5 Steps for Developing a Peaceful Life

Peace and contentment, a powerful quality in life, yet experiencing it consistently is challenging.  Allow the flow of emotions, events, planned and unplanned to aid instead of blocking peace and contentment.  Just as a ship’s captain navigates through rough waters, you can develop techniques to successfully navigate life.   As a successful navigator, you learn how to handle the bad and enjoy the good.  Consequently, successful navigation increases positive momentum (energy).  

Steps for Developing a Peaceful Life

1. Intention – This is the most important step.  Make a heart-felt decision to learn a new skill and practice it until it becomes a habit.  It could be meditation, mindfulness, yoga, or mountain climbing.  The intention is a strong want to change or transform.  This is not a whim, something that sounds good.  It is heartfelt and a deep inner knowing that “this” is what will help you grow.

2. Get Quiet – Huge second step. The quickest way to increase energy is the opposite, slow down.  Slow your breathing, your mind, and your body down.  Make a priority of having quiet time everyday.  This could include a walk alone (no pets), getting up earlier, going to bed sooner, even skipping a meal.

3. Emotions – Let go of things that you can’t change.  Recognize your emotions are your internal guidance system.  Ask yourself:  Why do I feel this way?  Why do I respond this way?  Do your best to get to the root of the emotion.  Let emotions flow and don’t hold them in (don’t hurt another as you process your emotions).  It is a scientific fact that repressed emotions lead to physical illness.

4. Ask questions, write them down and then trust.  Don’t answer them, don’t ask how or when.  What am I to know in this moment, what am I being propelled toward?  Is there a change, an action I need to do?

5. Journal – Use a specific book or online tool.  Use the journal for your questions.  Begin a gratitude journal (from small things to the big).  Thank you for the rain as it nourishes the Earth.  Thank you for my (feet, eyes, ears, etc) that work and help me each day. Thank you for the smile I received, also that I can smile at another person and brighten their day. I like the DayOne app.  I  have created several journals:  basic journal, gratitude journal, photo journal, and other journals to support my interests. If you use Apple products you can store it in the cloud for all your devices. 

Develop a mindset of ‘being’ before doing

Being is always an internal state and action is both internal and external.  Action may involve prayer, love, compassion, or a physical act of service.  The important part is to proceed action with being.  Being is doing from this place of flow allows life to move with ease.  Often we place too much importance on the action, rather than the being.  When being precedes, action is fluid.  It moves like the water in a stream, sometimes steady and sometimes still and quiet. Both the movement and the quiet are beneficial.

How to enter the state of being first?  

Practice mindfulness and awareness. Then move to periodical, specific meditations, until then life becomes a mediation.  This is the process of being.  It involves quieting the chatter in the mind, some refer to this as the monkey mind.  Do not neglect duties required, i.e., parenting, avenues for income, or for service to others.  This is about knowing who you are and understanding your purpose in life you.  I stress, ‘this knowing’ comes from being. The best any of us can do in a day or in a life is to “work on our self”.  This work is essential because that is how ‘being’ is formed, grown, shaped so the emotions experienced are teachers and not antagonists.

Julia Parsell is a Certified Holistic Health Counselor with an emphasis on the intersection of science and the sacred.  She writes from experiences and transformative understandings that have led her to an authentic and peaceful life. She goes by these names:  wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, niece, cousin, and friend. As a home educator of her three children, she also developed/ran cafes, and maintained various leadership roles within her community.  Her greatest desire is to encourage others to live life fully.  Her passions are family, writing, and trail blazing. She is happily married in Western North Carolina.   Please visit her blog here.