Finding Inner Peace

Published: Thu, 09/28/23

Neil Swanson, PCC, CACP, MDiv - ADHD and Positive Intelligence Coach - September 28, 2023

Hi, !

You might recall that my last two newsletters focused on happiness and achieving a sense of inner peace.

In those newsletters, I mentioned that the inner peace and fulfillment we seek is not achievable through changes in our outer conditions. That’s because finding inner peace involves prioritizing inner changes.

Most of us know down deep that is true, but we experience considerable resistance to following through on this insight. Some of this resistance is likely to be the result of simply not knowing how to go about cultivating inner change. We want to experience inner peace, but we don’t want to let go of our habitual method of pursuit, i.e., trying to change outer conditions and blaming those outer conditions for our lack of inner peace.

Gandhi is reported to have said,

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world … as in being able to remake ourselves.

Gandhi, I believe, was not talking only about the world at large, but also about our individual experiences of our personal world. One way we could put into practice Gandhi’s wisdom is the following: When we catch ourselves perceiving the world around us as unloving, we can make a different choice than we might have made in the past. Instead of complaining (silently or out loud), we can choose to focus on being more loving in both thought and action – letting go as much as possible of negative thoughts about others.

Actually letting go of negative thoughts about others (and about ourselves, for that matter) is not as easy as you might think, but, WOW! what a difference it can make in your experience of life. Try it. But be patient with yourself; it requires a lot of practice to achieve this perspective for even a moment, and even more practice to begin to make it a habit.

I have found that Positive Intelligence (PQ) provides one of the most effective approaches to identifying and letting go of negative, self-sabotaging thought patterns. That’s why I teach the PQ operating system to all of my clients. It is a joy to see them moving increasingly into more of that inner peace that we all long for. What a valuable, effective, and satisfying tool in our “pursuit of happiness!”

Wishing you all the best!