The Emotional Weight We Carry: Why Peace Requires Letting Go

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Peace comes with a lot of letting go…Not because life suddenly becomes easy, painless, or predictable, but because the soul eventually grows tired of carrying what it was never meant to hold forever.

Most people imagine peace as a reward waiting at the end of perfect circumstances. A future moment where everything is resolved, everyone understands us, our wounds disappear, and the mind finally becomes quiet.

But real peace rarely arrives that way. Does it? Peace is not passive. It is deeply courageous.

It asks us to loosen our grip on the need to control every outcome. To release identities built entirely around survival. To stop rehearsing old wounds that the nervous system has mistaken for home. To let go of relationships that only survive through self-abandonment. To release the exhausting habit of proving our worth over and over again.

Much of human suffering comes not only from pain itself, but from attachment to pain… attachment to how life “should” have gone, who people “should” have been, and who we believed we needed to become in order to deserve love.

And most people do not realize how much energy is spent holding on….

Holding on to resentment years after a breakup.
Holding on to the need for validation from parents who may never fully understand us.
Holding on to friendships that survive only when we overextend ourselves emotionally.
Holding on to guilt for evolving beyond environments that once defined us.
Holding on to the fantasy that healing means never feeling sadness again.

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12 Powerful Ways to Reclaim Your Peace When You Can’t Change Others

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” ~ Maya Angelou

If there is one massive life lesson I have learnt over the years, it is that I can not control or change anyone, anything, or any situation. And trying to do so only hurts me and no one else. Hence, I stopped trying to change or control what is outside of me.

The truth of the matter is, that everything outside of you is never ever going to be in your control. If the traffic is bad, it is bad. You have no choice but to wait for it start moving. No sense in getting angry or hyperventilating over a fact you cannot change. So instead of getting angry or upset, its best to accept this fact and do something to calm your mind in that moment. Whenever I’m stuck in traffic, I people watch, I nature watch. I look out of the window in awe and admire the many wonders that the Divine has created. That’s so much better than hyperventilating! Right?!

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5 Unhealthy Habits I Let Go Of This Year To Regain Inner Peace

Letting go of unhealthy habits can be transformative in regaining inner peace. As I have begun my reflection practices on the year gone by, I made a note of all the unhealthy habits I let go of this year for my own inner peace.

You know that moment when you’re stuck in the supermarket line and the contents of your bag spill on the floor just as your phone starts ringing? Thats when I knew I needed to find inner peace within, right as I was suppressing the urge to unleash a stream of four-letter words(!)

I think we look for circumstances to help achieve a sense of inner peace. I know I do. I know I function better when I am at peace within. In fact, this calm, compassionate, deep awareness is actually within each of us. It’s like we have a deep reservoir of peacefulness and serenity within. What we have to learn to do is tap into it. ❤

The first step in tapping into that deep sense of peace is to dissolve the unhealthy habits that are a HUGE barrier to it.

Here are some common unhealthy habits that I recognize as barriers, and had to let go of this past year to regain inner calm, along with suggestions for how you can address them:

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