It is the season for thoughts of peace on earth; though every season is a good season for peace on earth. However, the spirit of the season does offer the opportunity to focus newly on bringing peace into yourself and out into the world.
I would suggest that bringing peace out into the world begins as an inside job. When you are at peace within and bring peace to your interactions with others, you create peace on earth in your world and offer the potential for that peace to radiate out into the world of others. What a gift that truly is!
So here are 8 ideas for creating peace this season; and every day in every season:
- Create calm: Slow down your breathing and ramp down your emotions. When emotions run high or you feel threatened, it is hard to be at peace. First, soothe your emotions and lower your sense of threat. A calm presence opens the door to the possibility of peace.
- Quiet the mind and close the lips: You know the feeling when you wake up, it’s early morning, and snow has fallen? The quiet. The undisturbed snow. It’s peaceful. Quiet presents another pathway to peace. Quieting mind chatter feels peaceful. Less noise feels peaceful. Less talk feels peaceful. Being quiet allows you to listen. Listening offers a peaceful hand to another. Listening to someone says “I care” and “You matter.” Quiet also allows you to listen deeply to yourself. External quiet and internal quiet allows you to come into awareness.
- Awareness: Self awareness powerfully offers you choice. You can choose to observe, listen, and choose careful responses rather than impulsive reactions. Awareness allows you to realize you need to soothe your emotions or quiet your mind. Awareness offers you choice to shift your attention to more peaceful thoughts or actions. Awareness is a powerful tool of peace.
- Curiosity: From a place of calm awareness, you can choose to be curious about the world and about others. You can be open to other opinions and curious about how someone came to their point of view. You can be curious about your own perceptions and about the world. Understanding, ideas, and solutions often come from openness and curiosity.
- Non-Judgment: While curiosity is open and seeks to understand, judgment is closed and seeks to criticize, compare, and separate. Non-judgment begins inside. Begin by judging yourself less. Listening without judgment is a peaceful way to interact with others. Offering such kindness to yourself and to others are truly acts of peace.
- Compassion: The feeling for another with a desire to relieve suffering. Practicing this for one’s self and for others offers connection rather than conflict. Compassion connects you with the common humanity of others. It understands that others have felt what you feel, have gone through similar experiences, or want for similar things.
- Understanding: Listening, curiosity, and compassion, without judgment allow us to offer understanding to ourselves and to others. Understanding of yourself offers wisdom. Seeking to understand others builds bridges rather than walls. Listening and offering understanding creates an openness to sharing ideas and possibly be an influence. Judgment and criticism merely encourages others to shut down or get louder and more firm in their own beliefs.
- Wisdom: When you are able to become calm, quiet, and self-aware, you have the possibility of tapping into your best self and inner wisdom. Connecting with your deepest truth, you understand that you and the world around you is ever evolving. Your learning and growth is your birthright as a part of the ever evolving world around you. That every season has purpose, every cycle meaning. This is also true for you, and your neighbor, and the wonder outside your door. Tapping into the peace inside of you and making a connection to peace outside of you resonates further out into the world. In this way, you give the gift of peace to yourself, others, and the world around you.
My great wish for you as you move through the seasons is that you create opportunities for peaceful connection, inside and outside.
