The Illusion That Keeps You From Peace (and How to Finally Let Go)

We forget that we cannot earn peace. That no amount of doing will lead us there. Yet we insist on pursuing the answer to what it is we must be lacking, that causes us to feel such hunger for more.

When the good we do is led by the feeling of lack we are trying to rid ourselves of, we start to keep score. Like a transaction we make for an outcome we desperately want.

“If I do good things, I will then be good and good things will happen for me.”

Then if the outcome you believed you purchased does not get delivered to your door step you curse the world.

“Bad things always happen to me, I did all of these things and what do I have to show for it? When will it be my turn?”

If we never dare to believe we already possess all that we need, we will always believe we need more. We can be selfless, give, help, support and care but it will never fill that hunger. For when you interact with the world from lack it drains your soul but when you interact from your abundance you will feel it pouring back into you.

This is because:

Peace is not something you can attain, peace is what remains when you strip away the layers of noise.

When you stop “trying to find” and you “decide to be.” When you decide to Remove yourself from the rumination of the past and anchor back in from the worry of the future. When you trust that “now” is your home, that's when you become present and feel the flow of peace. This means that peace was always with you, just buried, dormant but waiting for you to remember.

You believe you have to wait until after you have those things before you can experience it but you can choose to feel that peace now in the process of growing into who you want to be, achieving the goals and fulfilling your purpose. In this moment you are everything you are meant to be, you are enough, and you have all that you need.

The moment your soul asks more of you, when you've outgrown a chapter in your life, a person, a job or a belief you will feel the discomfort rise to push you forward. All you must do is listen to it, walk forward and trust that you can handle any challenge that comes your way. When you begin to trust, that's when peace fills the spaces of worry, fear and doubt once lingered.

It’s when you begin to realize that control is an illusion. One created by the mind to cope with the unknown. When you understand that it believes if you can tame the unknown and domesticate the danger then you will be safe, you can then begin to let go of it.

Peace comes when you stop doing, trying, forcing and earning. When you surrender and remember you will be the things you seek the moment you decide that you already are, when you remember you have the freedom to choose how you experience the world and live in alignment with what you really want.

So I invite you to examine the layers that may be between you and your buried peace; the judgement of others, your fears, people pleasing, external validation, comparing, suppressing, overcommitting, ignoring your needs, replaying old stories of pain, feeling not enough etc… give them a good look, call them out and peel them away.

As they are not you they are the clothing you wear out to meet the world and what do we do when we’ve outgrown our clothes? We let them go to make room for the articles that best fit us in this phase.