Author: rennwest

Creating Inner Peace – Being an Individual Within a Group

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How have you maintained your individuality within a group? How easily can you maintain your own ground when your family or a group or a nation is bent on actions, or infested with fear or anger, that you don’t feel comfortable with?

Even in a group we’re still individuals. I was aware of it during grade school and continued having being myself be a priority throughout high school. There is a consciousness that every society defines about what is acceptable and unacceptable, about what makes a person a success. It forms a sort of gravitational pull. Some call it a mass consciousness. For some people it’s not a problem. But some people spend some time pulling away from what is expected of them so they can find out who they are as an individual, who they are beyond what their society says they can be. The momentum of a large group of people can overwhelm the desires of an individual. Mob mentality is an example. We get a little more freedom from that gravitational pull, that group momentum, every time we choose to be a little different. And how can we express our uniqueness if we’re always trying to fit in with everyone else by being just like them? There’s a difference between harmony and sameness. Harmony in a song requires different notes, or it wouldn’t be harmony. Groups require variety in their membership in order for people to learn to be harmonious with each other.

Creating Inner Peace – Accepting Yourself and Others

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How honest are you with other people about being yourself? How honest are you with yourself?

Even in high school it wasn’t a matter of “fitting in” by acting or dressing like other people said I “should.” I accepted that my independence had consequences, prices I might have to pay regarding popularity. But I demanded my independence. That means I chose friends who were willing to accept me for me. That also means me accepting others. This I did on face value. That can sometimes be a problem if people are good fakers. For the most part, others were honest with me; because I definitely chose to be honest, perhaps sometimes too honest. I was a gentle soul, doing what I could to avoid allowing myself to be forced, doing what I could to keep from forcing others, allowing people to be. That doesn’t mean they didn’t laugh at me when I was thoroughly embarrassed, realizing I was sitting in front of the boy who had “streaked” naked across the court yard an hour earlier.

Creating Inner Peace – Our Opinions of Ourselves

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What examples are in your life of where you have responded to acceptance or rejection in such a way that bolstered your opinion of yourself? If you think of an example where you felt humiliated or degraded, do you now see a way to change any decision you might have made about yourself?

There were times I was out of sync with my peers, but I wasn’t really aware of it. We got to have a week of celebrations for our eighth-grade graduation. A swim party, a hay ride, putt-putt and a dance. We were putting in our suggestions for the music for the dance. This was 1971 and eighth graders liked rock and roll, Three Dog Night etc. So, my suggestions of more relaxing music like Petula Clark practically got me laughed out of the room. It surprised me, but I shrugged it off. Obviously, I wasn’t in the “popular” group. Luckily for me someone chose Bridge Over Troubled Waters. That was a long song to get to dance slow with the most popular guy in the school. I don’t know how I got to have such a treat, but I remember it as a highlight. A couple weeks earlier he stood up for me when I got accused of cheating on the history test, because I got such a high score. (If there had been a curve applied at the time, my score would have ruined it.) Luckily, my science project showed that my explanation of sleep learning was valid. It showed that short term retention of a lot of information was possible. It was probably reading the book out loud to record it onto the cassette tape that did it, more so than listening to the tape as I went to sleep. But nevertheless, I was exonerated. But a few months later I sure couldn’t have told you a single historical fact. For many months while writing this book I wondered why these events had significance in my life. I finally asked if it helped my attitude about myself. Humans tend to be social and being accepted or rejected does feed into our opinions of ourselves. But it is still our inner response to it that makes the difference to us. Somehow, I took two acts of kindness from the most popular boy in school as confirmation that, even out of sync, I was somehow OK. It just helped me relax into being me.

Creating Inner Peace – Purpose

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One purpose of creating inner peace within yourself is to have a reservoir to dip into when you are in aggravating situations. I’m able to just repeat the word peace quietly within myself and touch the depth of inner peace that I have so far created. It gives me a frame a reference to remind me I can choose my reaction and to remind me of the choices I prefer. Or if I do get overwhelmed in the moment, it gives me a head start for returning to the balance I have achieved. (I’ll post this as well as having added it to the Inner Peace page, just in case updating that page didn’t generate an email to the subscribers.)

Creating Inner Peace – Being True to Yourself

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What are some examples from your life where you stood your ground and others where you wished you had decided differently?

If a person doesn’t do something they know is wrong, just because other people are doing it; then the person doesn’t have to wrestle with the guilt they will inevitably feel. One time I helped bubble gum the house of a new child in the neighborhood, just because it was my best friend that wanted to do it. The father of the new child figured out who did it and made us clean it up. It is not fun to have to clean bubble gum off a wall on a hot summer day. But what I remember is the hurt in the eyes of that new kid on the block. They didn’t stay there long, so she never did get to really fit in. It could have been different.

Creating Inner Peace – Physical Place to Retreat to

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What physical place holds a special energy for you that is easily accessible and someplace you can go anytime and quite often?

Also, having a place where we can retreat from the world comes in handy. In my childhood it was a place called the Dominican Retreat House. In my adulthood it’s just about any forest. What fills the bill for you?

Early on I was told the story of my very first outing. Apparently, at about a week old I was taken to this Dominican Retreat House. I guess about five to ten nuns lived there and there was lodging for perhaps 30 people for the retreats that were typically for a weekend. The place was south of town with a gorgeous view of the mountains. It was incredibly quiet. The story is that on my first visit one of the nuns placed me on the chapel altar and asked God to “send me back to them.” I remember, as an older child listening to this story, praying quite fervently that God would not make me be a nun. But I sure did love the retreat house and the nuns that lived there. Mom worked on several fund-raising projects for them. We have pictures of when my dad took some of them out on our boat. I was 11 or 12 years old when we got the boat. At age 15 the nuns and retreat house gave me two weeks of peace while my parents were deciding on divorce. Luckily, they decided to stay together.

I remember the retreat house as a place I still find special. It’s a place I can go to ground my peace, even though it’s owned by other people now. It only looks a little bit different for all the times it’s been sold. But the whole property is still intact with all the original buildings. The various owners throughout the years have just added several buildings. It’s still used for retreats and nothing obstructs its views. I remember three retreats there during my teenage years and a few in my twenties before the archbishop sold it out from under the nuns. The food was always beyond spectacular. There was a full-size statue of Mother Mary around the corner in the courtyard outside the dining room. One time I could have sworn I had a personal conversation there with Mother Mary. I was in the courtyard all alone and I definitely slipped into an altered state. If I told a nun anything, I probably only said that while I was praying it felt like Mother Mary gave me a pink rose. In adulthood there was a time I came out of the little chapel after saying many hours of prayers alone and could actually see the energy emanating from the surrounding plants. It was lovely.

Creating Inner Peace – Someone to Comfort Us

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Who brings the most comfort in your life?

How does having someone to give us comfort help us have inner peace? I don’t know exactly, but don’t we all need a comforter? Mother Mary was there in a real way, but she was also a substitute for what my mother wanted to be and I couldn’t let her be because of having to keep the cult abuse secret from her. Thankfully, I was able to adopt Mother Mary as a great comfort in my life. In an energetic way she often held me in her “arms,” her energy field, and helped me heal the physical wounds.

Creating Inner Peace – Clear-cut Sense of Responsibility

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What is your current decision regarding each person’s responsibility for their own intentions and actions?

I’m not saying I was not terrified as a child. I’m just saying that I didn’t also have the added stress of a mental quandary in some situations. The first time the monstrous men put a knife in my hand to kill someone was when they insisted I kill an older girl who had always tried to shield me. As soon as the knife handle touched my hand, I threw it with all my might and buried it in the shoulder of one of the men. They were momentarily shocked, then went berserk and made the other children pay dearly for my act of defiance. Then they made one of the younger men crush my hand around the knife handle and the younger man actually killed the child. By that time, I had shut down and was pretty limp anyway. Crushing my hand didn’t remove the responsibility from their shoulders. I’m not going to take on their perverse intentions as my own. It’s not even really stubbornness. It’s just a fact. Perhaps it’s a decision I made in a previous lifetime. But it’s a decision anyone can make in this lifetime, if they wish to.

Creating Inner Peace – At Peace with Helplessness

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Where have you given your power away? Where have you kept your power?

Obviously, the example here is for the onset of the feeling of helplessness and not the resolving of it. Another control game the monstrous men played was: ‘Drink this poison or we’ll kill you.’ It’s amazing to me how many people would drink the poison, thinking that gave them control over the situation. What an illusion! If the result of both options is a death the person would not normally choose; then neither option takes away the person’s helplessness. Denial has never resolved an emotion. It just buries it deeper so it’s not felt as acutely. So, what does help when we’re helpless in outer situations and we’re not being offered reasonable options? Do we then heap other emotions upon the helplessness by being overwhelmed by fear or anger or hate or rage or all four? That’s not going to help us. As a child I didn’t think any of what I’m saying and certainly I was terrified being exposed to these monsters. But my pre-made decision that they had to bear the responsibility for their actions, that they had to “do the deed,” not me – that came to my rescue so many times.

I accepted I was a child and felt helpless to change the outer situation. Within myself I acknowledged that I felt terrified. And I determined that to the best of my ability I was not going to do what they wanted. That included reacting from the fear I felt or going into anger, hate or rage. I had no idea that by just standing there mute, I was maintaining control within myself. I was keeping my power. My power in any situation is over my own inner reactions. Isn’t it amazing that when we are helpless, we are still powerful. Helpless on the outside does not make us helpless on the inside. We can give our power away. But we can also keep it. It’s our power. Our power over ourselves. I had no idea acceptance, acknowledgment and determination create a calming effect within that allows peace. Thankfully, it worked.

Creating Inner Peace – Pre-made clear-cut decisions

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What decisions have you already made that would help reduce stress and drama for you in a traumatic or survival situation?

Except for expressing anger towards my mom, because so early in life I had made the decision not to cause harm; to the best of my ability, I avoided doing what the monstrous men wanted. I firmly felt that they were responsible for the harm they wanted to cause; and therefore, they had to perform the heinous acts they wanted me to do. The age old: ‘Hurt this other person or we’ll hurt you.’ Well, obviously they were going to hurt me anyway; so if they wanted that other child hurt, they had to do it or they had to physically force me. Of course, physically I was too weak to fight them, but to the best of my ability in my mind I refused to accept the responsibility they wanted to heap upon me. Having pre-made decisions was something that helped me have some semblance of peace. It gave me some bit of shield from accepting their responsibility for the many horrible things they did. Of course, some of their insidious desire to put the responsibility for their actions on me still did get through. But knowing that the desire to cause harm did not come from within me helped me sort it out easier when I had the tools to heal all the havoc they wreaked within me.