“Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness, and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a word your freedom. For what would you sell these things?”
– EPICTETUS
I think today’s meditation is very important for a sane living. I have always valued my peace of mind above anything else. And many times, I am ready to pay a high price for it too. I am the kind of person who doesn’t like much change in life. Any change whether small or big, whether for good or bad, makes me very anxious. And hence I will do everything in my capacity to avoid that change.
But one thing that life has taught me over time, again and again, is that change is the only constant. And if one is trying to stop change then it is again losing your peace of mind over something futile.
So, how do we can protect our peace of mind in such a fickle world? Here are few things which come in handy to me:
Meditation
There is enough said about the benefits & methods of meditation and I am not going to dwell on that. I am not very regular in meditation, but I have observed that whenever I am anxious like this and I choose to do even 10-minute meditation, it always helps me greatly.
As we know the basic idea of meditation is to observe your thoughts. You neither have to get carried away with it nor you should try to stop it. And that’s what is the key benefit of meditation. When you start observing your thoughts, away from emotions, as a third person, it helps in calming your mind. You realize that it is just a thought, not necessarily reality and you are so much in control to choose your thoughts later.
Reading
Another great help for me in such cases is reading some good book or some good philosophy. From the time, I learned about Stoicism, it has become one of my most powerful arsenals to deal with anything disturbing my peace of mind. Similar to this you can find solace and inspiration in dozens of other philosophies and ideas out there.
There is one statement I have read somewhere(don’t remember the reference) that there isn’t anything new happening to you that hasn’t happened to someone else somewhere. You need not reinvent the wheel every time trying to figure out everything by yourself. So, take ideas from other people’s journeys and make your life easy.
Ques: What do you do when your peace of mind is disturbed?
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