Tag: independent

Creating Inner Peace – Maintain Your Own Sense of Who You Are.

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When you do follow someone else’s lead, do you still maintain your own sense of who you are?

At the same time, I speak of independence from the larger group, I have to admit my attachment to my best friend since the time we had been five years old. I tended to follow her. She went to public school, so in ninth grade my father let me switch over to the same public school. She wanted to be part of a group of friends, so I was also friendly with them. In tenth grade she wanted to join ROTC for the guys, so I also joined. Even though I knew I would never ever be joining the military for the same simple reason of not wanting to be told how to act and dress. I did put up with the ROTC uniform on certain days and enjoy carrying the flag during parades and prior to football games. And the two military balls I attended were exquisite. And the guys were a nice bunch of people.

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 – Communication with others

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What gifts toward communication do you have?

Being able to communicate easily with other people can be used as a tool towards creating peace with others, as well as ourself. My mother gave me a huge gift by addressing my hearing problems early. She showed some independence, but she was mostly fiercely determined. A trait I sometimes wish I did have a little more of. She took me to a community center when I was five years old. When she came to pick me up, I was crying uncontrollably. The other children had made fun of me because they couldn’t understand my speaking. I had a partial hearing loss and couldn’t hear the sounds of speech correctly to imitate them. My mom attributed her belief that she was unintelligent (dumb in that way) to her partial hearing loss. She was determined that in this way I was definitely not going to be like her. She found a speech therapist and a piano teacher, even though both usually required the child to be seven. She was not about to wait until I was already in second grade. My hearing improved from 25% capable to 75% in one ear and from 50% capable to 100% in the other ear. This gift my mother gave me was huge. She took away a potential source of ridicule and gave me the ability to communicate with people. Since the abuse from the pedophile would cut me off from people in the way of having to always keep a secret; I’m glad I wasn’t cut off from people in this way. I’d never actually be “popular,” but I was and am well-liked and readily accepted.

Creating Inner Peace – Independent Approach

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What helps you accept responsibility for your own choices?

An independent approach to life assists building inner peace by simplifying the equations. It reduces outer interference. Less input from other people makes it easier to accept responsibility for our decisions, as well as our inner peace. Inner peace is not dependent on anyone else. Making our own decisions doesn’t mean we can’t have input. It just means we don’t have to worry about making others angry if we don’t accept their input. We do this simply by carrying the attitude that ultimately it’s our decision, our responsibility, and we accept the consequences.

Example: My parents encouraged my already independent nature. I don’t know how my parents managed to bring me up to be so independent. I do know that even in little things like asking my father the definition of a word, he’d tell me to look it up myself. I was headstrong without being disobedient. In grade school I wrote down my disgust at how the principal handled a situation with another child. I wisely threw it away, thinking nobody would ever see it. Another child that apparently felt I had put into words what many of us were feeling, took the paper out of the trash and took it to the principal as if she had written it. The principal promptly disciplined her by making her stay after school to clean all the trash cans. Well, this put me in the position of having to go and tell the principal I had written the note. She simply said I could help the other girl clean the trash cans.