Peace of Mind
by
William Cottringer



Peace of mind is something we all search for with varying techniques and results. One common problem confronts us all in our attempts to capture this elusive state of mind. Half this problem is discovering what we must do to cure our lack of peace of mind. The other half is figuring out how to actually apply this cure.

Eventually, we discover that we must let go of our selfish desire to control life in trying to make it into what we want, so that we can give into understanding and accepting life for what it is. We make two mistakes in trying to apply this cure. One is resisting this inevitable surrender because we don’t like to be forced into what we think is submission and obedience. The reality is that our minds are only trying to surrender to our souls as part of a plan we helped design.

The other mistake we make is in wanting to control and speed up this surrendering process itself, once we decide to let go and give in. But this is like trying to use football skills to perform a ballet or trying to force yourself to fall asleep. Neither works very well.

The main symptom of this problem is a nagging perception that there is a gap between where we are and where we want to be. First, there is a fairly large gap between what we know and the unconscious things we don't know. One important unconscious gap is between the role we want to play in life regarding who we are and where we are going, as opposed to the role that we originally agreed to play in exchange for the opportunity to join the "play of life."

Our conscious gaps can involve longing for more intimacy in our marriage, wanting more success in our careers, or needing more progress in our physical fitness efforts They can also include desiring more happiness in our personal development or yearning for more meaning and contentment in our spiritual growth.

Let’s explore this gap problem. The source of the problem is that during much of life we really don’t know who we are, where we are going, or how to get there. We fumble around a lot in the dark looking for a flashlight. Without knowing it, we are looking for the original role in life we agreed to play, along with other related information we have forgotten. Of course, we deny not knowing these things and do a lot of pretending, and it is this denial and pretending that creates a sense of gap in not being where we want to be.

Whatever you are doing right now is serving the purpose of getting you to where you want to be. This may be difficult to see when you just lost your job while trying to improve the quality of your life or when you feel angry, desperate and hopeless while trying to reconcile a broken marriage. But, this is only because you can’t see the whole picture all at once or you would see where these undesirable events, feelings and thoughts were taking you. Don’t we eventually see a positive purpose in everything?

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say our life has two halves with a half-time intermission. During the first half we create gaps and the second half we close gaps. During half-time we learn how to make the transition between the roller coaster, ego-driven material world of creating gaps and the more peaceful, soul-driven spiritual world of closing gaps. This is where peace of mind is born.

How do we create gaps and close them? In anything, there are usually two main ways to get where you are going. You can either run faster or shorten the distance to where you are going. In the first half of life you run raster to try and get where you want to be. During half-time you wake up to the folly of your failed efforts of not getting to where you want to be. You realize that you were trying to change things before you took the time to understand them well enough. Then in the second-half you start shortening the distance to where you are going by rearranging some key attitudes to see that you are already where you want to be and always have been. You actually start getting more by doing less.

The first half of your life you try to get where you want to be by picking up the speed. You get smarter with education, more successful through job promotions, happier by doing what is enjoyable, and wiser from experience. More than anything, you become prouder for being in control, thinking you are closing gaps when in fact you are still creating them.

Sooner or later though, you reach a turning point and experience a situation you can’t control no matter what you do or how hard your try. This is one experience you will never forget. It will take you to places in your mind, heart and soul you have never before visited. Variations of this experience will keep reoccurring until you finally see what you have been doing wrong. Your mind has to accept life and where it is taking you because your soul has already determined this. Continued resistance just delays the inevitable. You have arrived at half-time.

Half-time is a critical part of our life. It involves the shift from one major viewpoint to another. You are about to change your basic approach to life. You go from chasing things in order to control life and make it into what you want, to understanding life better and accepting it more for what it is. You wonder why you didn’t do this from the beginning, but realize that mistake is what got you to where you are now.

During this in between stage of your life is when you are most ready to change and grow. You discover that you wanted to be somewhere else before you ever took the time to understand where you where. You start remembering who you are, where you are going and how to get there.

There are certain transformational attitudes you start experiencing at half-time, which help facilitate your growth and movement into the second half. If you are starting to experience any of the following such attitudes, you know you are in your half-time. Here are a few of the telltale attitude changes:

• Shifting from an external focus on others toward an inward one on yourself.
• Discovering the freedom to wisely choose your interpretations and reactions to the things that happen to you, rather than thinking you can control or prevent those things from happening in the first place.
• Uncovering the awesome power you have each present moment to make new choices that will forever change the direction in which you are going.
• Becoming responsible and reverent by thoughtfully exercising free choices that don’t infringe upon the freedom of others.
• Expressing creativity in the form of non-judgmental understanding, acceptance, nurturing, compassion and unconditional love.
• Striving for balance in seeing both sides of things in order to close the gap between the two halves of life and become whole.

After your half-time break, you are ready to start the second half of your life. You begin closing the gaps you created in the first half. This time you are armed with a clearer purpose, improved understanding, more creativity, and better timing. Your abilities to express love, acceptance and compassion help too. This second half also involves guiding others to see and understand this process through which we are all going and helping them to make their gaps less disturbing.

You now realize why it is smarter to first understand, accept and enjoy where you are, before you think you need to be somewhere else. Now you are where you want to be and know you have always been there. You have discovered the recipe for peace of mind. This recipe is a secret worth sharing. It is not new, just old and retold. We hope we have been successful in sharing our version.


William Cottringer is a business consultant and writer in St. Louis, MO. He is author of How You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too. He can be reached at (314) 531-2000 or ckurtdoc.charter.net