CHOOSING Personal Peace

Purposeful Wanderings - Bradford L. Glass - August 2025

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“I keep what’s true in front of me. I won’t get lost that way.”

– Richard Wagamese

I often hear friends, family, clients and even strangers speak to their longing for greater peace … in themselves, their lives, the world.Curiously, however, it seems that more prefer complaining about not experiencing it than walking the path to get there (it’s too difficult, if only “they” would change). This seems true whether it’s about a sustainable planet, a unified society, or a personal experience of calm. My questioning nature wants to know why.

In a way, I get it. My upbringing taught that answers (to anything) are found “out there,” and “success” requires struggle … “out there.” It took years of stress (unconsciously trying to be these lessons) before I discovered that not-peace was a conflict that lived inside me. I was trying to be someone else (old lessons), not who I really am. In my defense – back then, at least – I’d never been taught there was a me in there to listen to! I was “fighting for peace” (hmmm), by expecting others to change … when what I needed most was to understand, then resolve, the conflict in my own consciousness. (If you look for the answers where they don’t live, the solutions will elude you.)

With this background, and drawing on last month’s “The Mind’s Battle … With Itself,” here’s how I see our struggle to uphold old lessons denying us the self-trust that’s the key ingredient to inner peace. If we were to look closely and objectively at what occupies our minds in any moment, we’d find thoughts/feelings that are overwhelmingly:

·  of guilt, anger and resentment … over what did (or didn’t) already happen … in the past

·  of anxiety, dread and worry … over what might (or might not) happen … in the future

·  of stress, dissatisfaction and despair … over how we experience the present

You probably get the picture … but if most of our experience is of the past or future, and most of the rest is about our outer world, then there’s precious little of our energy left to be here … with ourselves … in this moment – which is the only moment that … peace … or possibility … or anything … can be created or experienced.

Once I became aware of this conflict – committed to making someone else’s life work to the exclusion and denial of my own – it made sense to learn how I could favor thoughts that led to my dreams over thoughts that kept telling me I’m not good enough to live them. (Both kinds of thoughts will always be there; I needed to learn to accept this, then learn to recognize how my “thinking” was messing with my life, so I could ignore thoughts that limited me). Two big lessons emerged for me: 1) peace begins on the inside … not “out there” with others, life, world; and 2) life itself is an invitation … to walk the path toward meaning and peace, every day.

To walk the path to peace is to learn to see what is so – in yourself, in others, in the world around you – objectively and clearly, without opinion or judgment. (You can have your worry/upset/opinions/judgments/reactions … but realize and accept that they change nothing about tomorrow; they only ruin today). This allows you to see clearly – without them.) Acceptance and awareness help to turn what used to be your reactiveness into resilience instead … an opening to self-trust. No amount of either intellectual knowing, “trying” or force could create this change.

On one hand, peace is about letting go of what keeps you from it (trying to live old lessons). On the other, it’s about developing amazing self-trust. When you completely trust your inner truth (who you really are), you no longer need to do/be things just to make others ok with you. Then you start designing your life around this version of you. And that’s the death knell for stress, busyness, overwhelm, trying … and the energy they rob from your life.

Peace is almost inevitable when the energy you need to guide your day is already inside you. You no longer need to be “fed” (and thereby give your power to) the yammering of those around you. They’ll continue to yammer; you’ve learned to ignore them … having chosen immunity by virtue of being yourself. Peace emerges.

Exercise: Finding personal peace invites courage & perspective … to ask new questions, and perseverance … to seek deeper answers. This begins at the personal level. It cannot begin elsewhere. What if we could allow our questions to change us? What if we had to think forward, to understand implications of opinions we hold so strongly? What if we had to think backward, to understand the thought process that brought us to those opinions in the first place? Would we still think as we do? Unlike judgment-based thinking, curiosity-based thinking leads, in the outer world, to relatedness & compassion, and in our inner world, to learning & self-love … and peace.

Through simple, yet regular, practice of personal awareness – of the questions through which you see the world – the way you see the world changes. What you discover through the simple act of self-observation is that there is a deeper reality that guides all of life, a reality that unifies rather than separates, a reality that calms rather than conquers. And when you tap into that level of reality, you find your own peace – which has been there all along.

The pdf version of this article includes a page that outlines the experiential “steps” along the path to peace.

Life Lessons from Nature: I love Cape Cod. I’m drawn by milder winters, milder summers, a National Seashore, quaint villages, tiny harbors, an ever-changing landscape, a less-hurried stance on life. Living here year-round creates a challenge, however. Especially in the summer, many other people love being here, too. I recall the quote: “This place would be more popular if it weren’t for all the people.” (Yogi Berra, maybe, but I’m not sure.) Although I breathe a sigh of relief when the crowds wane, I want to enjoy “my” summer, too – breakfast at Pie-in-the-Sky in Woods Hole, The Daily Brew in North Falmouth, or The Center Store in Chatham; a sunset drink at the Pilot House on the canal; a walk in the Cedar Swamp in Wellfleet; sunrise at the beach; unhurried times with friends, family, neighbors.  

The past many years, I’ve noticed how a practice of “choosing happiness” has made a difference for me; I decided to see how it could play out with my experience of summer on Cape Cod. Yes, there’s simple stuff – doing errands from 5 - 7 a.m., not buying groceries on weekends, going to the beach from 7 - 10 a.m. But what truly makes a difference is my thinking. I choose to laugh more. Perhaps I’m easily amused, but I get a kick out of tourists who complain about crowded streets, long lines, and bakery counters that look like we’d just experienced a cicada infestation. Oh yes, we just one of those, too. All comical.

I’ve also set an intention to be happy. It’s amazing what can happen by choosing what matters!  I reflect on lessons from Phil Cousineau’s “The Art of Pilgrimage.” Although intended for a “proper pilgrimage,” his ideas are helpful everywhere … a vacation, a difficult conversation, a project, even life itself (the ultimate pilgrimage). He defines pilgrimage as a journey with challenge and purpose, created by finding the sacred along the way. He expands sacred to mean “the ground that stirs our hearts and restores our sense of wonder.” With this idea in mind, I sat one evening by the canal with a glass of wine. Sure, others were doing the same. But my own experience was one of appreciation – for this life I’ve been given, for the opportunity to create personal peace in the midst of noise, for already living in a place where thousands spend big money to visit, and for the simple beauty of a summer evening. For those two hours, I absorbed wonder; this was the only world I knew. It all came from the single intention, “find the sacred, open to wonder.” And what I’ve noticed when I [remember to] set this intention is that my perspective on life expands, the sky seems somehow bluer, the breeze wraps me in peace, and I commune silently with those I might otherwise have allowed to piss me off. So I laugh a lot … at this, too. I may not be able to reduce the number of cars on the Sagamore Bridge, but I can certainly choose how I see and think about their occupants. Perhaps obvious, but it takes far less energy to enjoy my day than it does to be upset. The reward? An enjoyable, peaceful summer.

Book of the month: The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. It’s been around a long time, but its wisdom is timeless. We’ve been taught that we are our mind, that the “thoughts” that inhabit it are real, and that they make us who we are. This is how we miss NOW, and the peace that emerges from being present. “Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.”  “An emotion is the body's reaction to your mind.”