Inner peace – a somehow elusive concept. Of it isn’t? In this fast-paced world, it’s often hard to slow down, reflect, and just be. In this article, I give some suggestions and techniques on how to find inner peace and happiness.
Table of content
- What is inner peace?
- The importance of inner peace
- Benefits of inner peace
- How to find inner peace and happiness?
- Techniques you can use to find inner peace
- Inner peace quotes
- Tips on finding inner peace in hard times
What is inner peace?
Inner peace can be defined as a state of psychological and spiritual calm despite all the stressors in one’s close environment.
Inner peace is an opposite state to the notorious fight or flight response where people spend their mental and physical energy excessively to defend themselves from stressors and end up exhausted.
Inner peace can also be defined as a state of homeostasis, where the mind and body operate harmoniously and at an optimum level.
Some terms that describe inner peace well are calmness, happiness, contentment, spirituality, enlightenment, and serenity.
Finding inner peace and happiness means staying serene, content, and grateful during life’s difficulties, guided by the belief that it will all sort out.
How does it feel like to be at peace with yourself?
If you are one of the rare lucky people who manage to get to the state of inner peace, you probably:
- feel hopeful
- are optimistic by nature
- stay calm in stress-imbued situations
- believe there are no unresolvable issues
- have a tendency to conserve your life energy
- are at peace with yourself and others
- manage your emotions well
The importance of inner peace
High achievers and career-oriented people tend to burn out easily and feel constantly stressed and overworked. Because of the everyday tasks we have, we unintentionally tend to sacrifice our well-being and inner peace. Little by little, our health can deteriorate, our energy can fade, and our minds become cluttered and overthinking. Therefore it’s essential to slow down when the world speeds up.
Why is inner peace important?
Here are some points I can emphasize here:
- Inner peace can help preserve our life energy.
- A basic sense of happiness can keep us going during life’s difficulties.
- With inner peace, we don’t lose track of our values and who we are.
- Inner peace helps regain life balance.
- Inner peace helps us walk the path of life at our own pace and allows us to slow down when needed without remorse.
The benefits of inner peace
The benefits of inner peace are hard to boil down to one list or so because the benefits are really astonishing. However, I’ll try to summarize it here for you, listing the major benefits:
- maintaining healthy energy levels
- increased ability to manage life affairs successfully on a day to day basis
- better awareness and management of your emotions
- less stress and damaging anxiety episodes
- increased ability to take rest whenever you need to
- unbiased thinking, and putting aside anxiety when making conclusions
- being better support for others
- being in line with your values and authenticity
- living life at your own pace when others are hectic all the time
How to find inner peace and happiness?
When talking about finding inner peace, things can go really creative here. However, finding inner peace won’t be that easy for everyone. Some people are more prone to overthinking and catastrophizing, and they will have to put in a lot of work to learn how to relax and be at peace with themselves.
Some people will have to put tremendous work to find inner peace and unlearn all the mental constructs that they have been taught their entire life. For example, their environment or their negative life experiences have shown them that it’s not secure to relax and be at peace with yourself. The underlying anxiety suggests them you have to worry all the time to be able to survive.
In general, finding inner peace means getting rid of unhelpful beliefs, lots of psychological work, shadow work, and embracing your value and authenticity.
Techniques you can use to find inner peace
In the following section, I’ll list some techniques for finding inner peace and happiness which I find helpful:
- Meditation
- Nature
- Gratefulness
- Reconciling with your past
- Self-care
- Decluttering
Meditation
Usually, the first term that comes to our mind when talking about inner peace is meditation. I think it can be well justified. Meditation has a tendency to quickly calm the anxious and wandering minds, and help us relax.
There are numerous ways on how you can incorporate meditation into your everyday life. You can install some mobile apps and listen to the guided meditations there, do light yoga exercises, or create your own daily meditation routine in the favorite corner of your home.
Meditation has amazing benefits for our mental and physical health. Mindful meditation is helpful in so many ways: it can increase focus, reduce anxiety, improve your memory, increase resilience, and much more.
Nature
Nature has some restorative and relaxing effects on our minds. Enjoying nature reminds us to slow down occasionally, and staring at the beauty of nature can help us find calm and serenity. Moreover, it can help shift perspectives about our issues and how temporary they are.
Gratefulness
Finding your peace means appreciating all the things that you have experienced whether they’re good or bad. When you put yourself in the perspective that every single experience adds to your learning curve in life, likely you’ll stop feeling remorse, envy, or contempt. And, as you can probably agree, those feeling are hard to bear. Appreciate what you have in your life, and learn to direct your energy towards self-improvement, positivity, and constant learning.
Reconcile with your past
We all have made poor choices we’re not proud of. Dwelling in your past mistakes might be attractive since it’s so comforting. However, don’t let past mistakes define you. If you had known better, you would have done it that way.
Self-care
Self-care is an essential component if you’re serious about finding your inner peace and happiness. Neglecting yourself for the sake of work will only make you bitter and nervous. Bear in mind that a precondition to self-care is self-respect. Therefore, to develop self-respect, learn to set your boundaries, work on your resilence, take time to get to know yourself, your values, and goals, and work on their implementation.
Self-care is not one-dimensional. It means taking care of your body, emotions, and mind. It’s a holistic concept. You can start with self-love affirmations at first if you have no other ideas on how to start with self-love.
Decluttering
Decluttering is one of the preconditions to a peaceful mind. Organizing your house, your time, and your tasks will help you feel better and you’ll have a sense that you have more control in your life. A messy environment will only derail you from obtaining a peaceful mind.
Inner peace quotes
I have selected some quotes and mantras for you to inspire you to start thinking about your inner peace more.
Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
―Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
―Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
…live in the question.
―Peace of mind comes from not wanting to change others.
―Enjoy the peace of Nature and declutter your inner world.
―A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.
―Learning to distance yourself from all the negativity is one of the greatest lessons to achieve inner peace.
―
How to find inner peace in hard times?
The especially challenging part of finding inner peace and happiness is when you have to deal with the severe ups and downs of life. It is challenging by itself, so how you’re supposed to work on your serenity and inner peace? Is it a futile thing to do?
My opinion is that, if you’ve been through the ups and downs of your life, working on your inner peace can be plentifully rewarding.
The first step here would be accepting your current situation and letting go of the expectations we might have had. Also, it would be helpful to reach out to others and seek support, so that you don’t have to go through it all alone.
Also, what is important here is to build skills to be resilient, learn to trust yourself and your life choices, and forgive yourself for some bad choices you might have made.
I'm a blogger and idealist. I've been exploring mindfulness, mental health, and other psychology and personal growth topics for years. I strive for harmony, self-improvement, inner peace and perfection. I am a narcissist abuse victims advocate and an empath.
Contact: sonja@upbeatimpulse.com
