Ask a group of a hundred people what 'peace of mind' means for them and they will all come up with almost identical descriptions. They will use words like light, free, unattached, not pressured about an outcome, wide open, full of ideas, spacious, non-judgemental, calm, clear... Everybody will have at least some recollection of having had that feeling and everybody will agree that this is something they want more of.
It is without a doubt the most productive state we can be in. There is nothing we can't face with a peaceful mind. This is the state of mind, in which we have that brilliant idea that turns projects around, just like that. That's where great songs are written and real progress is made, where we find answers to problems that suddenly don't look as problematic anymore. That's also the place where we suddenly find ourselves pregnant after years of unsuccessful trying and giving up. It's a state we like being in and can't get enough of.
But because it is so damn attractive, it's also a state we try to will ourselves in and the more we do that the further away it seems to be.
I love doing polls in my zoom calls. It's a great way to generate data in real time, which you then can talk about in the group. The other day I asked a group of people, who were new to this understanding, to answer three questions in a poll.
#1 When do you feel peace of mind?
#2 What gets in the way of you experiencing peace of mind?
#3 What do you do about it?
Each question came with 10 possible answers. What always strikes me is how set we all are in our preferences. So, the answers for question #1 ranged from being outside in nature, being physically active, socialising, on my own driving, having a bath, being praised, boss/team is happy, deadline met to being away from it all. Question #2 is equally wide spread. For most people it is simply 'life' that gets in the way: children being unhappy/unwell/unsuccessful, too much to do, too many pressures and expectations, too many balls to juggle, or a variant 'of not enough', either money, time, love, appreciation or success. Question #3 was the most interesting for me. The list of busyness was getting longer and longer. We organise ourselves, work on our time management, we sign up for courses, join groups, organise walks, book weekends, massages, yoga, download apps to meditate, eat healthy, wind down with a glass of wine, go shopping. But when I asked who finds peace of mind in any of those, they went quiet. 'Well, it helps to get my mind off things...' Now, does it?
What's interesting here is that when we first talked about what peace of mind actually is, everybody agreed on the same definition. We all used different words but when I asked the group if all this was peace of mind, everybody agreed. There is a deep state of unconditional wellbeing we have all experienced, even if it's been a while since. And the reason why there is a guaranteed consensus, why I could ask the same question in Japan or India, Tansania or Australia is that peace of mind is a natural state of mind, a human thing. More than that, it is actually our mind's default state, before we start getting busy.
This is really good to know. When my husband and I went travelling around the world, more than 15 years ago, we interviewed happy looking people at each destination to write about happiness and what their personal secret was. The answers were as widely spread as the things that seem to give us peace of mind. From the waves of the ocean, a surfer dude couldn't do without, over being part of a long family tradition, having found the dream job to the buzz of the big city - everybody had a specific thing in mind that would give them their happiness. Yet again, from New York to Southern India, people would define happiness in almost identical words. It puzzled me back then but I didn't know where else to look.
So, learning that peace of mind is our natural state of mind does two things for me. For one, I can stop searching for things that calm me down. And secondly, making myself busy to overcompensate my busy mind makes no sense what so ever to me anymore. The stress I used to feel about having to find a balance, looking after myself, defending boundaries, learning to say no - all this has simply disappeared. I now know that this capacity is even available in the midst of the biggest storm.
If peace of mind is actually in my mind, then why would I look for something out there to find it?
I know we've been told otherwise. But how well has the search gone for you so far? Maybe it's time to look somewhere else, somewhere far closer to home. That's the thing about peace of mind, it's right there under your nose, the whole time.
Is that something you would like to explore?
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