Your Personal Desire for Peace.
How do you define peace? I know that sounds like kind of a crazy question, but I promise you that if you think about it, the process of creating that answer will reveal more of you to yourself than you have probably ever known.
Because our personal definition of peace tells us so much about who we are, and what’s important to us.
Some things you knew, and some that were a mystery.
Because peace isn’t just about what happening to you at the moment; it’s about the sum total of everything you’re thinking about right now. Your challenges and concerns, your failings and your fears.
The malevolent cacophony of questions and answers that suffuse, surround, and sometimes suffocate you. The background hum of our own personal universe can drown out the beautiful music of the moment if we allow too many things to overpower and overwhelm us.
Changing peace into peril, and calm into chaos.
When I tried to define peace for myself, it involved a lot of things. I’d like to share a few of those with you for a moment, in the hopes that you can learn something about yourself in the process.
The truths we see in others are often reflections of the truth we can’t see in ourselves. That’s why sharing and having people around us is so important, because we learn when others are open with us.
As I hope I can be here today.
For me, peace starts out with as much certainty as I can achieve. Coming from a background where we had less than those around us, and even sometimes that was under question, my personal recipe for peace begins with an incredibly profound need for security. Usually financial, but also personal.
But without significance, my peace would be hollow.
Because as someone who felt ‘less than’ for most of my growing up years (let’s say 8 years and older), I struggle with feeling like I have value, so peace to me would also involve a sense of personal significance that is hard to come by.
I still struggle with the programming that teaches me that in order to have value (significance) then I have to achieve something amazing.
Which goes against all I know, but not yet against all I feel.
Yet for me to really be at peace, I must have my wife there. Connection is another of my deep needs, and without her, I’m lost. Her presence comforts and calms my soul, allowing me the freedom to be and create and to dream. Without her, there would be no peace, just a void of longing where she used to be.
My kids run a close second on that, because I have amazing relationships with both of them.
But with all this, there would still be one thing missing.
Because last in the list of the 6 human needs is contribution, the ability and desire to give back, and that’s where you come in. In over 18 months of writing these reflections, I’ve come to love doing this, and sharing my thoughts and ideas with you.
Your likes, shares and comments are so precious and meaningful to me that I can’t express how much you mean to me, and how grateful I am for your kindness in supporting this work.
So in a brief nutshell, that’s how peace gets defined for me.
And now, I’m really, really curious…would you share what peace looks like for you?
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings