Finding Peace Part 1: The Unglamorous Truth About Feeling At Ease

People ask me this question more than any other. How do you get that peace? How are you so at ease?

I understand why they ask. When someone appears settled in themselves, when they seem to move through their days without being knocked over by every wave, it looks like something to want. And it is something to want. But I rarely know how to answer the question in the sound-byte kind of way people seem to be anticipating the answer to come in. There is no hack waiting to be shared. There is no single mantra or spiritual practice that magically landed me where I am today.

It has come through work - constant, unglamorous, daily work.

I will admit something here, because I try to be honest with you always. Sometimes, underneath that question, I feel a flicker of resentment. Not at the person asking. At the assumption folded inside the question, the assumption that peace simply arrived one day, fully formed, like a gift left on the porch. I did not wake up peaceful. I built this, piece by piece, and I am still building it.

Peace Is Not the Absence of Struggle

Peace is not the absence of struggle. It is not bypassing your flaws or your foibles or the parts of you that are selfish, or insecure, or that completely misread a situation. So many people chase peace by trying to outrun the parts of themselves they do not like. They think if they can just get rid of the anger, or the jealousy, or the neediness, peace will finally show up.

It does not work that way. Peace is what happens when you stop running from those parts.

Every single day, more days than not, I ask myself one question. How do I show up to the part of me I do not like today? Not fix it. Not shame it. Show up to it.

That means looking honestly at my insecurity and taking responsibility for it, instead of blaming someone else for triggering it. That means noticing when I have misperceived a person or a situation, and owning that misperception instead of defending it. That means catching my own selfishness in real time and asking that part of me, gently, what it is actually afraid of.

This is Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed work, and I lean on it daily. Every one of those reactions, the resentment, the insecurity, the selfishness, is a part of you. Not a flaw to eliminate. A part asking for your attention.

What This Actually Looks Like

I want to show you what this looks like in practice, because it is not abstract or theoretical. This past week, I started working with a new trainer who asked me to video record myself doing the exercises so she could check my form.

Each time I started my workout, I found myself in a terrible mood. I caught myself saying, out loud, "I hate this," which was strange, because I actually enjoy exercise. By the third workout, I knew something underneath the surface was off.

So I did what I always do. I asked inside. Who is upset? Who is getting worked up about this process?

Four different parts of me showed up. Each of them was young, ranging in age from about four to twelve years old, and each of them carried their own source of shame. None of them knew I was an adult now. None of them knew I was working with someone I hired to help me, someone who was encouraging me, not judging me.

I sat with each part. I listened to their story and understood why they were upset. I validated their upset without trying to talk them out of it. And then I gently invited them into the present with me. I let them know the shame they were holding belonged to the past, and they were free to set it down. They could be here, now, enjoying exercise, instead of bracing for judgment or punishment that was never actually coming.

After that work was done, my next workout felt great. No more bad mood. No more four small parts of me flinching at a camera.

This is the work. It is not glamorous. Nobody sees it happen. It happened quietly, in my own heart, in the middle of an ordinary week, over something as small as a workout video.

Grace Meets the Labor, It Does Not Replace It

Now, is some of this grace? Yes. The Great Goodness meets me in this. I am not doing this alone, and I never have been. But grace does not exempt me from the labor. Grace does not mean the internal work disappears. Grace is the support underneath the work, not a replacement for it.

So when someone asks me how I got here, this is the honest answer. I got here by turning toward myself, over and over, instead of away.

If you want peace, stop looking for the shortcut. Start asking the part of you that struggles the most, what do you need from me today. That is where it begins. Not in arrival. In the asking, again and again.

This is part one of a series I am developing on what peace actually requires. Part two will explore what changes when we invite the Divine into the smallest details of our lives, not just the large ones. I hope you come along.