How Do I Find Peace?

I’ve heard many people say that they want to learn mindfulness meditation because they want to have some peace in their lives. How do we find peace, and what does mindfulness have to do with peace?

Peace comes from the Latin word “pax” which means “tranquility, absence of war.”

Our lives can be very busy and stressful at times. We might try to find some peace by creating a peaceful external environment. That’s a good start, but even when the TV and all the devices are turned off, when we are alone with our thoughts, we might find that we still don’t feel peaceful.

So what does it take to get some peace? As noted above, peace means absence of war, absence of conflict. Could it be that, even when we have peace and tranquility outside, there is still conflict inside?

When we practice mindfulness meditation, we begin to gain awareness into our minds and our thoughts. We may find that our minds are very busy, with lots of thoughts and emotions coming and going. Some of those thoughts and emotions may conflict with each other – like we sometimes say, “I’m ambivalent, I feel two ways about it, I’m torn, I feel conflicted, etc.”

Sometimes we might find that we are in conflict with our own thoughts and emotions. Maybe we want to push away some thoughts that we don’t want to have. Maybe we want to hang on to some emotions that we do like having.

Maybe we notice that we fight with ourselves. I’ve heard many people tell me, “I’m my own worst enemy. I’m my own worst critic.”

If we pay attention and observe our minds, we come to find that there’s a quite bit of war and conflict inside of us! Inside our minds, there is no “absence of war.” There is no peace.

Through mindfulness practice, we can notice all those thoughts, emotions, self-judgment, and let them all go. Even for just a brief moment, we can let go of all the internal conflict and just come back to the here and now. We stop fighting with ourselves. We stop fighting with our thoughts and feelings. And just come back to the present moment. Breathing in, feeling the coolness in the nose, feeling the stomach rising.