Finding and Guarding Your Peace of Mind

Do you ever have moments when it feels like the world is caving in on itself and you have no power to stop it? Hurricanes, earthquakes, gunmen, protests and anger permeate the news in the US. It even invades our sports arenas, but what if the events of the world are different than you think they are? What if all the hype is designed to get your attention and throw you off balance rather than actually give you a clear picture of what is happening in the world?
Years ago I stopped watching the news because it disturbed my peace of mind. When I tell people that, many are shocked and concerned. They tell me they I miss the important news, but I never lack information. I merely choose which outlets, when and how much news I consume, because the person who controls your habits, controls your mind, and I want that person to be me. I decided to take control of my thinking back from the news outlets.  Since then, I have more peace of mind and more personal power than ever . I find out about every hurricane, earthquake, protest and many ugly things. I also find out about kindness in the wake of those events because that’s what I look for too.

Personal Power and Peace of Mind are connected

It amazes me how often people give away their power to think independently by blindly following one news source. They believe the circumstances that outlet reports and give those circumstances control over their thoughts and feelings. I know because I used to do that.  Then I learned to be accountable for my life.  I began to understand personal power and how powerful each of us really is. The greatest power we have is how we choose to live our lives, and when we figure out everything is a choice, life changes in ways we can hardly imagine. My favorite example of that is in the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Even in a Nazi concentration camp at his lowest moment, Viktor Frankl held onto his personal power. When he could find nothing else positive to focus upon, he found a single blade of grass and used it as a symbol of hope and growth. If he can do that in a Nazi concentration camp, how can any of us do any less?

Choosing Peace of Mind over worry and fear

In life, everyone has challenges. My husband and I lost our fathers to cancer within four months of each other the same year we had a baby. It was a stressful year, but we decided to focus on the joy of adding to our family and the fact that our fathers both got to meet the baby who was named after them before they passed. In our daily life, two of our family members have life threatening medical conditions. We could choose to worry something bad will happen.  Instead, we choose to focus on ways to keep our family healthy. We pursue peace of mind and personal power rather than give in to fear and worry. There are still difficult days and reminders of life’s fragility, but we use those days to re-commit to live our best lives, not in spite of our circumstances, but because of them.

Is your world limited or limitless?

So many view the world as limited; limited resources, limited compassion, limited wealth.  I think that view is wrong. I think we are all much more powerful than we choose to be. We look at what is rather than working toward what can be. We focus on obstacles and quit before we even try. Worse, if we try and fail, we think it’s the end of the road. It isn’t. One of the most powerful lessons I learned from people who teach how to take your power back is that failure is the best fuel for success, if you’re willing to learn from it. That’s exciting because it means every failure gets you closer to success. I failed twice to get our family out of debt permanently, which made paying off over $30,000 of credit card debt our third time into debt so satisfying. I failed for over fifteen years to figure out how to keep a home until I learned to create my own system that has worked for over a decade, simply using The Magic of Fifteen Minutes.  There was so much power and peace of mind in those simple acts because it made way for me to write three books and have a career I absolutely love.

We all lose our peace of mind occasionally.  How do we get it back?

When horrible things happen in the world, and they will happen, we all get knocked off center. That’s part of being a compassionate human being. The most successful human beings know they have no control over those events or others’ behavior. They refuse to worry and fret about what has happened and what might happen. Instead they get back to living their best life, creating as much good in the world as possible. They resolve to be kinder and more aware. They resolve to focus on the good and be the good in the world they want to see every day. That’s the kind of person I want to be, a person who changes the world for the better.  So, you ready to take your power back and use it to make the world a better place? If you are, make a plan. Decide what you will do differently and watch the blessings begin to flow. Look for the good. Move toward peace because there is nothing more powerful than that.