The Joy of Inner Peace by @JanetNestor

Tags

inner peace, journey, joy, spirituality

We are all on a journey to our sacred inner oasis. We want to connect to ourselves, life, and the divine. We want happiness, joy, safety, and inner peace. The issue is we don’t always know how to create it. However, if we find it once, we will keep striving to find it over and over again!

Our spiritual journey lasts a lifetime. When did you first become aware that you were a spiritual seeker? I was about 30 years old at the time and attending Adult Children of Alcoholics 12 twelve step meetings. Before ACOA I had no understanding of self-care, meditation, and no concept of how to create joy or inner peace.

In the beginning and throughout our journey we need teachers; people who can show us how to find the gifts of joy and inner peace that reside within our own being. And we need communities that support our journey. #SpiritChat has always been one of those communities for me. We grow together every Sunday!

There are mindful ways to learn what joy and peace feel like – how they impact our mind and body.  Mindfulness is focused awareness. We learn to witness our own body and emotions, become aware of our own inner nature, and then learn to live within our awareness. Becoming aware and experiencing heart virtues like joy and peace deepen our spiritual experience.

To really know what joy, love, peace, kindness and other virtues are, we need to experience them when they are paired with negative opposites. We all know that embracing heart virtues bring us energetically to a higher frequency. What we don’t know is what negativity takes from us.

We can use sensory awareness to make fun, laughter, joy, inner peace (and all the other viruses) part of holistic awareness, our energy system, and our heart center. When that happens, the energy of the virtues flow through our body connecting us to joy and inner peace. This activity is easy and is something we can teach our children and grandchildren.

Create a list of heart virtues that you want to adopt. The list might look like this: joy, love, kindness, peace.

Once you have your positive list, create a list of opposite emotions: sadness, hate, meanness, war.

You will need eight 3×5 white cards or pieces of clean white paper. No lined paper or paper that has been used before.

Write each of the words on the card or paper – one word on each card.

Hold the word joy between your hands until you can feel the energy of it flowing through you. You can feel the frequency of joy vibrate between the palms of your hands and perhaps vibrate through your whole body.

Then hold the word sadness between your hands and feel its vibration. Once you have felt the vibration of sadness, hold joy between your hands again. This keeps your vibration high as you complete this activity.

Repeat with each of the word pairs. Love-Hate, Kindness-Cruelty, Peace-War. Remember to hold the positive word, then the negative word, and again the positive word.

You will be surprised at what information you take in somatically, mentally, and emotionally. You intuitively know the importance of choosing a positive, joyful way of life. Words matter much more than we imagine! Words create our body’s chemistry and our quality of physical, mental, and emotional health.

If our body chemistry is positive, we experience positive emotions. which generate a positive, heathy inner environment. That balanced chemistry allows us to feel inner peace and joy.

If our body chemistry is not balanced, we experience emotions that are negative. Negativity limits our ability to experience joy and inner peace. Adding positive thoughts and actions gradually create a chemical change that results in a positive physical-mental-emotional-spiritual change.

If you try this little activity, let us know at the beginning of the chat!

Thank you for inviting me to be a guest host, Kumud. I look forward to our Sunday, March 12th #spiritchat.

Janet Nestor

Editor’s Note: Please join our long-time friend, supporter, participant and advisor to the #SpiritChat community, Janet Nestor (@JanetNestor) as she hosts our weekly chat on Sunday, March 12 at 9amEDT / 1pm GMT / 630pm India on twitter. Thank you – Kumud @AjmaniK

Janet Nestor, Author of “Pathways to Wholeness”

‘Hold the word Joy between your hands…’

On Inviting Peace

Tags

inner peace, invitation, peace

It had been a more than usually stressful drive to work that morning. It seemed like one of those days that folks were determined to do their best to annoy me with their driving antics. The closer I got to my exit, the more my inner temperature and dissonance was rising. And my ride to work is perhaps a walk on the park as compared to some folks who have long commutes in bumper to bumper traffic.

As I headed onto the exit ramp, a thought crossed my mind. What if, I were to experiment with not letting traffic annoy me so much? What if, I were to simply let people flow in and out of my path, and simply be witness to their journey? How much emotional energy would I possibly conserve by choosing to remain on my island – the very same island of peace that I often began my journey to work on?

And hence, I began the process of being a witness to the peaks and valleys that my inner peace traversed on a daily basis.

If I were to ask you – when is the last time that you accepted an invitation from peace – what would you say? Or, when is the last time that you extended an invitation to peace?

There are so many reasons that we get distracted from our Inherent peaceful nature. When we experience a truly restful sleep, it is because we have been in reconnection with this deep inner peace. The mere act of living in the world around us, the daily tugs and pulls of life, of relationships, of expectations, of our emotions, of our to-do lists and our goals and deliverables – can drain our peace. We feel the need to refill and reconnect with peace again.

How do we reconnect and refill?

There is an Inbuilt awareness in each one of us which Informs us that peace Is. Peace Is ours if we decide to accept, yield to Its Invitation. Peace Is in the knowing that in every Instance that It trends away from me, I can Invite It to return. Peace Is like breath. In every breath that leaves me, is Inherent the Invitation to breathe It back within. Peace is hence the thread of Life Itself.

So, let me ask you to consider your response in the next Instant in which you are presented the peace choice…

What will It take for you to Imagine, Invite, Immerse In, Invoke, Inspire and Incentivize peace? Will you decide to make peace Imminent or will you decide to postpone it?

Take your time. I will wait for your answer. But don’t hold your breath (or your answer) for too long.

Peace is your Invitation to receive, yours to receive, and then give away. Breathe deep. Inhale it. Then exhale it.

I invite you to make Peace your IAP – your Individual Action Plan. Will you declare that #IAmPeace?

Kumud @AjmaniK

P.S. It has been two weeks since I decided to be witness to the peace disrupters of my daily travels. Gradually, I have yielded a bit more space, slowed down or sped up to facilitate easier merging, changed lanes in anticipation, and more. My daily commute is becoming more peaceful by the day. There are trips when my peace island departs and arrives, virtually undisturbed.

What area(s) of your daily activity could benefit from an invitation to peace? Are there any relationships that could use a peace invite? Could you be a third-party agent to invite others to the table of peace?

Join us Sunday, March 31 at 9am EDT / 1pm UTC / 630pm India, to discuss #IAmPeace. A cup of tea and some cookies await you. Namaste – Kumud.

The sunset’s daily “invitation to peace”

Inner Peace and the Spirit

Tags

inner peace, peace, spirit, spiritchat

Last week (Sunday September 16th) we discussed The Mind and the Spirit – why we need to explore the nature of the mind, the techniques involved, the role of a teacher in understanding its nature, the origin of thoughts, the role of the intellect, and so on. One aspect that was mentioned, but not really explored, was the connection between the mind and Inner Peace.

“People are born for different tasks, but in order to survive, every one requires the same nourishment; inner peace.” ~ Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Inner Peace is perhaps a goal that all of us seek – it is connected to the concepts of harmony, equanimity and simplicity, among other things. We often hear about the desire for peace and love in the external world, while we perhaps remain in turmoil within ourselves – as we struggle with all the thoughts that circulate through our minds. We would surprise ourselves if we paused to observe (and I have done this many times) all the thoughts that pass through our mind in any sixty second period. Take a pause. Close your eyes for sixty seconds and observe your thoughts. Then read on.

“A compassionate state of mind brings inner peace, and therefore a healthier body.” ~ Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama

What did you discover? Were your thoughts conducive to moving you towards Inner Peace? Whether the answer is yes or no, I believe that all of us can use more Inner Peace than we have right now. What are some factors that disturb our Inner Peace? How do you recover when your Inner Peace is disturbed? How can techniques like meditation and/or Yoga help us attain more Inner Peace? Can we get to a state where external events do not affect our Inner Peace – at least temporarily?

“No one can find inner peace except by working, not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.” ~ Peace Pilgrim

Let us explore our state of Inner Peace. I invite you to join the #SpiritChat community on Sunday September 23rd at 9am ET / 2pm UK / 6:30 India as we explore some of these questions. In the mean time, I hope you continue your spiritual journey – and that more Inner Peace finds you on your path.

Kumud

Update: Here is the html Transcript for chat on Inner Peace. Here is the pdf version for download. Also see the questions asked during the live chat held Sep 23rd 2012 at 9am ET. Feel free to answer in the comments or tweet with hashtag #spiritchat to share your answers with the community.

Ready? Q1. What thoughts or feelings do the two words "Inner Peace" invoke in you? #SpiritChat

Q2. What factors tend to decrease your sense of inner peace? #SpiritChat

Q3. What are some traits of those who exhibit a great degree of inner peace? #SpiritChat

Q4. How does one find inner peace in a noisy world? (Q via @MitzvahCircle) #SpiritChat 

Q5. Is a lasting state of inner peace just an ideal? Or is it achievable? How? #SpiritChat

Q6. How does inner peace affect our relationships? Online and offline.. #SpiritChat

Q7. Is inner peace the final destination for spiritual practice? Or just a milestone on our way... #SpiritChat 

Final Q8. Share your inner peace mantra with us. In seven words, more or less :) #SpiritChat