Finding Peace Part 2: Come With Me

If you read part one of this series, you know that the peace people notice in me didn't arrive overnight. It was built through the daily, unglamorous work of turning toward the parts of myself I'd rather avoid—my defensiveness, my fear of being ordinary, that old, tired voice that says I'm not enough. That work is important and it will always be so, but it is not the whole story.

There is a second layer underneath the peace, and it has nothing to do with effort. It has to do with company.

The Quiet Exhaustion of Going Solo

For a long time, even after I had done real work on myself, I still carried a low-grade exhaustion. I could name my parts. I could sit with my insecurity, my selfishness, my old shame. But still, somewhere underneath all of it, I was white-knuckling it. I was the one holding the outcome. I was the one making sure everything turned out right.

The shift for me came when I stopped treating my relationship with the Great Goodness as something reserved for emergencies. I used to invite the Divine into the big, obvious moments—a major decision, a health scare, a wave of grief. But I left the Divine out of the small, ordinary minutes of my day. I told myself those minutes were too insignificant, or that I could handle them on my own just fine.

That is not partnership. That is management with occasional consultation.

An Invitation, Not a Rescue Mission

Now I say it constantly, quietly, sometimes without words at all. Come with me.

Not come rescue me. Not come fix this for me. Just... come with me.

• Come with me into this email I dread writing.

• Come with me into this conversation where I need to be vulnerable and curious.

• Come with me into this workout, this meeting, this mundane decision about what I am listening to next on Audible.

Because the mundane is where most of my life actually happens.

When I invite the Great Goodness into the small moments, something important shifts. I am no longer the sole author of every outcome. I am not the only one in the room. And because I am not the only one in the room, I don't have to hold the outcome so tightly.

This is where the ease comes from. Not from controlling the result. From trusting that I am accompanied inside the result, whatever it turns out to be.

The Deeper Knowing Beneath the Invitation

There is something else that has grown in me since I started this practice.

I believe—with every fiber of my being—that everything is working out for me.

Not in the shallow, "positive thinking" sense. Not in a way that denies struggle or pain. What I mean is this: everything is working for my highest good, for the best outcome for the cause of Love, and for the growth of my soul.

That does not mean it will be easy. It does not mean it will be comfortable. Some of the things that have been "working out for me" have been excruciating in the moment. But I take great comfort in knowing that I am always on the best path for me - not because I can see the map, but because I trust the One who can.

This knowing didn't arrive through logic. It arrived through repetition. Through saying come with me a thousand times until I started to believe that the invitation was always answered. Through noticing, over and over, that even when things fell apart, something was holding me. Something was working.

Peace is Not a Guarantee

Inviting the Divine into everything does not mean I know how things will turn out. It doesn't mean the email lands well, or the conversation goes smoothly, or the decision proves to be the right one. I still don't know those things in advance. Nobody does.

What changes is my relationship to not knowing. When I am not running the show alone, uncertainty stops feeling like danger. It starts feeling like simply the shape of being human, held inside something larger than my own effort.

This isn't spiritual bypassing where we hide from responsibility behind the language of surrender. I still show up. I still do the hard work I wrote about in part one. I still take responsibility for my insecurities and misperceptions. Inviting the Great Goodness in doesn't replace that labor. It changes what I carry alone while I am doing it.

A Sigh Before the Day Begins

Some mornings, this looks like a full minute of stillness before I get out of bed, simply breathing, come with me into today. Other days, it's a single exhale before I open my laptop. It doesn't require ceremony. It requires willingness.

I say it before difficult calls. Come with me into this conversation. I say it in the middle of my workouts, on the days when an old part gets activated and I feel the familiar heaviness in my gut. Come with me into this body, into this moment, into whatever this part is carrying.

The invitation doesn't need to be eloquent. It needs to be repeated, because I forget. I default back to gripping the wheel alone more often than I'd like. But every time I remember to invite the Divine Beloved back in, the grip loosens a little. The peace returns a little faster than it did the last time.

Why I Often Am at Peace (and Why You Can Be, Too)

When someone tells me I seem at ease, part of what they are noticing is this: I am not white-knuckling my way through my days by sheer willpower. I have a partner in this. I am accompanied in the ordinary and the difficult alike, and that accompaniment takes a weight off my shoulders that I used to carry by myself without even realizing it.

This is part two of the series on what peace actually requires. Part one was about turning toward yourself. This one is about not doing that turning alone. Part three, still to come, will explore what happens when Self, already in partnership with the Divine, becomes the one who decides what everything means.