We live in a world of distractions.  Sooooooo many things vying for our time and attention.  Work. Family. Friends. Money. Possessions. The News. World Events. Social Media. Church. Responsibilities and conditioned obligations pulling at us and our heartstrings.

With every new distraction, responsibility, and perceived obligation, our anxiety rises, and our worries increase. Our energies, it seems, getting pulled in every direction except in the direction of that which gives us peace.

With so many distractions, do we even know what gives us peace?

Likely not. And yet, while the distractions are vying for our attention, our truest and deepest yearning is whispering from within the center of our being.  It is the yearning for peace.

Peace is our natural and original state.

Peace is not what the world wants us to know. The world in which we are currently living wants our anxiety and our stress.  It wants us to feel anxious and afraid. It wants us to be deprived of our peace so that we remained imprisoned by the fears that keep us working for that world. It further keeps us imprisoned with its false promises of wealth, status, fame, and success as that world has defined it. We have become the prisoners of and slaves to that world and we are imprisoned further by the time and attention we give to the distractions, perceived responsibilities, and conditioned obligations of that world. 

“Should” is one of the fiercest weapons used by that world.

We should work hard to make money. We should spend time with family. We should want a bigger house, nicer car, designer clothes, etc. We should “dress for success.” We should look professional. We should be nice. We should go to church. We should attend that event. We should be networking. We should put up with workplace abuse.  We should respect our elders. We should give our authority away. We should….we should…..we should……

It’s exhausting. And completely unnecessary. Our original nature is peace, and we were meant to experience that peace in our lived human experience. Yes, there are the natural constrictions that provide opportunities for learning and growth in our lives, but we were not meant to live in total and complete unrest, every minute of every day. Neither were we made to relentlessly seek outside of us for that which we cannot name – namely the peace and joy for which our hearts yearn.

The peace we are seeking cannot be found outside of us. It can only be found within.

We are the peace we are seeking. That peace dwells within us.  That peace is infinite and ever-present.  We just need to pull our attention away from the distractions long enough to discover that what we have been seeking, has been within us all along.  In discovering and nurturing that peace, we become the sanctuary promised by the ancients.  We discover that we are enlightenment. We are the promised land. We are the peaceable kingdom. We are the kingdom of God. We are nirvana. We are Presence. We are peace.

Who are you choosing to be?  Stress and anxiety or Peace?

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