Tag: inner peace

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.

Creating Inner Peace – Natural tendency was towards inner peace?

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What shocking violence have you experienced and how have you reacted?

Was I a child whose natural tendency was towards inner peace? Do people in general have a natural tendency towards inner peace? I don’t know the answer to either question, but I suspect yes. Then what would a child like that do when confronted with the excessive anger of several men who are members of a hate and rage cult? We have the age-old fight or flight instincts until we’re able to work past duality. The first and second time I fought back, but with disastrous consequences to the other children. I also tried to have all the children run away and that was even more devastatingly disastrous. I was made to believe they all died that night. Then survival mode kicked in. I walled off the emotions with the memories to be remembered when I had the ability and safety to deal with it.

Creating Inner Peace – Emotion/Belief Tool

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Creating peace within yourself can be imaged by thinking of a stream when there are a lot of rocks for shallow water to flow over. It makes a lovely gurgling sound, but when you have deeper water and not so many rocks, it moves along without any sound at all. No ripples. No waves. Completely smooth and peaceful. So, you can relate creating inner peace to removing the rocks from a stream and letting it be deeper. And each of the rocks is an illusion or a fear or a misconception or a false belief. And they’re easy to remove. Well, maybe not so “easy,” but just take it one by one.

Here is a technique for looking at feelings and beliefs that I still find quite useful. You give the answers with a focus on self, without involving other people or outer conditions. It’s not a matter of looking at what you think something or someone has done to you. It’s a matter of looking at what you are inwardly doing to yourself. It’s meant to be a quick tool of a sentence or two per answer.
 
Generically a person can ask: What takes you out of peace? Write the first thing that comes to mind in one short sentence or phrase. Usually, I’m using this process because I’m aware that something has disturbed me. And so, an answer is fairly obvious. But when I’m just doing a self-check, two other things help that might be helpful to you if nothing comes to mind. Think of a recent event that triggered anxiety, anger or irritation. Or ask yourself what you think would make someone else lose their peace? Some people find it easier to depersonalize things. But remember the answer actually applies to you. It’s what you think.
 
But usually, a specific event has occurred to prompt wanting to walk thru this exercise. In this case the first question can be worded: “What event disturbed your peace?” So, begin with very briefly describing the incident in one or two sentences. Beware of going down a rabbit hole here. It’s very easy to get off on emoting and forget the purpose of this exercise, which is to see behind the outer situation and to see behind our reaction to it.
 
Identify the current feeling of non-peace. Here are a few potentials:
Anxiety? Unrest? Ill at ease? Irritation? Anger? Need for change? Fear? Worry? Concern? Powerless? Justified? Responsible? Righteous? Disappointment? Sadness? Confused? Bewildered?


Determine what belief is causing this feeling. Some potential sentence beginnings to choose from are:
People should be…
The world should be…
I didn’t expect…
This always happens…
This can escalate into…
I always hate it when…
I demand to be treated…
It’s unacceptable to…


Identify triggers. Briefly describe the event or circumstances that led up to this disturbance of peace within yourself.


Look at the drawbacks of allowing the cycles to continue.


Ask yourself if you would defend these feelings and beliefs.


Then ask yourself if you DO defend them.


Look at the results or consequences of harboring these feelings and beliefs.


If you’re willing and ready to surrender them, then create a short action plan using whatever tools you have. Create whatever works for you, here are some ideas:
Create a positive phrase or mantra that can be repeated daily to replace the belief.
Visualize placing feelings or beliefs or triggers in a purifying fire whenever they occur.
When a similar thought or feeling begins literally put your hand in front of you as if you’re stopping someone and say: Stop.
Figure a way to face a fear head on.
Create a visualization in which you experience the trigger you listed, but respond in a different way.
Ask for help.

Creating Inner Peace – Events Don’t Define Us

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What abilities have you proven that separate your sense of being, how you identify yourself, from the events you’ve experienced?

I was eight when the pedophile started making me accessible to cult abusers, a hate and rage cult. Thankfully, only every couple of years. The pedophile didn’t seem to be active in the actual cult abuse. It was more like they gave him permission to be a pedophile, if he provided them with children. The effect on my life was devastating, but I was able to wall off the devastation until I could muster the knowledge, tools and understanding to deal with it. Our minds are really amazing in the different ways there are to survive. The majority of me that grew older was able to maintain the attitude, from after the car accident, of trusting things to work out eventually and always being cared for.

Creating Inner Peace – General Attitude of Trust

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What attitude towards life do you have that has already or can set a foundation for inner peace?

A general attitude of trust is an important aspect of peace. And what I take away from this next event would help solidify that in me, despite the damage that the pedophile had and would do. This next incident happened when I was six years old and stands out as molding my attitude about life in general. We had a very serious car accident. My father, mother, brother and I were beginning a vacation. We had our gear on top of the station wagon so that the back seats could be down and my brother and I had room to play games. My brother is ten years older than me. Who knows why we chose Chinese checkers, which is played with marbles. Luckily the marbles didn’t hurt anyone. But the fact that they didn’t is part of what some said was a miracle.

Some terrible crosswinds caught the car and we were rolled over several times. My brother was strong and tall enough to brace his legs against the wheel wells. He put one arm around me and the other against the roof. He was my seat belt so neither of us went flying out the back of the car. In fact, I don’t think anyone had a scratch. The insurance company replaced the car and somehow, we were on the road again the next day. I put this event in here because at that young age I knew the situation was quite serious, but I felt quite safe. I came away with a sense of always being cared for. That sense has added to my general trust. It’s an attitude that no matter how it looks, it always works out.

As I’m writing this book, it shows me how important that car accident turned out to be. Well, not the actual accident, but what I came away from it with. Somehow the re-enforcement of that attitude of things always working out and me always being cared for set a foundation that may have been critical to coping with the devastatingly traumatic events that were to occur occasionally over the next eight years.

Creating Inner Peace – Responsibility Boundaries

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How would you describe your responsibility boundaries?

Based on the experiences when I was seven of fighting and having my gullibility tested, I wanted to be someone who caused no harm. My parents taught me early on to accept responsibility for my actions. Putting the two together, I decided that an individual is responsible for the harm he/she causes and must face the consequences. These two girls were responsible for how they treated me, just as I was responsible for how I treated them. I was also responsible for my reactions and how I treated myself.  These pre-made decisions about the demarcation lines for responsibility would come in very handy when I was under excessive stress in survival mode. They would become the boundaries that protected me, my lines in the sand or “don’t cross this line,” so to speak. We all know there is a balance to find. Some people blame others too much and treat themselves like victims. Some people feel the need to control others and treat themselves like martyrs. The balance is not in the middle between extremes. The balance is when dualistic opposites cease to have meaning. Of course, I didn’t know this at age 7, but I did decide on my boundaries at the time and have continued to adjust them as appropriate.