An article describing what it is we all want, but oddly go about trying to get it in an infinite nubmer of ways and means.
Describing the Indescribable Feeling We All Want: Peace of Heart
By
Bill Cottringer
“Words are the voice of the heart.” ~Confucius.
I feel rather foolish. I have been barking up the wrong tree for a couple of decades. I imagined that the end goal of all our reality repair efforts—fixing broken realities we don’t like and creating new and better ones we want—was to achieve “peace of mind.” Ha was I wrong! Why would we want that even if we could get it? It is not meant to be. What we all really want instead is “peace of heart.”
What exactly is peace of heart? The only way I know it is when I see it. Here are just a few examples of people finding peace of heart:
- The dying wife who is somehow assured that her surviving husband will be okay without her.
- The newly elected president realizing that he has been given the greatest opportunity available to any human being—to change the whole world with his dreams and ideas.
- A dad seeing the live birth of his first daughter.
- A photographer capturing a very ordinary scene in an extraordinary way to show something important most people miss.
- A teacher getting a complimentary “thank you” from a successful student 30 years later.
- An inmate in prison realizing how to go from victim to hero in under 60 seconds but accepting it may take the rest of his life.
- A Hindu-Christian and Spiritualist Episcopalian forging a long distance life-time friendship, with acceptance, understanding and love.
Achieving peace of heart is not quick and easy. It is a lifetime effort but any amount of progress feels good. It requires you to become a master reality-repair expert in closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be. This journey requires seven inter-related steps:
- Understanding the importance of knowing your main purpose in whatever you are trying to do and aligning your thinking feeling and acting with that purpose, consistently and persistently.
- Collecting and applying tried and true principles as to the way people and life actually work to get results in closing here and there gaps.
- Getting to the right perspective where you can see all that you need to see to get where you want to be, including the obstacles and how to get by them; noticing what you have been failing to notice all along.
- Stoking your passion with genuine urgency to embrace your purpose, get the right perspective and see the principles that are most relevant in getting busy doing all these other things.
- Un-polarizing your dualistic mind which artificially categorizes everything into this or that—okay or not okay, true or false, or right or wrong; reconciling these illusory opposites into the wholeness that doubles your success and happiness.
- Establishing priorities in doing what matters most—being successful in carrying out your purpose and increasing your peace of heart.
- Working on applying all this new wisdom to solve the problems that confront you, finding creative “P’ Points (psychological power pints, or little interventions that get big results and cost the least in side effects), which help you fix a lot by knowing a little.
Discovering what the common prize is that we are all seeking with so many different approaches is a very humbling experience that produces a meaningful glimpse at peace of heart.
William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA and also a business and personal success coach, sport psychologist, photographer and writer living in the mountains of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including, The Prosperity Zone, Getting More By Doing Less, You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, The Bow-Wow Secrets, Do What Matters Most, “P” Point Management, and Reality Repair Rx coming shortly. He can be contacted with comments or questions at 425 454-5011 or bcottringer.pssp.net
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