What if the path to peace was loud and messy with maybe even a dose of cursing and screaming?
There is nothing I like more than a snowfall in winter to experience the ultimate of peace and quiet. It occurs in the moments before the scraping of shovels and whirring of snow blowers takes over. A quiet hush instead falls over the landscape of suburbia or even city.
This is one kind of peace and the one we usually associate with the word “peace”.
There is another kind and it’s not what we usually think of as peace.
In my coaching and Reiki practice I often get clients coming in wanting to have more peace in their lives. My first question to them and one you might ask yourself is, “What does peace mean to you?” What one person see as peace is not the same as how another does.
I was the peacemaker in my large partly Italian family, the one to get in the middle of any dispute or squabble. I hated conflict. I couldn’t stand for anyone to be upset. But fighting was not actual fighting in my household growing up. I knew when my parents were fighting because my mother would not be speaking to my father sometimes for what seemed like weeks. Her fighting was through the silent treatment. As crazy as it may sound, I wish they did fight out loud so at least I could know what they were in disagreement about.
On the outside my house looked pretty peaceful. No yelling or screaming here. But to me, a sensitive child, the lack of noise was deafening. And of course, as a child I was making up all kinds of stories in my head of how this must be all my fault. Eventually my parents would come back together and thankfully I’d witness their love and affection, but it left me feeling confused.
As I became a wife, I unconsciously took my mother’s pattern into my own marriage, doing anything to avoid conflict, not speaking about what was bothering me to my bewildered husband.
Our conversations often went…
Husband, “What’s wrong?”
Me, “Nothing.”
My perceptive husband, “Are you sure? You seem angry.”
Me, “I’m fine” while faking a smile.
And on it went like this.
I even created a very peaceful outer world. I took up yoga and meditation in my 20’s and was a yoga teacher in my 30’s and 40’s. I dutifully kept routine and order in our house of three rambunctious boys.
Inside I was not so peaceful. I was strife with conflict in my head. I tortured myself with questions that rattled through my brain day and night like, “Am I a good enough wife, mother?”, “Am I doing it right?”, “What should I be doing?”, “Should I be doing more?”.
I was a deluged damn ready to burst from keeping emotions like anger and grief so bottled up. I was a pressure cooker teeming with hot resentment, passively throwing sharp knives at my husband from every angle I could. I was simply surviving each day.
All in the name of peace.
Because I was almost constantly fighting with myself in my head, I couldn’t be with nor appreciate any sort of peacefulness in the world around me.
One day I woke up and realized this was not the peace I wanted or needed for that matter. I had had enough of peace. I needed something more than sitting on my cushion or stretching on my mat. Not that I don’t love and encourage yoga and meditation. These are still beloved practices of mine. But these alone were not going to break the damn or take the lid off the cooker for me.
We can’t meditate our way to peace if we’re continually beating ourselves up from the inside out.
Eventually, soon after my dark night of the soul when I could take the internal battle no more, I found my release, and I guess my peace. I found myself in a group of like-minded women where we shared our raw and real shit in safe space, doing deep inner work with support and sisterhood as strong as duct tape. I also found release through journaling, through movement and deep breathing.
With time I could access my peace. But it was certainly not the peace I envisioned.
This was a new kind of peace.
Now, I know true peace commences when I let my shit out rather than bottling it up. It doesn’t mean I have to react to every little thing, but rather I find a way let stuff flow through me. Then I can more effectively respond to the situation or person.
Just this past week I got rattled with anger at something my husband said. I didn’t react. I noticed the emotion rising in me. And then I noticed myself dismissing it, telling myself the old story that my anger wasn’t valid. I invited that voice to step aside. And then apart from him, I danced it through me. Later I was able to come back to hubby and give voice to the truth in my heart.
Now that was true peace.
Peace to me now is expressing my wide range of emotions and thoughts, most especially my angers and frustrations. This might even mean a good loud scream in the cocoon of my car or a pounding of some pillows.
Peace is dancing wildly.
Peace is cursing if that’s what feels right.
Peace is engaging with loved ones even if it will make both of you uncomfortable.
Peace is communicating in honest, raw, direct and real ways.
Peace is in the fortitude of following through on your dreams.
Peace is setting aside the inner critic if only to make a small leap.
Peace is doing something you love even if others give you strange looks..
Peace is not necessarily even a quiet mind, as we’re led to believe. If you can simply be the observer of your inner chatter rather than getting sucked into the stories, you can certainly experience peace.
Once you experience inner peace, if even for brief moments, it doesn’t matter so much if your outer world is peaceful or not. It’s all a matter of perspective.
Maybe it’s not even peace you really want.
If you look deeper, you might see that it’s freedom you desire or truth for that matter.
Or maybe it is peace redefined.
So, what do you really want?
Peace be with you!
Karen Tasto is the founder of Open Heart Healing and has 6 years experience as a professional life coach, Reiki Master/Teacher and Sacred Circle Facilitator. Her powerful, spiritually-based coaching ignites women to awaken to their inner goddess so they begin releasing their good girl patterns and living the life they crave. Book a private in-person or online coaching with Reiki session with Karen HERE and start a journey of digging deep into your body and soul to uncover your inner feminine powers today.