We're all restless, and much of the guidance around meditation tries to answer one question: how can we arrive at peace?
But there's a stage in the journey where peace is actually mastered. You can quiet your mind. You can be at peace, even experience transcendental peace.
And yet, you might find yourself choosing not to stay there.
Your mind is quiet. Your nervous system is regulated enough. And then you start moving your mind again.
Not because your nervous system is reactive. Or because your emotions are getting the best of you. Or even because life is agitated around you.
But for one simple reason:
Peace is actually a radical choice when you've been accustomed to something else your entire life.
The practices bring you to a point where you have enough mastery over your mind to make a choice. Your mind is no longer so agitated that it seems beyond your control.
You can now choose peace.
And it's not always easy to make that choice.
Beyond resolving the restlessness of our minds and nervous systems, we also need to resolve our relationship with peace.
Our mind is not some strange external force over which we have no power. Once we resolve the compulsive restlessness arising from stress, habit or emotion, we may discover that we are the ones moving it.
Do we dare to be peaceful?
Do we dare to allow ourselves the peacefulness we've worked so hard to attain?
At times, it really is a radical choice.
When I've been in balance, I've always tended to be more peaceful than the people around me. But this has sometimes posed a challenge in my relationships.
To some people, my peace could look like indifference. Or even like a risk.
Could they trust that I cared enough? That I would be responsible enough, diligent enough?
The notion that we can be peaceful inside, even when external circumstances are challenging, is foreign to many people.
And so the world becomes an agitated, restless place in which you can feel a little out of place simply for being calm.
Some people will welcome your peacefulness. Others may feel ignored or rejected by it.
Many workplaces thrive on agitation. And many people have an intense way of expressing themselves and moving through life.
We seem drawn towards drama.
If you're at that stage where you do have control over your mind, and yet you find yourself returning to agitation, try to find the root of it.
What voice within you, or around you, tells you that it's not okay to be peaceful?