How To Find Inner Peace

In this teaching, Geoff Bell-Devaney talks about the importance of recognizing how inner peace - no matter what we might be experiencing - is something that we can choose and work towards embodying in every moment. He explains how to learn from life's lessons and how doing so can help us find inner peace.

Transcript

Life is never going to stop giving us challenges. It's what it does, Be they a flat tire on our bicycle or milk in the fridge that's spoiled or political unrest around the world. Whatever they may be, Whatever emotions they may arise within us, It's in building our capacity to be with those emotions, To accept them, To accept the experiences that, In essence, Create them, You know, That stir up the fear, The anger, Whatever it may be. And it's in being with those emotions in a very felt sense way, A very somatic way, Being with, Holding gently those, That energy, Those emotions, The fear or whatever, It's in accepting that there are experiences constantly. That bring up those emotions and being with those emotions that enables us to realize that when problems quote-unquote problems arise they're not necessarily problems but opportunities for us to be with energy perhaps that we haven't wanted to be with. Old fear, For example. And when we can be with it, When we can be with all of our emotions, We can start learning from them, We can start growing in insight and awareness, And we can begin to realize that life is perfect and every moment is designed to help us in many ways differentiate and be able to say with more clarity and power, Either yes or no, To what life is giving us. We can learn to trust ourselves, Our intuition, Our sense of right and wrong, Our sense of what is right and wrong for us. We can start to say no to relationships with people that we know deep down, No matter how great they may be, Are unhealthy for us. We can start saying yes to ourselves, To self-love, To not losing ourselves in anything outside of us. To stay here in this field of presence, Of compassion. And it's in this place that we can learn to hold all of these emotions, That all of these experiences arise. And the more that we can do that, The more we'll stay in a place of much greater peace, Much greater power. We will live much more in the present moment for not resisting it. We're not resisting the reality of life, Whether it's within us in all of these emotions, These sensations, This energy, On both sides of us in all of this. This stillness and chaos.