Everyone has an inner fool. If you think you don’t: that’s the one. One way or another, your inner fool comes up for air, time and again. You don’t have to act like the three stooges or be gifted with the sharp-witted tongue of Winston Churchill, just learn to tolerate your fool.
People confuse peace and comfort. There is a difference between being comfortable and being at peace. If you are at peace, you don’t fight discomfort. On the other hand, if you are at peace, comfort does not make you ill at ease either. Key to inner peace is not to be attached to your notion of being comfortable. If you are a perfectionist or a procrastinator (the two often go hand in hand) you have probably decided that you either don’t need or trust inner peace or that you don’t deserve it. If you are a grump, a slob or a slacker (or just in permanent denial) you’ve become a flog-in-the-closet addict and secretly love beating yourself or someone else up for not living up to your potential or doing all the stuff you know you’re hiding from.
How do you make peace with mistakes, embarrassment and the stress of discomfort?
By making peace with your inner fool, or, at least enjoy the scuffle. Your lack of inner peace has less to do with your distress or discomfort than with your resistance to it. Know this: What you resist will persist. It is an ancient Buddhist wisdom and a fact of physics. (I write myself daily reminders.) Upset and anger is always a result of resistance or denial. Stop resisting. Accept the situation. If you feel misunderstood, ignored, or taken for granted, if you just want to yell and lash out in anger, that’s just because your fool wants the payoff: A reason to yell, throw a fit, or flick someone off. You fool! If you use your energy on rage or to fight your options, you will miss seeing the opportunities. Frustration is the outcome of fighting your options. Your inner child may grieve the loss of a dream, but it is your inner fool that fights reality itself. You inner teacher knows to discern what is worth fighting for. Save your grit for that.
Inner peace is not as far fetched as it sounds.
While step one to inner peace is all about the ant (being responsible without letting it suck the life out of you) step four is all about the grasshopper: There is no peace in avoiding life’s obligations, but you’ve got to love that freewheeling grasshopper too. He lives in the moment. Like a fool worth his britches, he seizes the day, come what may. Carpe Diem is not just for warriors and crusaders. Truthfully, they are who they are because they either know enough to tolerate their fools or because they blissfully ignore the traps.
Recently, I heard a radio interview with British actor Michael Caine who said that at the end of his life, he’d rather regret something he’d done than something he had not done. Like, “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” This philosophy of risk and acceptance of failure is an ability that will enhance your quality of life and bring you a step closer to inner peace. It is not about throwing out all caution, it is about that great gift of being able to laugh or raise your eyebrows at your self and then move on; it is about love and forgiveness.
So, A) stand up for your quirks and weaknesses, and B) don’t choke your partner, kids or siblings for discovering your blind spots and rubbing salt in them. Be loving and tolerant to your inner fool, and the folly of others. When you feel like a fool, you may be full of judgment and overpowered by a sense of betrayal, but instead of being angry or hiding under a pillow, learn to forgive and accept the lesson. Be your own best friend, your ego really isn’t. Your ego is a decent warrior, but it is all about itself and its preconceptions; and, your ego is either stuck in the future or in the past. The true power of inner peace arises from the courage of facing the moment and the faith in knowing that, at the time, you did the best you could. Could it have been better? Maybe. Apology in order? Perhaps. But, you can take some solace in the fact that your life is not about you at all. Life is about seeing, about opening your eyes and dancing while the music is playing, and sometimes making your own when it stops.
Inner peace is a discipline, not a state of mind, it is about being the advocate of what really is worthwhile and not the accuser of everything that’s not.
Give your loved-ones permission to be foolish and tolerate your own foolishness.
~ Marit.
The 4 steps to inner peace:
1) see the fog
give your fog a place to settle
Muse # 61
2) find your rhythm
be the source of your rhythm
Muse # 62
3) trust your inner teacher
stop, listen, know what you stand for
Muse # 64
4) tolerate your fool
seize the moment, love the least of you
Muse # 65
If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see,
at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders.
I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.
Henry David Thoreau
May 1 mind over matter
May 8 what body?
May 15 wild ducks
