate whatevah…maybe you went farther than you would have otherwise.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 130: an acknowledgment that your achieved competence only means you can help more. [A superiority complex cuts you off from other people just as thoroughly as an inferiority complex does. Everybody’s good at SOMETHING, and a focus on connection allows you to see other people’s competence.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 131: a disinclination to continue flogging yourself for not measuring up to some high-flying standard or other. [It really HURTS! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 132: a tendency to check where you’re putting your success-ladder BEFORE you start climbing up it. [Nothing’s quite as sad as the person who realizes she’s the “queen” of the wrong heap.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 133: a tendency to recognize and appreciate what you’ve managed to achieve. [You’re the one who knows where you started from and what it took to get where you are, and nobody else quite gets it. How could they?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 134: an acknowledgment that the sweetness in life is always available to you. [All you have to do is notice.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 135: an understanding that not everything can be fixed (or should be). [That one’s REALLY hard for me. Ms Fix-It jumps on her white horse and takes off in every direction…accomplishing not too much of nothin’. Ah, me….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 136: a tendency to believe that it’s okay to be joyful and tender NOW…even if the world-as-we-know-it implodes tomorrow. [Mourning is supposed to happen AFTER, not before, and mourning is the shadow side of surviving. It “comes with.”
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 137: an understanding that tenderness is the antidote for alienation. [If you’re feeling snarky at the world, maybe it’s ’cause you put on the wrong pair of shades this morning.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 138: an acknowledgment that this is a learning planet and we’ve all got lessons we’re required to learn. [One of the best exercises is scooping up all the joys you can and throwing them all over everybody — smiling.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 139: an understanding that the best intention to hold is the one about working towards the highest good for everybody. [It’s a bonus that plans that grow out of that intention are the most fun implementing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 140: an understanding that taking the long view tends to make the road a lot easier. [You can see the potholes better if you look at what’s ahead instead of staring at your toes being all depressed.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 141: an understanding that getting outside your own self-involvement allows you to catch glimpses of the Creative in the World, in other people, and in you. [The Creative, I notice, is only visible in small bits that flash by.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 142: a tendency to allow yourself to be vulnerable. [It takes a brave soul to choose vulnerability, which is not quite the same as being helpless, weak, or unprepared to manage in life. Vulnerability’s more about leading with your heart.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 143: a willingness to be Nobody. [Letting go of Ego’s need to Be Somebody is incredibly liberating…and awesomely difficult!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 144: a willingness to just be present. [The only way you can be a conduit for the power of the Creative is to let go of the need to shine. It’s funny how the Creative gets brighter in you when you can do that.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 145: an understanding that the opposite of “empty” is “full.” [Fullness comes from valuing yourself and being grateful for your life. It’s amazing how feeling full helps you stop and chill out.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 146: an understanding that the antidote for the feeling of lack is wanting what you have. [Contentment is an essential part of being peaceful.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 147: an understanding that gratitude opens the door for more of the same. [In order to be grateful for what you have, you have to KNOW just how valuable it all is…and you can recognize what will enhance your life when it wanders on through.
You’re also more attuned to what will NOT work in your life and can let go of it more easily. The other side of this is recognizing what you do not want to lose.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 148: an understanding that you are a natural receiver of gifts. You just have to cherish them when they plop on your head…errr, um.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 149: an understanding that giving is great, but it is not a prerequisite for receiving. [Being WILLING to receive is. Sometimes Hawaiians can take the reciprocity thing too far: “Give, give, give, and you will get back…” Yeah, right! Not if the guys you give to have nothing they are willing to give back to you.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 150: an understanding of the difference between stability and stagnation. [Stability lets you grow, stagnation comes from trampling down any sprouts of new life.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 151: a tendency to balance staying power with flexibility. [Somehow with this one I always get the picture of a dancing mountain. That can’t be right.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 152: an understanding that the fear of lack is likely to bring it on. [If you focus on what you do NOT have, ignoring the resources available to you, you may become blind to any opportunity because you won’t believe it when you see it.
The other thing is if all you can SEE is the lack, then anything that looks like it can help you get whatever it is quickly (even if it’s poisonous or harmful) becomes very attractive. You have to be careful not to lose what you’ve got when you go looking for what you want, it seems to me.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 153: an understanding that your love for somebody does not obligate them to live up to your expectations. [It sure would be nice, but love’s supposed to be a gift without strings. If strings are attached, it’s not love. It’s an investment.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 154: an understanding that the Creative doesn’t force you to be open. [Being open just works better.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 155: an understanding that when you can recognize your inner fullness, you’ll have the platform on which you can do your best dance. [Getting to this inner fullness seems to be a lot like Picasso’s quest to paint like a child. It’s already there in you. You just have to feel it…and usually that takes a lifetime of trying.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 156: a tendency to use what’s present to get to where you want to go. [This keeps you from running off, chasing illusive dreams that disappear like mist when the sun comes up.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 157: an understanding that what you put your attention on grows. [Make sure you’re growing what you want to harvest. Planting turnip seeds does not result in a harvest of roses.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 158: a tendency to take actions that create and promote healing, understanding and growth. [Good farmers know you have to feed the soil where you grow things or the plants will come up weak and sickly.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 159: a tendency not to take things personally. [It’s good to remember that it’s very easy to misinterpret and misconstrue other people’s actions. Here you are, thinking it’s all about you when, really, it’s all about THEM.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 160: a growing understanding that you can renegotiate your commitments. [Life’s full of surprises and completing what you set out to do may become untenable due to circumstances beyond your control. Making room for that helps you keep your feet under you. Just getting that is a biggie for me….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 161: a tendency to approach change as if the Universe is bringing something to you, not taking something away. [It makes it a lot easier to see the best ways to move in the flow of life.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 162: an understanding that the energy of resistance is a useful tool for blocking negative influences when you’re following your heartsong. [It’s okay to say no to the things that take you away from doing that.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 163: a tendency to resist and discount fears and insecurities that keep you from following your heart. [When you are shooting an arrow at a target, you DO have to let go of the arrow so it can fly. Holding on to the arrow because you’re scared of losing it ain’t archery.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 164: an understanding that there’s a difference between using your defenses as protection from real threats and wasting energy on resisting things as they are because of delusions about how they should be. [“Should-be’s” are guaranteed to give you heartburn, it seems to me. Must be part of their spec sheet.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 165: an understanding that you can be a champion for yourself. [It’s a dirty job, but SOMEBODY’S gotta do it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 166: an understanding that it is YOU who sets your own limits and you who expands them. [I keep telling myself that mistakes are doorways to expanded talent. Now my problem is which door to open. Sheesh!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 167: an understanding that generosity is not a downpayment on love. [Generosity is spill-over when you’re feeling full.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 168: an understanding that you do not always have to be “on.” If you act the way you are people will come and laugh with you. It’s cool. [It took a while for me to discover that there’s no need to “throw an act” with an audience. Expressing your authentic self is enough. People get attached to Real.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 169: an understanding that there is a difference between Style and haughty self-indulgence. [Getting carried away with presentation can take away from the authenticity of the way you walk. NOT stylin’, brah!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 170: a disinclination to be fascinated by the nuances of “image.” [It takes so much energy to just walk your walk that you forget to check whether everybody’s watching. (Big News Flash: mostly they’re not.)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 171: an understanding that change can only happen where you are and when you are and you’re the one who has to do the changing. [Wishing and waiting for different doesn’t make it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 172: a disinclination to use anger as a reservoir of energy. [Anger does make a lot of energy available to you. I find that the problem with that energy is it’s so wild you spend half your time trying to hold it back and directing it properly. It’s not all that effective.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 173: an understanding that there is a difference between persistence and stubbornness. [Persisting means you’re heading towards a goal through thick or thin; stubborn is digging in your heels and saying, “no,” and “not.”
It’s the difference between getting traction and being stuck in the mud. *(You can always tell you’re being stubborn when you start breaking out the “shoulds” — he “should” do that, she “should” feel that, it “should” be this way or that way…and so on.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 174: a tendency to demonstrate your own individuality with such conviction that it inspires others to do the same. [This one works really well, especially when your goal is to play and help other people pay.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 175: a willingness to try things others don’t understand AND find ways to connect with others nonetheless. [It’s amazing how everybody’s got enough of their own strange to at least sort of understand yours.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 176: a willingness to help hold visions for other people. [Completely believing in someone else’s dream and helping them get to it is a great way to connect — if you remember also to hold onto and foster your own dreams.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 177: a growing conviction that logic and detachment are not everything. [F’r real, a good belly laugh or a gut-wrenching crying session connects you to some really heavy truths…like all of us being in this silly thing together…and isn’t THAT a marvelous thing?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 178: Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 178: an understanding that freeing your heart from an attachment to some arbitrary “desirable” outcome allows you to make room for all kinds of possibilities, which can get very interesting. [A heart’s freedom grows out of a conscious awareness of the impermanence of everything and every situation. When you understand that it all changes and changes and changes and when you can say, with acceptance and a peaceful heart, “This too shall pass,” then you will be able to adapt and evolve as well.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 179: an acknowledgment that understanding is never handed to anybody on a plate. [Clarity of thought and feelings are a prerequisite for understanding and you only get that by slogging through the mud and the drudge like Hercules cleaning out those stupid stables. Nasty!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 180: a tendency to keep your mind and heart open. [New understandings only come to you when you’re standing there with your heart flapping wide.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 181: a disinclination to bolt when feeling trapped and in overwhelm. [When you feel like running away, using your curiosity to linger in an overload situation often leads to interesting new possibilities. What-happens-next can be a good surprise…or not. Either way you find out that, mostly, you can handle. A cool thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 182: An understanding that surface sparkle may be all there is in a situation. [It is a very good thing to peek at what’s under the sparkle and see what’s really there.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 183: a tendency to restrain the impulse to overextend yourself. [When you scatter your energies out in too many directions you tend to turn into a ghost-thing. You can’t touch or influence anything because you’ve turned yourself into mist…which is pretty and all, but not too effective for moving rocks.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 184: a tendency to follow your curiosity. [Life can be an endless offering of curiosities that beg to be examined. The best ones intrigue you and keep you looking for the Hmmm, what-ELSE-is-in-there?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 185: an understanding that only boring people get bored. [The wise guys say boredom and ennui comes from not being present with what-is. Withholding your involvement with life CREATES boredom, I’m guessing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 186: an understanding that “commitment” means bringing everything you can to what you’re doing. [All commitment does is give you the opportunity to explore all the angles of your perceptions and abilities in whatever endeavor you want to investigate. What’s scary about that?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 187: a tendency to see everybody as an equal contributor to the whole of the universe. [Everybody has a heartsong to add to the Universal Symphony. My hope is that as we all go along we can make the symphony a powerful one, full of light and joy and all that good stuff.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 188: an acceptance of the dull and the “ordinary” in yourself and others. [It’s the ordinary, dull stuff that is the matrix of the world, really. It helps keep it all from doing the big fireworks explosion and then falling apart into useless little bits and pieces…and that’s a good thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 189: a disinclination to support people or institutions that set out to dictate the actions and thoughts of others. [Freedom is essential for following your own heartsong. It works better when you can claim it for yourself. It is the price of admission to the dance.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 190: a disinclination to use rebelliousness as a way to make a statement of stance. [Knee-jerk rebels tend to stir up contention without offering workable solutions or giving a commitment to help resolve existing problems, it seems. Maybe knee-jerk anythings tend to be plain old jerks?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 191: an understanding that acting like a rebel all of the time really means that you think authority is outside you. [It is giving your power and energy away to be always pushing “against,” to be always saying, “You’re not the boss of me.” The antidote to it is to honor your own authority and to follow your own heartsong.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 192: a tendency to look for how things can be done differently so they can work better. [Doing different just because it IS different is kind of like “art for art’s sake.” It makes an echoing chamber full of “HUH????”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 193: a tendency to treasure friends. [It’s cool when the bling and sparkle in your life comes from all your shiny friends.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 194: a tendency to encourage visions to manifest. [It’s SO cool to be able to make a little Something out of the big Nothing….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 195: an understanding that your own strong negativities — the parts of yourself you do not like — may be a sign that you have neglected to nurture some part of your heartsong in this life you’re creating. [Paying attention to your shadows can make your light brighter, I’m noticing, and working on the things BEFORE you get whacked by the 2×4 seems like a very good thing to do.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 196: an acknowledgment that perfection is always present. [What’s perfect is the PROCESS of life, which is a bit different than our normal goal-oriented focusing on “what’s in it for me.” The wise guys are always telling us to Let Be, and if we can manage to do that, often things that are moving and changing slide into place the way a new kaleidoscopic image forms when you turn the tube.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 197: an understanding that focusing on what’s right is the way to get to excellence. [Somebody or other once said your only job is polishing your own corner of the world. If everybody actually did that, the world sure would get shiny.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 198: an understanding that “improving” things is just a way to pass the time while you’re discovering how the Creative works. [Doing and doing and doing has its own momentum, and sometimes you get so caught up in it you don’t notice that the Creative’s actually standing there, waiting for you to get out of the way.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 199: an inclination to discover the actions, thoughts and emotions that support and empower you. [You can only help others when you are overflowing. Draining yourself to help others invariably turns you into one of the helpless. Not good.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 200: a disinclination to do “everything.” [I notice if you just do your own, you help others by empowering them to do theirs. This is a cool thing because, f’r real, I’m kind of busy doing my own the best way I know how. The other way, my own comes out sort of half-assed.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 201: an understanding that part of fostering your own heartsong is knowing your limits and asking for help BEFORE you reach your own outer edges. [It works better that way.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 202: an understanding that trying to FORCE things comes from an overblown Ego pushing its weight around. [There’s a big difference between power and force. You can tell when you’re going overboard if people duck when they see you coming.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 203: an inclination to notice and comment on what works. (Humans are hardwired to notice what’s wrong and complain about it, I think. Maybe it comes from the need to be vigilant because you’re the one that doesn’t have the big muscles, the big teeth and claws, and are half-blind and mostly deaf, and you can’t smell things as well as the other guys.
This is important stuff: the noticing what’s wrong. It’s part of the early warning system.
However, being too wary and vigilant also cuts into our ability to use our really strong talents: noticing the escape hatch and taking it, working together with other people to make good things happen, developing new things that make life go easier.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 204: an understanding that pushing yourself (and everybody else around you) towards some notion of “perfection” mostly shoves it away. [“Perfect” is like a beachball floating on water. Too much splashing around pushes it away.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 205: an understanding that “excellent” is pretty much as good as it gets. [“Excellent” means there’s room yet to improve. “Perfect means there’s no room to grow. (Sounds kind of dead…)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 206: an understanding that there will be times when you want the world to stop just so you can feel DONE. [It doesn’t happen, of course. I notice that when you get to that point, you have to just focus down on what’s right in front of you. That way you won’t get overwhelmed by what you might have to do later. Now is now. Later is later.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 207: an understanding that keeping your heart awake and your humor active helps put life into perspective and keeps the space for joy open and inviting. [The thing about joy is you have to make room for it in your life and you have to make it welcome there. It’s kinda shy that way. Un-joy just barges in, it seems.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 208: an understanding that not everybody wants to improve their lives or themselves. [And even if they do, they may not want to do it YOUR way.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 209: an understanding that other people have the right to make their own mistakes and learn from them. [Sometimes it takes way longer than they (or you) like. So?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 210: an understanding that the world is a messy place on every level. [The whole point of cleaning a pot is making it fit to cook something. You can get so busy getting ready to do something that you never actually get around to DOING it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 211: an understanding that possibilities exist everywhere. [Looking at only what’s wrong tends to make you blind to what can be right.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 212: an understanding that self-torture is not productive. [If you get something 99.95 percent right, beating yourself up for the .05 percent you got wrong gets your heart all bent out of shape and doesn’t help anything.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 213: an understanding that mistakes are invaluable for finding out what does not work. [The cool part is: if you’re a noticing sort, you do NOT have to make all those mistakes yourself. Other folks are happy to oblige and you don’t have to repeat theirs — just go make up new ones of your own.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 214: an understanding that looking incompetent is the first step to a new level of competence. [At least that’s what I keep telling myself whenever I do something dumb.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 215: an understanding that knowing when something is “good enough” is a great time-saver. [Being so thorough that you spend your time reorganizing the world leaves little time for following your heartsong.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 216: an understanding that accepting the chaos of the world does not mean you have to give up your own preference for orderliness. [It just means that you make yours orderly and go on singing your heartsong, trusting that underneath the chaos all around you is the Big Heartsong the Universe sings.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 217: an understanding that trying to “discipline” others in order to nourish yourself shuts off the faucet for the nutrient flow. [It’s a way better strategy to discipline your own self and just keep on following your own heartsong.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 218: an understanding that when a source of nourishment is disturbed and toppling over, it may be a good idea to go looking for a new one. [Sometimes formerly nourishing pools can turn toxic on you. Memories of all the past good can blind you to the current poison. So can the fear of being empty for a bit.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 219: an inclination to remember that things do run through fairly predictable cycles, and you keep facing the same situations because you haven’t figured out how to go beyond them. [It’s good to remember that the Earth’s a learning planet. If you keep trying, you do get it…mostly.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 220: an understanding that suffering over your suffering closes doors. [Walking around moaning and wailing, “poor-thing-me” does very little to alleviate the situation, and, if it becomes a chronic habit, actually causes those who’d like to help to shut the door on you.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 221: an acknowledgment that peacefulness grows out of being supportive of yourself and others. [Constant striving and contentiousness does not lead to peace.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 222: an understanding that there is a difference between jumping to conclusions and having an insight. [Not waiting for the facts to emerge and making less-than-factual assumptions lead to false conclusions that do not have the same “oh, yeah” lightbulb feeling you get when you have a real insight.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 223: a disinclination to shy away from looking at the negatives. [When you ignore unpleasant facts, it may not mean you are really being “positive.” Maybe you’re just out of touch.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 224: an understanding that there’s value in taking a slow-down. [Taking the time to think through your ideas makes them more concrete and more ready to become real. Everything real is some solidified idea or other.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 225: a tendency to keep focus on what is working or what might be. [Focusing on problems often make the shadows get so big they paralyze you.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 226: an inclination to become immersed in the Now. [The truest adventures come from being completely present with what-is, even when what-is is mostly painful and grubby and unpleasant. The lessons become clearer to you, and maybe you can figure out a way past them.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 227: an awareness that hidden in the feelings of hurt, anger, sadness and hopelessness are lessons that illuminate your joy. [The trick is learning how to keep on grubbing around until you GET the lessons.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 228: an awareness that a teacher is, at best, a shortcut to understanding and excellence. [Teachers do not have to be perfect. In fact, often, your best teachers are the people who upset and discombobulate you the most.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 29: an understanding that your commitments challenge you to greatness because you have to say ‘no’ to the things that distract you from fulfilling them.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 230: an understanding of the difference between selflessness and self-abuse. [Not maintaining your healthy personal values or, even worse, giving up what you value for some pie-in-the-sky, has-to-be-THIS-way is just plain not taking care of yourself. Dum-dee-dum-dumb.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 231: a growing understanding of the need to nurture your Spirit. [If you spend your time cultivating and developing your Higher Self rather than indulging your mundane wants and desires, you open the gate through which the Creative can move through your life. This seems to add a satisfying depth and sparkle to it all and then you get to share all this good stuff with your friends….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 232: an understanding of what nurtures and nourishes your alignment with the Creative. [This allows you to notice and let go of the things in your life and in your habitual way of walking that keep you distracted, confined, or separated from your truest heartsong. A good thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 233: an understanding that the whole gamut of human emotions — joy to anguish and all points in between — offers valuable lessons. [You can only learn them if you are fully willing to experience and explore these feelings without getting trapped in them. And that’s a heck of a trick!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom)234: an understanding that man is the link between Heaven and Earth. [Our job as humans is to balance ourselves between the two and keep the communication between them going strong.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 235: an understanding that when you’re feeling small, it’s probably just your Ego feeling insignificant (often with good reason). [Also, as you’ve probably already noticed, the Universe is immense; humans are really teensy-weensy tiny. When you’re feeling small, it may be that you’re just feeling a most evident truth.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 236: an understanding of what has real value to you and your evolving. [Action for action’s sake can be fun, but it doesn’t necessarily go anywhere you want to be.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 237: a disinclination to “multi-task.” [Magic happens when you are 100 percent involved and present in whatever you’re doing at THIS moment. It’s been a challenge learning how to do that. Mothers have this natural tendency to multi-task because it’s the only way we can get all the everything DONE, but after the nest empties, you get the chance to regain your ability to focus and concentrate on JUST ONE THING. Everything gets magical when you can do that.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 238 : a tendency to look past the illusions of glamor to see what is really there. [You sure do spend a lot of time squinting, but….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 239: a growing understanding of the power of illusion. [Wise guys say that our perceptions shape a huge part of what we consider Reality. Apparently, the trick is to look at our own beliefs and how they are influencing our reality through the filters and blinders we’ve set up. I’ve actually tried this at home. It makes your head feel really wonky!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 240: a growing understanding that things are not as they seem. [The trick is to get past the limits of Life’s illusions. Uh-huh…r-i-i-i-ght. It only takes a lifetime of trying, Netta. What, you expected McDonald’s?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 241: a tendency to let go of your own ideas about how things “should” be. [It seems to me that “should” tends to block your intuitive sense of what is really needed in a situation. “Should” makes blinders that keep you from seeing an easier, more effective way to move.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 242: an understanding that each of us has to choose to redeem our own selves. [It does help if the people around us support us in our efforts to change, but very often it’s something we’ve just got to do on our own.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 243: an understanding that every person has their own path to take and the freedom to make choices. [Some make good choices, some don’t. Your feedback may not be appreciated.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 244: an understanding that pain can be powerful feedback that will help you make better choices. (Trying to shield somebody from the consequences of their actions may actually be robbing that person of their greatest opportunity to learn.)
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 245: Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): a disinclination to rescue people who don’t want (or cannot use) the help. [Repeated rescues that do not really help anything can take extraordinary effort that could be used for a better purpose than propping up someone who is determined to keep on flopping down on their butt again.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 246: an understanding that joy and peace are just as present in the world as pain and suffering. [Reach for the joy!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 247: an understanding that sacrificing your heartsong limits your freedom of expression and cuts off avenues for your being able to help others. [The Universe will be less bright as a result and you will be a sad little shadow. ARGH!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 248: an understanding that self-pity is a focus on what is wrong and indulging in it perpetuates the wrongness. [Picking off scabs just makes the healing take longer.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 250: a tendency to take extra care to make sure that what you perceive is correct. [Be careful how you think…your mind might get stuck that way!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 251: an inclination to stay open (even when there’s a chance you might get burned). [Getting burned — fooled or taken advantage of — helps you identify your blind spots. Use it well and it happens less often.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 252: an understanding that there is a difference between considering other options and not staying present with what-is. [If you use dreams and fantasies to shield you from seeing what is going on in your life, you develop this irritating tendency to keep falling down potholes. (Sigh!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 253: an understanding that your life is your greatest canvas. [If you don’t like what you’ve created, it’s up to you to change it into something you like. And as with every great work of art, the changes you initiate does take time to develop and grow.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 254: an inclination to choose Grace over suffering. [There is always a choice about how you look at the world. Your world can be a bowlful of ripe, juicy cherries or it can be a bucketful of turds. You get to decide.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 255: an inclination to see the chaos of life as an exciting unfolding of infinite potential. [As some wise guy once said: “When you’re skating on thin ice, you might as well dance.”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 256: an understanding that while “Nothing in Spirit is rushed,” other people have schedules to keep. [Make sure you’re paying attention.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 257: an understanding that stepping back to gain a new perspective is not the same thing as accepting somebody else’s interpretation of what is going on. [If everything gets blurry, maybe it’s ’cause you put on somebody else’s glasses and they are not the ones you need to see clearly for yourself.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 258: an understanding that transcendence and ignoring unpleasantness are not the same thing. [Numb is not the same as blissed-out.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 259: a disinclination to use suffering as an excuse to opt out. [It always seems like not facing the lessons you need to learn just means they come back at you bigger.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 260: an understanding that sympathy and empathy are two different things. [Throwing a rope to a guy drowning in quicksand is empathy. Diving in after him is sympathy. One helps, the other probably doesn’t and may just compound the problem.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 261: a tendency to recognize and honor the way the Creative works through people (even you)! [Different than what has gone before might be a working of the Creative. Check it out before automatically dismissing it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 262: an understanding that hiding out from the world is not the same thing as taking a step back to look at things as they are. [You can tell which is which by looking at how you walk after your retreat ends. If your retreat does NOT end, you are definitely hiding out….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 263: an understanding that it is your mind which creates the stories to separate you from the truth. [It’s pretty cool to review the stories you tell yourself and see how far off-truth they take you. Also, quite scary sometimes….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 264: an understanding that Life and the Creative eternally expand. [F’r real, it is NOT your job to complete or do the finishing work on Life. When you reach a stopping place, it always turns out to be just the launching pad for what-happens-next.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that knowing and experiencing what you do NOT want can direct your search for what you DO want. [Eh! Slow learner, here….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 266: an understanding that the junky parts that make you feel distressed are a message to you. [It’s the Universe saying, “Okay, babe, what DO you want?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 267: an understanding that the World is NOT broken. [So, f’r real, you don’t have to gear yourself up to FIX it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 268: an understanding that joyousness is the ultimate scoring marker. [You wanna know how well you’re doing? Check on whether there are joys in your life…and how much you’re actually enjoying them.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 269: an understanding that progress comes when you can use the difficult situations you encounter as a launchpad to a better place. [Butting your head against a wall is kinda dumb. It’s way better to leave the wall where it is, and find the gunfunit door!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 270: an understanding that life is about improvising. [Sally Brompton reminds, “…life is a performance for which none of us are given opportunity to rehearse.”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 271: an understanding of the need for patience. [Patience is about allowing the Universe the time and space to work its magic and help you out.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 272: an understanding that the thing you absolutely cannot lose is your gumption. [Nothing is sadder than somebody whose gumption got up and went. Hang on to that gumption!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 273: a tendency to foster contagious positivity. [If you’re dead sure it’s all good, other people can catch your positivity virus and help you bring the world ’round to it. A cool thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 274: an understanding that you really don’t have to change the whole world. [All you really have to do is go find your own little corner and shine it up. The glow from that will help the rest of the world shine better.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 275: an understanding that when you are full, it naturally overflows onto other people. [You just have to make sure what you’re full of is good stuff….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 276: an inclination to go quickly and straight for discovering and then expressing, your connection to the Creative. [Why fool around with anything less?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 277: a disinclination to cut off heads. [When things get overwhelming, it is very easy to get snarky and slash off people’s heads just ’cause you’re feeling irritated and irascible. I’m here to tell you that living in a world of headless people is really boring….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 278: an inclination to use the energy of competition FOR yourself, to bring out the very best in your own self. [Expansion of your own boundaries and limits by using the energy of competition to find ways to go where you’ve never gone before is a cool thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 279: an understanding that competition is only bad for you if it separates you from everybody else. [It’s boring to be “the best” when you’re the only one in the race.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 280: an understanding that being the “leader” in an army of one is sort of dumb. [Maybe you can conquer the universe doing that. There are books that tell you how; people, too. The only thing is what do you do with it after you’ve got it conquered? There’s just too many moving parts and you’d go stark raving mad trying to maintain the whole thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 281: an inclination to set your intention to do what is for the highest good of all concerned. [That tends to tone down the “What-About-MEEEEE” syndrome.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 282: a tendency to apply your “leadership skills” towards leading yourself in positive directions, staying true to yourself, and following your own heartsong. [That one seems to work better than trying to get everybody to march lockstep to your drumbeat when you are trying to build an interesting sort of world where you and everybody else can play.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 283: a disinclination to do everything your own self. [Being the Little Red Hen is cool and all, but eating sandwiches by your own self sucks.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 284: an understanding that being vulnerable and allowing yourself to receive input from other people is NOT a weakness. [It is a door you keep open so better understandings and other good stuff can come to you.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 285: a disinclination to allow your ambitions to turn into a herd of wild horses taking you over some cliff. [Sometimes the momentum of striving towards some goal or other can make you lose sight of where you are heading.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 286: an inclination to take each moment for what it is and to look for the joy in that moment. [And, if there is no joy in it, well…then you can go looking for joy someplace else or maybe wait to see if the following moment is joysome. This can make for many sparkly days.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 287: an inclination to try and see whether you can pull something off. [Trying it for yourself can lead to some amazing experiences.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 288: an inclination to be on the lookout for “the break.” [It’s going to come, that break. The rest of it is just training for when the door opens. Then you can go through it dancing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 289: a disinclination to lug around a backpack full of “down.” [“Issues” are just airballs. Turn ’em into balloons and let them go. More will be along.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 290: a disinclination to muscle through difficult situations, anxious for them to GO AWAY. [All it means is the difficult situations will keep on boomeranging back. You haven’t gotten the lesson yet, so they HAVE to keep coming back. (Sigh!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 291: a tendency to look for the strength that comes from being true to your heartsong. [Do the things that satisfy your heart and you’ll always be full enough to empower your own mojo.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 292: an understanding that boredom only settles in on boring people. [Usually there is at least one thing that is totally fascinating to SOMEBODY. Are you sure that you can NOT find something that is interesting to you?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 293: an understanding that giving up the illusion of dependency allows you to move towards your heart’s desire. [How many times have you stopped yourself from following your heartsong because it will inconvenience someone else, or jeopardize your precarious equilibrium, or take you outside of your very limited comfort zone…or…or….?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 294: an understanding that giving up the illusion of permanence allows you to enjoy what-is while it is still here. [You will never be tempted to take anything for granted again when you REALLY KNOW that nothing lasts or stays the same.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 295: an understanding that giving up the illusion of helplessness allows you to flow with change and, maybe, even surf it. [It’s a good thing to remember that the Creative has no limits and every one of us is a conduit for the power of the Creative.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 296: an understanding that giving up the illusion that you HAVE to suffer over your suffering allows you to access the joy that is always in you. [It may be a cool thing to remember that “suffering” used to mean “undergoing.” That’s all.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 297: an understanding that letting go of your illusion of dependency on someone or something else allows you to find your own courage, your own confidence. [Hey, it IS all about you! When you realize that YOU are the framework on which your world is built, it’s such a feeling of freedom.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 298: an understanding that letting go of your illusion of permanence allows you to develop resilience, empathy, and maybe even some wisdom. [It’s good to keep in mind that if everything keeps changing, it means you don’t have to stay stuck in an unsustainable stance nor mired in an untenable situation.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 299: a tendency to pay attention to your deep instinctive fears. [Fear is a warning signal. Find out why the alarm is screaming. There is probably a very good reason..but it may not be the one you think it is.]
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 300: a disinclination to become immobilized by the anxiety that comes from “THEY say.” [Who the heck are all these guys named “They” anyhow? And why do THEY think they know who and what and why you are you?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 301: an inclination to learn everything you can about what is scaring you. [It’s the only way to get past the fog of anxiety and decide whether to run or to stand firm.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 302: an understanding that if you can push past your own cowardice, your heartsong will carry you through the rough parts. [This only works if you are actually following your heartsong.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 303: an understanding that your first reaction to fear needs to be gathering more information. [Panic does not cause your fear to dissipate as fast as doing some research. Pay very close attention to the scary situation. Cut it into little pieces and ask: Does this make sense?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 304: an understanding that the first rule is to listen to your heartsong. [THEN you can start dancing. Trying to breakdance to waltz music is a bit silly (unless that’s actually your thing).]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 305: an understanding that by facing your fear you are using it as raw material for making the courage you need to dance with your heartsong. [Without fear, we would not even know what it means to be brave.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 306: an understanding that forcing yourself to think happy lies does not heal your dreams. [When your dreams get dented, looking at what-is and being totally honest with yourself is the only thing that can help you rev them up again.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 307: a tendency to enjoy life while alive and not fear death because, until it happens, you ARE still alive. [There will be plenty of time to cope with death once you’re dead, I’m thinkin’.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 308: an understanding that whatever you fear lies waiting around the next corner every day of your journey. [The less you fear, the more open and untroubled your road ahead. Don’t know why it works that way, but it does….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 309: an understanding that trust is most powerful when you choose to trust during moments of greatest doubt. [This only works if you’ve done the scutwork of making sure that what (or who) you trust is worthy of that trust. (There’s no sense being a dodo about it.)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 310: an understanding that you can be so focused on doing things “the right way” that you never get around to doing the right thing. [When you focus down on one word on a page, you’re not really reading the book, ya know.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 311: a tendency to allow the World to be what it is. [It’s gonna be that anyhow.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 312: an understanding that contradiction and conflict are just illusions. [If you can get your head around the fact that the Universe is following its own order and not your wants, then very often you can actually see how you can move so you get what you really need.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 313: an understanding that you can’t know where you’re going because the end does not exist yet. [Self-help books say you gotta have goals. Goals do help you with a direction, but they can blind you to other, more authentic possibilities if you focus too much on them. Maybe the only answer is to admit you’re confused and you don’t know where you’re going, but you’re SURE you’re gonna have fun along the way….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 314: an understanding that mind and emotion are intrinsically linked. [Wise guys tell you when mind is in control, mind moves the emotions; when emotions are in control, they move the mind. The cool part is you can choose.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 315: an understanding that gentleness is the key to using power in a nurturing way. [Try yanking a seedling to “help” it grow faster and you end up with a wilted, sad little thing in your hand.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 316: an understanding that NOTHING can stop the return of the Light. [When negativity reaches a level that threatens to overwhelm you, it helps to remember that the Light will be along soonish. The trick is to stand firm against the Dark and watch for the Light’s return, working your butt off to make the space for it as beautiful as you can.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 317: an understanding that when a door closes, there may be an open window somewhere in the vicinity. [Stay alert.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 318: a tendency to keep your mind open and innocent so you can live well within the reality of each new moment. [That’s the whole point, ain’t it? To live well.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 319: an understanding that spontaneity is NOT the same as letting go of your self-control. Spontaneity can mean doing what you think is best or most appropriate in any situation. [You do just what the moment needs, then stop. Pau.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 320: an understanding that if you practice compassion, you can free yourself from blinding rage. [Compassion is seeing where another person is standing and why. When you understand that, the anger does not grow. Sadness is more likely, though.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 321: an understanding that simplicity — cutting everything extra away — frees you from crippling pride. [Pride makes you step in complex ways, keeps you from seeing what-is, stops you from learning what you need to know. The trick is knowing what’s extra.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that doing something just to relieve your anxiety and worry often means you are reacting to the pressures of the moment rather than from your own authenticity. [Do you really want to grow up to be a pinball stuck in some machine?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 323: an understanding that we create feelings inside ourselves by our own thoughts and actions. [Bouncy-happy or down-in-the-dumps are my own constructs. I can choose which to feel by picking which thoughts to think, which actions to do. A good thing to know.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 324: an understanding that we get the world we choose to live in. [Living by choice in a world of decisions and consequences restores to us the freedom that’s always there waiting for us to notice.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 325: a tendency to take care of what needs to be done today. [The future will happen however it happens and all the fail-safes in the world fail at some point. Do what you need to do when you need to do it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 326: an awareness that running from the possibility of failure is not a good idea. [For one thing, the odds are always fifty-fifty: either you make it or you won’t. When you stop yourself from following your heartsong because you’re scared of being disappointed, you also close down the possibility that maybe you’ll succeed.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 327: an awareness that weaving a cocoon of fantasy around yourself as a protection from the natural misfortunes of the world is not a good strategy. [Lies are not a good shield against the slings and arrows of what-is.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 328: a tendency to recognize your own relative unimportance. [It’s liberating to realize that, in the overall scheme of things, you don’t matter all that much. It’s unlikely that anything you do or do not do will change the course of history, even though some things might have a great impact on your own life. Cool thought, huh?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 329: an understanding that what we perceive through our senses is filtered through our hopes and fears before it reaches our minds. [Your beliefs and expectations influence what you notice…and may blind you to what is really happening.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 330: a tendency to use calm reflection rather than intense focus when you look at situations. [Focusing on desired outcomes may prevent you from seeing the squeaky-clean glass wall that’s in the way. Ouch!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 331: a tendency to listen quietly, not only to the words, but to all the actions around the words and to your own reactions as well. [Beautiful words cannot long obscure ugly or wrongheaded actions (or your own rejecting body-reactions). Pay attention.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 332: a disinclination to grab at things. [If you stop trying to grab at happiness, for example, it comes and sits next to you and rubs up against you. Happiness must be like cats, I am thinking.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 333: an inclination to live fully in the present. [Lessons from the past keep all their value for you when you can do that, and they lose their ability to hurt.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 334: a tendency to live in the ever-present Now, which diminishes your fear of the future because every day can just be one more day of following your own heartsong and dancing, dancing, dancing. [What’s so scary ’bout that?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 335: an understanding that you cannot demand or require an insight to appear on-command. [It just comes when it comes and you have to be ready to accept it. This is hard to remember when you’re a slow learner like me….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 336: an understanding that waiting for fulfillment without bracing yourself for failure allows you to do what needs to be done in the right moment. [Think Zen archer: If you make yourself stiff anticipating that you’re gonna miss the target, your rigidity CAUSES yourself to miss.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 337: an understanding that waiting patiently means relaxing the hold of desires and fears on your heart as the shifting, moving events of the world pass through turmoil and back again into peaceful balance. [It’s not easy because fears and desires add to the turmoil. By turning down the noise you help yourself THINK better.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 338: a tendency to help other people play. [Trusting others to discover their truths for themselves allows you to find new ways to play with them. And that’s a good thing.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 339: a tendency to step away from urgency. [“Urgent” mostly means your to-do list is running amok again. Stop. Take a breath. Look again for the best move.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 340: an understanding that your doubts are an invitation to look deeper into what you really do believe. [Often doubt is like the irritating friend who’s wrong half the time and right the other half. The only problem is you never know which half it is this time. (Sigh!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 341: an understanding that being “different” is scary only if you do not look too closely at the cost of being the “same.” [“Same” can way scarier when you start thinking about it.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 342: a tendency to pay attention to where you are now. [Allowing the past or the future to intrude on the present erases the power of Now. Stop that!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 343: a tendency to focus on the other person (rather than on yourself) opens up all the possibilities in the moment and the evolving relationship. [That’s why new lovers spend a lot of time staring at each other, I guess.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 344: a disinclination to blame others. [As the Tao Te Ching (according to Stephen Mitchell’s translation) says, “Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else there is no end to blame. It’s kinda like playing “Hot Potato” — you keep passing it around and there’s no time for anything else.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom)345: a tendency to try to see complex issues in their entirety and to work through to understanding how the separate parts work together as a whole. [Cutting an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants, as one wise guy pointed out.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 346: a disinclination to do “either-or” ultimatums. [Limiting your options that way very often leads to “neither-nor” outcomes. You don’t get your cake nor do you get to eat it. What kind of a deal is that?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 347: an understanding that small changes can produce big results, but only if the change is made to the fundamental structure of your life. [A small, wonky flywheel will eventually make an engine stop. Fixing that little thing helps keep it going longer.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 348: an understanding that cause and effect are not closely related in space and time. [The actions we take today may impact others miles and years away. And that’s the thing about cause and effect that can turn you into quivering jello.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 349: an understanding that faster can be slower. [“Fast” often means having to go back and do it over. ARGH!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 350: an understanding that the cure can be worse than the problem. [Sometimes it’s better to just leave it alone and accept it. Not everything is a life-threatening issue. Often, stuff that are “problematic” are really just annoying.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 351: an understanding that the easy way out usually leads right back in. [When you apply the same old solutions to problems you usually get the same old results that you didn’t like the last time. Duh….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 352: a disinclination to push. [It’s funny how the harder you push, the longer the thing goes.] It’s like “DONE” is the big bully who keeps twisting your arm because it makes you cry. The antidote for the monkey-mind obsession about “done” is to let go of being concerned about outcomes and to let go of the urgency connected with timetables, schedules and all of that stuff. The antidote is trusting that everything will get done if you just keep walking your walk, heading in the proper direction.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 353: an understanding that today’s problems often come from yesterday’s solutions. [And when you solve today’s problems, your solutions will make tomorrow’s problems. It’s like a river…rolling, rolling, rolling. (Sigh!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 354: a tendency to listen to someone else’s understanding of things without arguing for your own thinking or belief. [It’s a great way to learn new perspectives and you don’t get bored listening to yourself talk, talk, talk.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 355: a tendency to accept feedback and criticism without resistance. [Thanking the other person for their gift to you earns bonus points. Plus it fries ’em if they’re being mean.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 356: listening fully and completely without interruption. [Taking the Big Slowdown allows others the space they need to hear what they think (and maybe think on it some more).]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 357: an inclination towards helping others solve their own problems rather than positioning yourself as “the expert.” [Playing the expert game means you don’t get to learn new ways to solve old problems. Not good.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 357: an inclination towards helping others solve their own problems rather than positioning yourself as “the expert.” [Playing the expert game means you don’t get to learn new ways to solve old problems. Not good.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptoms) 358: an understanding that gentleness just FEELS better to others and to yourself. [Smashing the cartilage in your own nose feels a lot worse than just powdering it. It doesn’t look really good either.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 359: a disinclination to define yourself too narrowly. [Small self-definitions happen when you’re limited by your fears and bounded by what other people think is possible.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 360: an understanding that if your life or your happiness depends on other people doing what you say they must do, then you’ve given those people the power to upset your applecart. [All they have to do is say no.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 361: a disinclination to peg your self-worth to the work you do. [If you allow your work to be the only thing that defines you then you’re all set up to be a slave to your work. One bum job can turn you into a bum. Yeesh!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 362: a tendency to complete each day’s work and let go. [It does help if you don’t schedule two day’s work into one day….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 363: a disinclination to try to change the conditions around you by reacting fearfully to every single danged thing that happens. [If you’re the ball in the pinball machine, then getting bounced from flipper to pillar to post until you fall down a hole is about all you can expect. If you don’t want to be the pinball, maybe you could climb out of the machine instead?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 364: an inclination to live in the present moment as fully as you can. [The full moments add up to a full day, a full month, a full year, a full life. Full is a good thing!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 365: a disinclination to try to gain a sense of direction by following the changes around you without stepping back to look at the dance itself. [That’s like trying to hold onto a Sufi master’s hand when he’s twirling in his dance. You just get dizzy as you fly around the outer edge of his circle. WHO-HO-HO-AAAH!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 366: a tendency to let go of the desire to control [If you can do that, you activate your strength to work with the flow of things, not against it. ‘Course, somebody’s always hiding the gunfunit switch!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 367: a tendency to create more calm inside yourself. [If you can act from within that calm and not according to the outside pressure, things fall into place better. Trying to think in the middle of turbulence gives you the same feeling you get when the plane you’re on hits air pockets. (Gulp!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 368: a disinclination to depend on others for your sense of self-worth. [Depending on other people’s frowns and smiles to let you know you’re good means allowing other people’s facial expressions to control you. Huh? What’s so good about THAT?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 369: an understanding that a time of extraordinary change and uncertainty holds the precious gift of choice. [It’s only during times of uncertainty that you are really motivated to make different choices. It’s not always fun…unless you play it that way.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symtpom) 370: a tendency to look for your deepest roots and to feed them during times of change. [It’s a good thing to remember that just ’cause you’re a shallow person doesn’t mean you haven’t got roots. Shallow-rooted plants need fertilizer too sometimes.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 371: an understanding that wishing for an easier, more predictable life feeds your shadows. [Changing situations and difficult people challenge you to find your greatest strengths and your worst weaknesses and helps you work on them. Sometimes, though, it would be cool to JUST REST.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 372: an understanding that where you are right now is the best possible world because it’s the only real one you’re inhabiting. [Happy fantasies dissipate. Real just hangs in there.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 373: a tendency to make each day a time for learning. [If you are not learning, you are not growing, and anything not busy growing is busy dying…it says here. It should be noted that this doesn’t mean you have to grow fast; you can grow slowly if that’s your nature or your preference.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 374: an inclination to learn the basic fundamentals of your disciplines as best you can and stretch and train in them so that when you need them in some moment of crisis, you can trust they will be there waiting. [It’s a given: you go over the basics time and again until you “embody” the moves. Once you get the things to sink into your bones, you KNOW they will be there when you need them.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 375: a tendency to remember the Light even though you’re stuck in the middle of the dark. [Sometimes when you’re in overwhelm, it helps to remember one beautiful, absolutely useless thing — preferably that brings a smile to your face.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 376: an understanding that sincerity is the only power on earth that can cause a response from Nature or Heaven. [A wholehearted effort carried out with diligence and perseverance wears down any obstacle. Check out what wind and water can do to mountains.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 377: a disinclination to confuse what-is with what you want it to be. [Knowing where your ground is helps you anchor all those castles in the air. Floating castles tend to drift off when they’re not anchored well. Personally, I think that’s what banyan trees are for: anchoring up all those flying castles.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 378: a tendency to remain open to new views. [Clinging to favorite concepts and constructs can blind you to what is happening around you. Also, it tends to get really boring — like eating chocolate pudding day after day after day….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 379: an understanding that there is NOTHING that is “necessary.” [I notice “needs” keep changing as your mind gets caught by some thing or other and your emotions pump up the volume of the latest siren call. Okay. I take it back. I’m not gonna argue about the need for air li’ dat. Also, I personally believe good chocolate is very important.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 380: An understanding that trying to impose your will (rules, concepts, mind-constructs) on the nature of things and the natures of other people doesn’t work. [Going against the sovereignty of inherent nature tends to cause interesting problems to develop, giving rise to other convoluted solutions which also don’t work very well. (Sigh!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 381: an understanding that the only person you can really love to safety is your own self. [Everybody else has to be their own hero.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 382: an understanding that using your mind for worry, anger or negativity is to abuse the mightiest gift you’ve ever been given. [“Your mind is not your own,” as one wise guy said. “It is a gift of life from Nature.”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 383: a disinclination to show a false front to others or to yourself. [It doesn’t really work anyhow. Even if you fool most of the people all of the time (including yourself), there is ALWAYS some wise guy who can see through all your razzle-dazzle.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): a tendency to work on being a seed of a whole being. [Its apparently the natural consequence of really understanding that you are a spiritual being having a human experience. (I keep getting pictures of a crew of neon-blue butterflies cruising through a rainbow….so woo-woo I can’t stand it!)]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 385: an understanding that the ground that nurtures your roots includes all the people you care about. [They are the soil in which each of us grows.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 386: an understanding that setting multiple goals can be a diligent, neurotic way to avoid Commitment. [It’s really hard to kiss two people at one time. Hugging, on the other hand, works pretty good to get everybody in.] Setting multiple goals that are all going the same way works okay sometimes and if you’re ADHD, it keeps you from getting bored.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 387: an understanding of wu-wei, the mindful nonaction that gets things done. [The freedom to act with full spontaneity can be learned by “not-doing” what your habits and expectations tell you to do.] Of course, this kind of not-doing is often the hardest thing to do….errrr….NOT do….oh, whatevah!
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 388: a tendency to keep still and listen when someone else is talking. [If you listen with your whole body, the other person has the room to find out what he or she wants to say. Often what the other person says (and then really does) then makes a whole bunch of sense.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 389: a tendency to ask other people for a solution to their own problems. [Instead of jumping in with a full-blown battle plan, letting the other person explore options out loud can illuminate possibilities you may not have considered.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 390: a tendency to keep listening even when you’re absolutely SURE you have THE answer. [Your answer may not be THE answer for the other person.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 391: an awareness that arguments arise out of misunderstandings and nothing productive can be accomplished if you and the other person are walking in such different worlds that you cannot even reach across the gaps to hold hands.
[I always like the image of two little kids walking through the Big World holding hands. If you’ve got a hand to hold, you can walk together pretty good…and it’s a heck of a lot of fun.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 392: a tendency to avoid repeatedly telling someone your point of view over and over in exactly the same way. [Clarity is not improved by repeating the same words over and over. Instead, it makes the word-fog denser.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 393: an understanding that clarity happens when you say exactly what you mean as simply and concisely as you can and then let the other person work with it. [I do notice your truth is not “improved” by adding embroidery, fancy trimmings or more bling. It IS fun, but….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 394: a tendency to be passionate about the values you most strongly believe in. [If it’s important to you, say so. Then you’ll find out whether the other person walks in the same world you do.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 395: a tendency to figure out first whether you and another person can dance together comfortably. [It’s sort of silly to try to do a waltz with someone who wants to tango….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 396: an understanding that maintaining your real balance is acting fully in the moment and not worrying about outcomes. [Anxiety unbalances you and makes you move funny.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 397: an understanding that not everyone is ready to join in the dance with the Creative. [Some people are so caught up in their own doubts and fears that they cannot move past them and nothing you do will help.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 398: an awareness that your time, energy, and values are assets. [One of the best moves is to invest them with people who will increase the worth of those assets.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 399: an understanding that the best actions are those that happen gracefully, spontaneously and without conscious thought or intention. [It’s the whole point of practicing and training. Persistently practicing basic skills results in your not even having to think about doing the right moves. They just come.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 400: an awareness that putting aside ego (also known as “self-consciousness) while you are doing your dance allows you to use the flexibility and versatility that is in you. [It’s already in there: all you gotta do is just dance. If you’ve spent time practicing the basics, the moves get beautiful…a bonus.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 401: an understanding that entropy rules. [The minute you’re born is when you start dying. Nothing’s permanent, and it seems probable that life can only happen after birth, so…there you are.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 402: an awareness that all emotions cause suffering, but only if you let them. [The quality of your passage through this time does depend on your own choices.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 403: an awareness that all phenomena are empty and illusory. [Have you ever thought that you, too, are a phenomena, which means you are probably empty and illusory…just like everything else. Sheesh! Now, THAT is a depressing thought!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 404: an understanding that what the wise guys call “enlightenment” is basically realizing that freedom is the basis of the universe and you’re already free. [You just haven’t embodied the concept yet.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 405: an understanding that when you let go of the desire to own the World, you have the space and the freedom to make yourself whole. [The problem with lots and lots of stuff is each one of those things demand a bit of your attention. So, how much attention do you surrender before there’s nothing left to work on aligning yourself with the Creative?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 406: an understanding that we all live according to our own truths and your truth may not be my truth. [The only relevant thing (to my mind) is whether our truths can get along.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 407: an understanding that my job is to live my truth and yours is to live your truth without us tripping all over each other. [Is your truth more true than my truth? Who cares? All that matters is that we can stand together in awe at the wonder of the Universe.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 408: a disinclination to make moves that arise out of antsiness and impatience. [Practicing patience very often gives the Universe time to work its magic and help you out.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 409: an understanding that making buttprints in the sand is also an option. [Sometimes it’s good to just sit.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 410: a tendency to question your own goals and solutions. [This one acknowledges that you’re just a little mind in a big, big universe and your teeny mind-constructs can’t begin to encompass the All of Everything.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 411: a growing ability to expand your sense of what is possible. [When you realize that the Creative has no limits and that you can be a conduit for that power, you can figure out ways to stretch yourself into a bigger and bigger pipeline.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 412: a disinclination to take inordinate pride in what you know. [Myself, I try to remember that knowledge changes daily and there are lots and LOTS of smarter people than me.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 413: a disinclination to relate to others through coercion or from a disregard for the other person. [If you turn somebody into a “thang,” they usually grow teeth and fangs just so they can bite you.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 414: an understanding that perceived power tends to breed envy. [So, what good is it if the guy bowing down in front of you is reaching out to pull the rug out from under you?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 415: a disinclination to issue declarations, proclamations and commands. [All that stuff tends to mess up other people’s dancing and turns you into a screaming meemie. Try talking somebody through a waltz sometime. It is very frustrating for you and for the dancer you’re trying to “direct.”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 416: a tendency to do stuff just because they are worth doing. [Rewards are as nice as icing, but the “cake” (the substance of an action) is whether the thing you do has some benefit other than self-aggrandizement. Eating a whole big bowl of icing CAN make you feel like throwing up….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 417: an understanding that resistance is a useful tool for blocking out the negative influences your fears and anxieties have in your life. [Stubborn doggedness can be a really good thing sometimes.] The important thing to remember is to avoid blocking the blows with your face.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 418: an ability to recognize when you are wasting energy on resisting (or promoting) an illusion. [This recognition has the side effect of making you feel stupid. This is probably normal.] The trick is letting go of DOING stupid.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 419: a growing ability to feel comfortable in ambiguity and anchor up in it. [Be warned, however, that this skill is hard-won. You have to walk through a heck of a lot of uncertainty and practice sliding down lots of slippery slopes while keeping your feet under you and hanging onto your heart. YEE-HAH!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 420: an understanding that each of us is free to act simply and appropriately in every situation. [That freedom grows out of a strong self-regard and a calm self-possession, and our job is to cultivate that ground for the freedom.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 421: an understanding that plans sound really simple until you start doing them. [The maps aren’t necessarily accurate. The intel and the caveats are not particularly timely. But if you do your plans anyway, adjustments will occur to you.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 422: a tendency to question whether you’re using your self-definitions as an excuse for not changing. [“That’s just the way I am,” you say, as you walk away from the path that leads to your dream. Duh….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 423: an understanding of the value of unlearning. [If you can let go of what you’ve learned, the knowledge you’ve piled up grows down into your bones and composts. It sits there ready to be used when you need it.]
The old wise guys say that the unknowing mind possesses a greater awareness of what is happening right now, a greater capacity to act or not act as the situation requires. Instead of meeting force with more force, you can move to one side and let it all slide past you.
One time there was a student in my kung fu class who had trained from small-kid time in Tae Kwon Do with his father, a master of the art. The son said it was most frustrating for him to spar with his father. The boy would come up with the most flashy, complex technique that his father would counter by stepping slightly to one side and watching as the son flew past…again.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 424: an understanding that your uniqueness comes from your values — what you care about deeply and passionately. [People with a distinct “presence” care passionately about SOMETHING.] It’s like the little box where you used to keep all your little-kid treasures: Nobody else might understand it, but for you, it is the most precious thing you own.
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 426: a tendency to let go of “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong.” [What-is often contains more benefit and beauty than we can see when we’ve got our Dudley Do-Right glasses on.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 427: a tendency to make conscious choices rather than not. [For some reason, choosing to do a dumb move with eyes wide open and getting whacked one for it feels better than not making any choices and getting whacked anyhow.]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 428: a disinclination to do what everybody else does. [Doing “just like them” has the disconcerting side effect of being SEEN as “just like them.” What’s even worse is when you realize you ARE “just like them.” ARGH!]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 429: a tendency to let go of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” — other people’s or your own. [Does a plant ask for permission to bloom?]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 430: a tendency to let go of taking “competing” seriously. [The sun doesn’t hold beauty contests among the flowers. And if a little weed can be beautiful, what’s stopping you?”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 431: a disinclination to spazz about “how.” [Rivers and streams don’t need time-and-motion studies in order to run downhill. Sometimes, I sure do envy rivers and streams….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 432: a disinclination to allow the urgency of other people to push you into forcing a premature “solution” into place. [It helps to remember that the last time you did that everything went to hell in a handbasket….]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 433: an understanding that process is all about the natural flow of energy. [If you can remove resistances, obstacles and barriers and widen bottlenecks and fix short circuits, energy can flow smoothly and moving becomes effortless. I am finding that it takes a lot of work to get to “effortless.”]
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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom) 434: an understanding that other words for “energy” are: “money,” “information,” “time,” and “physical movement.” [All of these things flow. And it’s fascinating to watch them go, go, go….]
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