Car­o­line Rav­el­lo

“Go placid­ly amid the noise and haste, and re­mem­ber what peace there may be in si­lence.”

I have used this in­struc­tive line from The Desider­a­ta here and will use it again in the fu­ture. To­day, I am speak­ing to the peace we all need but strug­gle to find and main­tain.

In a loud world of am­pli­fied noise and haste, it is im­por­tant to find ways to go peace­ful­ly, dai­ly cul­ti­vat­ing prac­tices of still­ness, med­i­ta­tive­ness, self-aware­ness, and self-com­pas­sion amid the con­fu­sion that presents every day.

Cu­rat­ing peace is “the de­lib­er­ate (tem­po­rary) de­tach­ment in­to si­lence from the con­fu­sion, ex­cite­ment, noise and ac­tiv­i­ty of hu­man so­ci­ety,” says the blog­ger at the­un­thought­known.com.

“Many things at­tract our pre­cious at­ten­tion, es­pe­cial­ly right now, but few are tru­ly wor­thy of our time” (www.the­un­thought­known.com).

The jour­ney to peace is dif­fer­ent for every­one, but whichev­er path you take, this is a pil­grim­age to self-preser­va­tion.

Some peo­ple nev­er pur­sue peace, while oth­ers live as though un­aware that it is an op­tion. But, from an in­built long­ing, every soul qui­et­ly yearns for the respite that peace is. I be­lieve, though, that con­tin­u­al sup­pres­sion of the in­ner urg­ings for peace even­tu­al­ly makes the voice of de­sire fade.

This peace dis­course comes main­ly as the na­tion qui­etens down af­ter the Car­ni­val rev­ell­ry and the world be­gins to ob­serve the an­nu­al pe­ri­ods of the Lenten sea­son and the month of Ra­madan.

In the midst of the chaos of this world, I am tak­ing a mild break from my cur­rent writ­ings about re­think­ing how we ap­proach help­ing peo­ple who strug­gle and thrive while man­ag­ing men­tal health con­di­tions, to speak peace.

The In­ter­net of­fered in­sights in­to the con­cept of in­ner peace, em­pha­sis­ing that it is a per­son­al jour­ney, “an in­side job.” Peace is about each in­di­vid­ual’s in­ner con­di­tion, not some­thing that can be found in ex­ter­nal cir­cum­stances. It is not the ab­sence of con­flict. It is about liv­ing in the present and seek­ing a re­turn to one­self in qui­etude amidst “hus­tle cul­ture.”

I find im­mense plea­sure in tak­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be qui­et, us­ing Lent as a pe­ri­od of in­tro­spec­tion in the past decade. Each year, the 40-day fast be­comes more chal­leng­ing, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause my com­mit­ment is to less news, few­er so­cial me­dia in­ter­ac­tions, more read­ing, more med­i­ta­tive time and more sit­ting qui­et­ly, wait­ing to hear God, and seek­ing prompts from the uni­verse.

So­cial me­dia is so com­pelling to me, but I al­so crave the qui­et in these mel­low­ing years. And per­haps as a char­ac­ter­is­tic of age­ing, my sense of so­lace and my ex­pe­ri­ences in alone­ness al­so feel sig­nif­i­cant­ly dis­rupt­ed when I must in­ter­act with peo­ple. There are times when I have to coach and coax my­self to at­tend group or com­mu­ni­ty com­mit­ments.

I learned, too, that choos­ing si­lence could be dis­rup­tive to oth­ers. Peo­ple, un­for­tu­nate­ly, some­times read oth­er peo­ple’s qui­et as some type of ag­gres­sion or slight and re­act in as­ton­ish­ing ways, much of which has to do with their own in­se­cu­ri­ties and/or trig­gers from un­re­lat­ed sit­u­a­tions.

I do not sub­scribe to peo­ple’s frailty any­more. I guard my peace jeal­ous­ly. When I dis­cuss my own re­al­i­sa­tion of peace that tran­scends un­der­stand­ing, I am even more amazed that I need­ed the depth of peace I now ex­pe­ri­ence.

There are a few things I ap­ply when prac­tis­ing the dis­ci­pline of peace, but I al­so did a quick on­line sur­vey on ways to find so­lace. I have made progress in some ar­eas over the years by con­tin­u­ous­ly us­ing these prin­ci­ples.

First, it is im­por­tant to em­brace soli­tude. Do not be afraid to be alone, but rather be in­ten­tion­al and proac­tive as you con­sid­er your soul’s nour­ish­ment and your mind’s lu­cid­i­ty to ben­e­fit from go­ing peace­ful­ly. This is a good time to in­tro­duce med­i­ta­tion or mind­ful ac­tiv­i­ties, such as a qui­et walk, deep breath­ing, yo­ga, or even jour­nal­ing. Some­times, to help the mind fo­cus, I use guid­ed med­i­ta­tions avail­able on­line.

Es­pe­cial­ly in stress­ful pe­ri­ods, I em­ploy cre­ative ex­pres­sions: I paint, which I start­ed at age 50, I write, which is a life­long pas­sion; and on a less­er scale, I use mu­sic. Some­times the mu­sic be­comes a dis­trac­tion, and an un­ex­pect­ed song shifts the mind to mem­o­ries that be­come in­tru­sions, so I have tak­en to cu­rat­ing playlists or turn­ing down all au­dio­vi­su­als.

But the most im­por­tant les­son has been about let­ting go. It is good to re­lin­quish con­trol; it is even bet­ter to feel the uni­verse does not need my so­lu­tions. And when you reach the place where you no longer seek or need ex­ter­nal val­i­da­tion, it be­comes eas­i­er to re­lease your­self, or as Mel Rob­bins puts it, “Let them,” and find peace.

I have learned that my talk­a­tive­ness is a fea­ture of anx­i­ety and not the un­kind things peo­ple think and say, which I in­ter­nalised to my detri­ment. Some­times when I am trig­gered, I spi­ral. It still takes a while to hear the spi­rals. I am us­ing 2026 Lent to hone some skills.

I urge you, seek peace.

Rec­om­mend­ed: _So­lace is not to be found; It is to be dis­cov­ered //medi­um.com/@Grailen_Made.

_https://www.bbc.co.uk/pro­grammes/

ar­ti­cles/4kD­Mv32kv7kn­m­B­JzFG­P­kxYp /9-ways-to-help-find-in­ner-peace-in-a-hec­tic-world