Do you know what it feels like when you are at peace with yourself and the rest of the world? Nothing rattles you. Your mother could tell you that you aren’t good enough and it would bounce off of you. Feeling this way, is not some fairytale but could be your everyday life.

I will give a brief 3 steps to reaching permanent inner peace or at least will help you improve the agony within.

Acknowledging Your Emotions

The pathway to peace can be quite uncomfortable at first, as we must acknowledge our emotions and put awareness to them. For instance, if you’re feeling sad, it is not enough to just say…”I don’t want to be sad so I’m going to feel happy.” We need to sit with the sadness and ask the deeper questions. We need to understand that if we don’t deal with it now, we’ll continue to get mad about these types of situations over and over again.

Any time something triggers you – i.e. you get angry, sad, frustrated, etc. A person who triggers an old within you is referred to as ‘shadows’. The dark emotions we keep in our soul’s basement hoping that they’d never emerge.

Understand the Trigger Points of Your Emotions

Do your best going through the process, first acknowledging the emotion and then taking full responsibility for my reactions. It’s easy to think that the other person or situation that is causing you suffering is the one to blame, but that’s not true. So keep digging.

The way my parents reacted (or didn’t react) in certain situations, being poked at or ridiculed in school, interactions between my siblings or friends…the list goes on and on.

Once you’ve figured out where the trigger originated you want to look at that situation more closely. Is the belief you created in that moment the only way to look at that situation? If you looked at it from an outsider perspective, what other reasons exist that the situation unfolded the way it did? It’s key to understand that there’s always more than one perspective, so what other angles/viewpoints can you see as part of the situation?

Are the Emotions Shown Valid?

Once you’ve uncovered other perspectives recognize that your view of the world may not have been right, and if your view wasn’t right back then, doesn’t it mean that your emotional reaction to today’s situation may not be warranted either? Breathe, be grateful for the work you just did, and feel good that you’re one step closer to being at peace with the world.

It is healthy to let the emotions come on the surface and it is unhealthy to keep them inside. Emotions always come out, it is our choice when and how. Please don’t imagine anything dramatic like destroying furniture or yelling at people around is needed.

We need to let it go. In some days just saying “tomorrow is going to be better “or “I am going to let it go” works the best. In other cases we need to find some compassion and understanding for others like “who knows, what happened to her”, “maybe she just had a bad day”.

Versuasion Team Pakistan – Fareeha Robert