Sometimes when I think of “peace,” I imagine feeling mentally and physically calm, without anxiety. That would seem to be the goal if someone were working on their experience with anxiety. However, I don’t think we can really ever be completely anxiety free. Aside from learning coping skills to be able to manage anxiety on a day to day basis, it may be more important to accept anxiety as a part of who we are. Instead of fighting it or running away from it, which actually makes it worse, we go with it.
I am not talking about severe anxiety that makes it virtually impossible to function. I am talking about the anxiety that most of us feel which can keep us from being able to see all of our options in any given experience. The “what if” thought process that keeps us from living in the moment.
I don’t think peace always has to mean calm. I think it can include chaos, as long as we can learn how to move fluidly through it, using all of our five senses, and trusting ourselves. It might, at times, be useful.
“Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth; it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.” Pema Chödrön
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