The Gift of Peace

​Dear Why Team member,
Wishing you and yours the very best for the Holidays. For you, here is..

​The Gift of Peace

Can you remember the last time you found, or were gifted, peace? You may not have called it a gift then but, wasn’t it wonderful to have…peace? Maybe the most important gift you could receive and give this Holiday season is the gift of Peace. Of course, there are many different gifts of happiness depending on your personal preferences, but peace does not depend on a preference.
 
Who doesn’t long for peace in all circumstances? A life dependent on external circumstances, however, for inner peace is a formula for continued dissatisfaction and anything but the experience of peace.
To be at peace with whatever life brings means to be at peace with the pain as well as the pleasure of life.
 
It’s natural to think that if we aren’t experiencing peace, in any given moment, we must do something to find it. But could the very act of seeking be keeping us from the experience of peace? Our seeking reveals our assumption that peace is not found in the present moment.
 
Seeking itself conveys our dissatisfaction and non-acceptance of what is present in a given moment.
It is more likely the belief that one needs specific circumstances to be at peace; that is primarily WHY so few experience peace. Peace can be present no matter the circumstance while happiness depends on circumstance.
 
Happiness is dependent while peace is transcendent.
 
Losing the distinction between happiness and peace may be the reason why the holiday season has become less wonderful, full of wonder and more stressful, full of stress. Your best present this season may be opening THE PRESENT MOMENT.
 
Consider the second verse from one of my favorite Holiday songs:
“Let There Be Peace On Earth”
Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment
And live each moment
With peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.

Does your definition of peace depend on circumstance? Could the more appropriate word be that your happiness depends on circumstance? No one is perpetually happy as pleasure comes and goes. Even if pleasure stayed we would eventually become bored with it and that wouldn’t be pleasurable at all. Ask anyone who has run hard on the hedonic treadmill only to burn out and hit a wall of disillusionment.
But consider experiencing peace no matter circumstance. How?

If circumstances must be just right to achieve peace - this idea of peace will rarely be experienced; even if you were to achieve those circumstances, peace would be illusive as one begins to fear the change in circumstance. It’s not that there is a way to peace, but that peace is the way. That which is ever present need not be found. I once heard it best described as a fish who spends its entire life looking for this mysterious substance called water.
 
Consider this powerful thought-provoking insight:
Nothing in time can bring timeless peace.
 
If what we truly seek is a timeless peace that is not dependent on circumstances, the very word “timeless” means that it is currently present; that which is timeless is ever present. This may not be an easy concept to embrace since our minds are so time-bound, but thought alone can reveal that timeless peace cannot be found in time. Therefore, anything that we think “in time” will bring us “timeless peace” by definition it cannot. Again, we’re not talking about happiness that clearly comes and goes, but rather a timeless peace that has been referred to as being above understanding. The reason timeless peace is rarely found is that we keep trying to find it in time. Timeless peace is ever present, it is here, it is NOW. Consider reading or re-reading the book “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle.
 
As we come to the close of this calendar year and soon begin another, I wish for you to experience an ever-present peace, no longer dependent upon circumstance, a peace that rises above understanding, a peace on earth that begins within you.
 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Steve Luckenbach

Last years Christmas blog

​http://www.whyteamweekly.com/why-team-weekly-blog/this-season-give-the-greatest-gift-of-all