Being at Peace with Where You Are

It seems that there is so much stress around these days. People are losing their jobs or afraid they are going to lose their job. People are struggling financially. People are in debt, losing their homes. Relationships are suffering. There’s no getting away from the fact that there is a lot of anxiety and fear around. What’s the answer?

Well, of course there IS no one answer that’s going to fix everything. But one thing I do know, after 11 years of coaching and consulting with people who are going through one kind of crisis or significant change or another, it’s that before things can change you have to become okay with where you are right now.
I know that sounds counter-intuitive. The very fact that we want things to change would indicate that we are not okay with where things are now – right? When you think about it though, really it’s the only thing that makes sense. Let me explain.

It seems that no matter what our situation is, we want things to be different. Those who have straight hair want curly hair. We want to be thinner, our nose to be different, a different house, a better car, a bigger flat screen TV. We’re either bored in our job or overworked and frustrated. We want our partner to be different, to treat us better, we wish our family would treat us differently, and so on. Most people spend most of their time wanting something other than what they have. Is it just possible that we can be at peace with who we are, where we are, what we’re doing and what we have and yet still have goals that we want to achieve?

When I say be at peace with where you are, people often think that means settling for what they don’t want. They think it means they shouldn’t have goals or strive to be better. It doesn’t mean that at all. What it means is that constant wanting, needing, and desperation for things to be different is exhausting. It wastes our energy and the only thing it ultimately does is to give us more of what we don’t want.

I’m sure you’ve heard of people who had it tough and then made it big. Perhaps they were bankrupt, had nowhere to live and now they’re multi-millionaires and telling us how we can achieve the same thing. You think “it’s alright for them, they can do it but it never seems to happen for me.” But what happens when you’re bankrupt and you have nowhere to live? You have to accept the situation. You have no choice. This is it, you can’t pretend any more, things can’t get any worse than they are so you have to accept it. That’s why I think these people then go on to create great success. Because they finally had to accept – and be at peace – with where they were. They had no choice.

What if you could do that now? You don’t have to wait until everything completely falls apart to get to that place of acceptance. You can start right now. Be honest about yourself and your life, don’t try to pretend. You’re in debt? Okay, you’re in debt – accept it, be at peace with it. It makes you worried, scared about what might happen, you feel sick in your stomach at the thought of it – okay, you feel worried and scared and sick in your stomach. Admit that, accept that’s how you feel. Do you see the difference? There’s a difference in the energy here – rather than fighting against it “I don’t want this, I want something else, I don’t want to be in debt” which creates resistance and stress and achieves nothing, you accept that this is how it is – it’s a much more peaceful feeling. No more fighting.

When you can do this, some interesting things happen. First of all, it takes away the stress, you stop fighting against your situation and against life. Secondly, you start to feel calm, and then – answers, resources, solutions start to come to you. Life starts to flow in a more positive way for you. Why? Because you’re not fighting against it.

Eckhart Tolle explains this really well in his books “The Power of Now” and “A New Earth”. Rather than reading the books, however, I recommend that you listen to them. Get the books on audio CD and listen. I think you’ll understand far more this way.
Whatever it is that you don’t like about yourself, your life, your life situation – accept it, be at peace with it. Accept that this is how it is, rather than resisting it and desperately wanting things to be different. Accept that you don’t like it, but this is how it is. Denying it will get you nowhere.

There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. Not only will you feel better, I think you’ll find that life will flow a lot more smoothly for you and you might actually reach your goals after all – without the struggle.