Peace

We are all human, we all have the same feelings and we’re all connected. Why are we constantly feeding and strengthening this idea of separation instead of putting effort into thinking about how we could live together in harmony? Ultimately we all want the same thing – peace. Separation happens all the time, everywhere. We blame each other without thinking about the other person’s perspective, we think we are better or worse than others because we know more or less than them about something, we criticize and judge others for looking different, having different taste or different priorities. All those things cause feelings of pain, separation, jealousy, hatred and so on. We are allowing our egos to give us a false sense of status and a false sense of self. It’s time to let go of our egos in order to respect, help, educate and work with each other. It’s time to think about how we can live together peacefully, without creating more pain.

The Theory of letting go

In a discussion or fight it’s interesting to see and realize how your ego tries to convince you that you were not wrong with arguments that often seem completely irrational. The ego is tricky, it will do what it can to hold on to its idea of who you are and who you should be. The only way to break out of that is to carefully watch your thoughts as they come and actively make a decision about whether you should let go of that thought or act upon it. Remember it’s normal to get negative thoughts and it’s nothing to get upset about. Your mind was conditioned to be that way over many years of seeing people judge and criticize each other and doing it yourself, so it will take some time to make a change. Often times when you feel an emotion, the tendency is to let it take over you, to let it take away your control and take over your thoughts. You can learn to have the power to catch your mind right when it happens, to watch the emotion and the thoughts that arise from it carefully and with curiosity and to let it go in a situation where it isn’t helping you or potentially hurts the people around you. It can be difficult to let go of it, but it always leads to a more objective and rational outcome.

Letting go in Practice

The practice of being aware of your thoughts and emotions as they come and go is called mindfulness, since you learn to be aware of your feelings and thoughts and how they interact with each other. For me personally I found that the best way for to practice and learn to apply this technique is with the help of mindfulness meditation. There are many guided mediation exercises online, but the one I can recommend is an app called Headspace (I am not sponsored or affiliated with them in any way). Their techniques are very approachable and easy to follow. It is going to be hard at the beginning to stay on track with it, but it gets easier and it will have many positive effects on the long run. If you would be interested in reading some more about my personal experience with meditation, please let me know with a comment below!

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Much love,
Christian / INFEKT