Peace?

When was the last time that you felt truly at peace with the world? Why don’t you feel this way more often?

Life’s relentless forward motion wants us to be on high alert, on full beam at all times.

Taking even a moment to rest can induce bizarre feelings of guilt. All too often, rest will seem like a luxury you cannot afford. Rest is nonetheless a good habit – a potentially life-saving one – that all too many of us need to learn to indulge in.

My mind seems hardwired to be busy, to be preoccupied. When I don’t have something to fill my time, my mind continues to cycle at its usual frenetic pace, pacing around in circles on the hunt for something into which to sink its teeth. All too often, this results in needless worry, needless spinning of the wheels.

How much of our everyday thought, of stress, of mental strain is truly necessary? How much of the work of our minds is essential? How much of what we think is just needless spinning the wheels?

I find myself thinking about this a lot. As seasoned readers of this blog will know, I have found myself on an unexpected mental health journey over the past year or so.* There is no question that I am in a better place in terms of my mental health now than I was at the start of all this. Excellent care from the NHS and time and support from a number of beautiful souls have helped me such a long way along the path to recovery. But I also know that I have so much further to go. The tendency of my mind to overwork itself can cause me concern. I know the places where my mind can end up.

I tend not to notice the high pace at which my mind ticks over until those all-too-rare moments when it decides it’s finally time to take its foot off the gas.

Last Saturday morning (6 May 2023), I had a rare moment of my mind feeling fully at peace. This feeling arrived post-yoga. I do yoga seven days a week (not that I am or ever will be a good or even a competent yogi – but seven years in, yoga makes me feel so much better in so many ways that it seems a good habit to cultivate).

Peace always seems to be passing. The post-yoga chill lessened over the course of the day, but its afterglow remained with me. A rare and ultimately fleeting feeling of calm.

An irony: A mind that is truly rested, truly at peace, is also a mind that is best suited for whatever comes next.

A still larger irony: At the end of all this we will each of us find ourselves at rest, at peace, forever.

Perhaps the search for some kind of inner peace is part of my life’s work. Perhaps it is part of yours, too?

Perhaps the enduring and endless search for inner peace is what drives us all.

Perhaps we will all of us find true peace, one of these days.

The other day, I happened upon some words that I find oddly comforting and inspiring, spoken at the end of Kevin Kelly’s April 2023 podcast conversation with Tim Ferriss, in which Kelly discusses his book Excellent Advice for Living. Kelly says:

“Your goal in life is to be able to say, on the day before you die, that you have fully become yourself.”

How about you, gentle reader? When was the last time you felt truly at rest? When was the last time that you felt truly at peace with the world? Why don’t you feel that way more often?

If you feel yourself to be in need of a moment’s peace or rest, I sincerely hope that you can find it today.

May you be nothing but kind today, to others and to yourself.

May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.

RESOURCES

• Mental health (NHS) Information and support for your mental health from the NHS.
• Information and support (Mind) Resources from Mind, the UK mental health charity.
• NAMI Homefront (NAMI) Online resources from US charity NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness).
• SANE Australia Visit the site of this “national mental health charity making a real difference in the lives of people affected by complex mental health issues”.

FOOTNOTES

* I  have written about my ongoing mental health journey in the following posts: Into the infinity of thoughts; Renewal; and No words?; Mental health first response; Glorify; In our darkest hours; and At the heart of things; No feeling is final; Relax harder.; and Anxiety: Your own worst enemy; All these moments; and Mental health: Six things I’ve learnt in 2022; Coping?; The sun will return; Gratitude; Mental health: Night and day; and Transitions.

IMAGES

• Sunrise (17919526003) via Wikimedia Commons.
• Sunrise over sea ice near the North Pole via Wikimedia Commons.
• ISS022-E-50452 – View of the Indian Ocean via Wikimedia Commons.