5 Ways to Inner Peace

5 Ways to Inner Peace
By Uta Roggendorf

If I asked you if you wanted a million dollars or experience lasting inner peace, what would you choose? If you would go for inner peace, please read on. This article describes the top five ways that have helped me transform my life. To be honest, I do not feel inner peace all the time, but I have learned by following one or all of these five ways in any moment, how to pull myself out of discomfort, sadness, anger, unhappiness in seconds.

1) Trust your intuition

Trust that your inner guidance on any topic provides you with the perfect answer. There is a part of you that is connected to the bigger picture, the Universe, Source, God, whatever you prefer to call it. I refer to this as your Higher Self. And this Higher Self or gut instinct, sixth sense, intuition knows what is in your best interest at all times. Learn to trust this voice unconditionally and you will feel greater peace because you avoid instinctively situations that you would prefer not to experience.

To give an example, imagine you are about to book a holiday and you have an uneasy feeling about the location, accommodation, flight, date, or anything else related to the holiday. Do not ignore this feeling. It is your inner radar telling you that the holiday is not aligned with the best possible outcome for you. Listen carefully to which aspect you feel sensitive towards and change this, e.g. the date, destination, accommodation, etc. until all feels right.

Your intuition gives you guidance on any aspect of your life, whether it is related to relationships, money, work, health, hobbies, travel, etc. It always works for your own best interest. To learn to trust your intuition, make notes of situations when you do trust your intuition and the associated outcome. Equally make notes of situations when you chose not to follow your inner guidance and also note down the outcome. Over time you will soon become aware that following your intuition pays off.

Tip: Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between your intuition and the voice in your head, your ego or conscious mind. Your intuition is the first feeling or thought that comes to you, before you have engaged your head and started to analyse a situation. Sometimes it only lasts for a flash of a second. If you are really not sure whether your intuition or head is guiding you, take the next step in the process and see how you feel then. For example, if you are looking into booking a holiday, do some more research on the holiday and imagine yourself there. If you still have an uneasy feeling or twitch, follow this guidance and change your plans. This is your intuition talking and it will warn you all along the way!

2) Be in charge of your emotions

Against popular belief, your emotions and feelings do not own you. You can decide and choose how you want to feel in any moment. Once you realise this, experiment with it, and continuously challenge yourself to feel more positive in any moment, your life will transform.

To feel peace, strive to improve your negative emotions in any moment. Do not try and change from feeling depressed to the happiest person alive. Take small steps from feeling low to feeling a little bit better, and then a little bit more. Consciously choose a happier thought that leads to a happier feeling. Be aware that this choice is in your power.

It is not easy to change negative feelings that you have carried with you for a long time. Start practicing with feelings that you can change more easily. Only you can determine what those situations and feelings are. To give you an example, for me personally driving is a challenge of staying in a peaceful state. I get very irritated by cars driving too close to me because I’ve had several accidents where others collided with my car. Now, whenever someone drives too close to me, I consciously use this as an opportunity to change my feeling from fear and anger, to a more peaceful feeling.

3) Be authentic

To be authentic means to follow who you are and what you prefer in any moment. You do not need to proof yourself to anyone – ever! You are not on this planet to climb to number 10 on the chart of most popular person, richest person, best looking person, or most intelligent person. You are here to experience life, to play with it, to have fun, and to express who you are - whatever that means to you personally.

We are bombarded by many external messages every day through the media and other people telling us who we should be. These messages give us the impression that without living up to these artificial ideals, we are less than others around us. Most of us subconsciously and consciously follow these messages to some extend and constantly struggle and strive to live up to these images. The pressure to be different from who we really are starts during early childhood. Our school system is designed to grade each of us and put us into boxes. I do not want to attack the school system. But just be aware of how much pressure we’re put under from an early age which tells us we’re not good enough. We are not given much freedom to be who we are, even if that means average or bad grades, not being top of class, not holding up with other children’s talents.

Being authentic means following your passion, being who you are, and choosing to be you in every moment. There is no need to be anyone else. You don not have to accumulate material possessions or force your body into an unnatural shape to ‘be someone’. You already are all that you are meant to be. And you are perfect in your own unique way. Once you understand this about yourself, you will automatically accept all those around you for who they are. You’ll notice how judging someone else will become much harder and less natural because you realise that everyone else has the same right to express themselves as who they are.

I am an introvert and don not easily smalltalk to strangers. I am certainly not the bubbly outgoing person that I often watched and envied from the distance. I remember a guy who broke up with me because ‘I never said anything’. And for a long time afterwards, I was extremely self conscious about my introvert nature. I thought something was wrong with me, some part of my personality had not been developed properly. This continued into my career, I used to shudder when I heard the words ‘let’s do some networking’. And then I realised that it’s ok, I am not weird. There are other qualities I have. I am a good listener and when I do speak, I’ve usually got something meaningful to say. The pressure that fell off me when I made it ok to be me was fantastic.

Free yourself from the belief and pressure that you have to change or be different. Instead, learn more about yourself. Find out what brings passion to your life. Experiment with who you are and once you start being authentic, you will soon gain more courage to continue on this path for the rest of your life.

4) Be in the moment

We spend a lot of time thinking about the past or the future. It seems a challenge to stay in this moment. However, there are so many remarkable benefits if you choose to be in the moment. Most of your worries about the future turn out to be unfounded. Those finding themselves clinging to the past, often focus on the negative. This serves no purpose as the past is the past. You cannot change it. By focusing on being here now, you’ will automatically irradiate the largest proportion of worry, anxiety, fear, sadness from your life.

Being in the moment, truly focusing on what is here now in front of you makes the world brighter and lighter. The colours become more intense. Suddenly things that you felt were important become small and insignificant. You being to value the time you spend with your loved ones or the time you spend on your hobbies and passion.

It can take some practice to be in the moment because we’re so used to thinking ahead or reminiscing about the past. The easiest technique I have come across is to focus on your breathing. Feel your lungs expand and contract with each breath. After 10 breaths or so you will feel a shift in your perception of your immediate surroundings. You can also focus on a soothing noise, e.g. the wind blowing, or gentle music. Anything that you can actively participate in through your senses brings you into the moment. Living in the moment will enrich your life because you are present right here, right now. You participate in your own life instead of watching it from a distance as if it’s a soap opera on TV.

I bring myself into the moment as a form of meditation and calmness. Or I use the technique if my mind runs riot with worry and I cannot stop the negative thoughts running round my head. I just ask myself if I’m ok in this moment, and 99% of times the answer is ‘yes’.

Tip: If your head keeps churning around thoughts and you cannot stop them, just acknowledge them and let them fly by. Do not try and force yourself to stop thinking, it’s impossible. Don’t feel bad if you don’t master the moment to start with. It can take practice and patience to get there.

5) Love yourself

This might sound cheesy to some of you but loving yourself is the most basic and most important step to finding inner peace. If you love yourself, you accept and respect yourself. Whatever other people say to you, or how they treat you, becomes unimportant because you no longer rely on anyone else’s judgement. You already are in tune with your truth and you recognise that you are perfect in the way you are. If you love yourself, you no longer rely on the love of other people to make you feel complete. Your relationships turn a new corner because you feel free from the pressure of having to be or do things in order to gain approval and love from someone else. Instead you can be free to be who you are with the other person. Magically, if you love yourself, you will find it much easier to love everyone and everything around you. If you have children, loving yourself will teach them one of the most important things in life which will give them a solid platform to develop themselves on – they will find it perfectly normal to love themselves because they are observing you doing the same.

Loving yourself may appear selfish or self centred. However, unless you love yourself first, how can you expect anyone else to love you? If you don’t think you’re worthy of love, why would anyone else think so?

Tip: Self love can be trained. All it takes is 5 – 10 minutes each day. I’ve learned this ‘mirror dialogue’ technique from Dr Barbara Rose:

Stand in front of a mirror and look yourself in the eyes. The eyes are the doors to the soul so this how you can communicate with your own being. Then think of three observable positive actions you have taken during the previous or the same day. Say these actions out loud and which quality in you they express. For example, if you held the door open for someone in a shop, your statement would be: Today I was being helpful when I held the door open for the person behind me in the shop. Maybe you showed up on time for a meeting. Then your statement would be: I was being responsible and reliable when I showed up in time for the meeting.

Chances are that the first times you do this you will feel very strange and everything inside of you will revolt against doing this. But stick to it. Do it anyway. It is a technique that will help you speed up loving yourself 100 fold and more. It is a proven technique that has helped me and many others. Stick to it for at least 6 months. Shortly after you start doing this, you will begin to feel much better about yourself.

None of these ways to inner peace are a secret. Many authors, coaches, even scientists have written tons of material about these topics; which goes to show that there’s something right about them! From my own experience I can share that it’s lifelong process to integrate these techniques and to make them part of who you are. But once you start, you’ll be fascinated by the quick and encouraging changes you’ll see in your life. And soon you’ll notice how much more peaceful you feel when situations that would have made your blood boil in the past, just make you smile at your progress.

Uta Roggendorf is a certified IHSC Certified Higher Self Life Transformation Coach and Teacher. Her work is to teach people how to be their authentic self and to find inner peace in every moment of their lives.

Visit her web site for more information: http://www.authenticawareness.co.uk