What Is the One Thing Which Gives Us Lasting Peace of Mind?
We need to face our fears.
Just about all our emotional pain and mental turmoil arises from our inability to accept the way things are. We have a picture in our mind, an expectation that things should look a certain way. We are attached to a certain outcome and we need the externals of our life to meet our emotional needs of love and acceptance as well as to allay our deep seated fears of inadequacy and unworthiness. When the externals - the people, the events, or the conditions - do not meet these basic needs, this intensifies our fear and we feel anxiety or depression.
I think the best book I have ever read that deals with the dysfunctions of our psyche is Michael A Singer’s The Untethered Soul. Singer says just as pain is the language our body uses to communicate that something is wrong or out of balance, fear is the language our psyche uses to communicate dysfunction. Unfortunately, we all have basic information about how to keep our body healthy but, as Singer demonstrates, most of us have absolutely no awareness of what a healthy psyche feels like. Consequently we unconsciously mistreat it:
“You have mistreated it by giving it a responsibility that is incomprehensible…You said to your mind, ‘I want everyone to like me. I don’t want anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be acceptable and pleasing to everyone. I don’t want anyone to hurt me. I don’t want anything to happen that I don’t like. And I want everything to happen that I do like. Then…figure out how to make every one of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night.’ “
Once we are aware of the unrealistic and dysfunctional demands we place on our psyches we then need to face these fears through an unconditional acceptance of what is. Singer likens this to a dog that is restrained by an electric fence. The dog does not realize that freedom is only one short sharp jolt of pain away. If he knew this he would realize all he had to do was just push through and freedom would be his.
Likewise, we just need to push through the short sharp jab of pain that comes with opening ourselves to whatever comes our way. Then, once we are no longer attached to a particular condition, it has no power to create pain. We are able to observe events with a dispassionate eye, and no longer give it the power to have determine our happiness or peace of mind.
I recently discovered that something that I thought to be true for 20 years, something in which I had invested an enormous amount of emotional and physical energy, was not in fact true. What I perceived to be truth, I had to realize, was nothing more than that: perception.
As I faced this terrible truth, adrenaline shot through me, causing my heart to pound. I shut my eyes and tried to meditate. What came to me was two words: sang froid. Eight years of schoolgirl French led me to guess it meant “cold blood” but I had to look it up. It actually means composure, equanimity, self-control.
I knew this was a message from my Higher Self. It couldn’t be from my conscious mind because the information was not available to it. It was the spiritual and inspired assistance I needed to remind me that I needed to detach and face this new information with a cool eye. I had to push through the initial emotional pain, first by feeling it, and then by accepting it.
This was a tiny miracle, because it caused a shift of perspective, which is one of the very definitions of a miracle according to “A Course of Miracles.” It reminded me that regardless of what was occurring outside of me I knew I was fundamentally ok. My Higher Self would always ensure this. It would give me the information and inspiration I needed whenever and wherever I asked. This assured me that I could safely let my perception, and the pain it entailed, go. I stopped thinking about the situation and instead focussed on the total and utter freedom that is possible once we escape the imprisonment of our fear.
We are free because in this state of mind nothing and no one can shame us, diminish us, enslave us or hurt us. We know the truth about ourselves and this gives us the power to create an enduring peace of mind. This is true power.
