My Search For INNER PEACE...

I have not written anything in my blog from almost a month now and this worries me a lot. Not because the audience traffic has gone negative but more because it is a sign that depicts: ‘I am losing my peace of mind’. As writing for me can only be done when this thing called “inner peace” is with me. In fact, a creative work can be brought into existence only by a peaceful mind. A mind full of anxiety and stress can only create disasters. Right???

So, as I was all stressful about losing my “inner peace”, my mind (with its basic instinct to find answers) immediately responded with several options to revive my inner peace. The first option it offered me was to go back in my past moments of happiness. So as a normal human, I listened to my inner thought process, and directly went to a folder in my laptop which is named as “sweet memo”. This folder contains pictures of all the memorable events I had gone through in my life. So I re-visited each and every sweet memory of my past and felt a little better. But to my surprise, the effect lasted only for several hours. Moreover, it made me felt even more restless than before and I cried for at-least an hour.

Next day, my mind made another brilliant plan to cope with my “inner peace” issue. And it was to visualize myself in a good and happy future event i.e. to do day dreaming before going to sleep every night. Funny as it sounds, yet my fragile soul gave up to the mind’s instructions and started day dreaming. This day dreaming thing lasted for a whole week until I realized it was playing more havoc (making me more anxious) rather than reviving my inner peace.

Finally, I decided not to listen to the incessant noise of my mind and do something that I really like i.e. to write. Yes, I knew that to write something creative was out of question but I started maintaining a journal. And each night before going to sleep, I wrote my heart-felt thoughts about the whole day. And after a week of doing this activity, I was all surprised to read what I had written the previous whole week. Each day’s entry depicted nothing but negativity. I was either cribbing or complaining for some or the other thing. It was a jest of all the negative feelings. I was only paying attention to what I was missing in life. But what about those things which I normally have?

Suddenly I realized one thing, I got an answer to my quest for “inner peace” and that is: GRATITUDE.

Yes, Gratitude which is a feeling of thankfulness or appreciation is nowadays totally missing from each and every person’s life. We normally are full of stress and anxiety for things which we don’t have or which we are not able to achieve but what about those things which already exists in our life. For example: have you ever appreciated life for giving you enough money that can afford you a designer dress, a high end mobile phone, branded cosmetic product or even a yummy-burger from your favorite fast-food restaurant? Or having a nice home to live in, with your loving parents ever aroused the feeling of gratitude. Even having a healthy body that supports you in your quest to earn money for your family, ever made you felt thankful to God? And don’t go far; just think about a friend, partner or any stranger who supported you in any event of your life, ever made you feel grateful to life?

Frankly saying, for most of the questions above my answer is no. I just buy a nice designer dress and never had this feeling of gratitude that I can afford such a thing. My happiness for buying such a thing lies only in the fact that now I will show off my unreasonably high priced dress to my friends and how beautiful I will look when I will wear it, that’s all. And yes, we all normally ignore the already existing good things in our fast paced life. But their existence is the thing that keeps us going irrespective of our acknowledgement. Think about those who don’t have these things which you perceive as ‘normal things’. How hard life must be for them, right?

So the next thing I did: I again started with the usual entry in my journal but this time I wrote all the good and positive things that life has offered me. I thought that the next day I would not be having enough positive things to write. But to my surprise, with each passing day, there was always one or the other new gift for which I felt grateful. As I diverted my attention toward the good things in life, my mind started regaining its original calm and peaceful state. The moment I started appreciating life, I felt as if I am directly communicating with the powerful presence that exists in nature. My “inner peace” was finally revived.

The result is this post which I had written after a long gap, I don’t know whether it is good or not but I wish to share my experience with all my readers so that in future or if in present you are also searching for inner peace like me, the answer which I got might help you in your quest. 

            “I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.”                                                                                          ~.~ Rita Mae Brown

Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/keepitsurreal/14038584960/