Peace That Doesn't Need Anything to Change
La satisfacción que no necesita que nada cambie
A student struggling with a painful breakup asks how to hold both anger and the desire for peace and forgiveness at the same time.
Peace That Doesn't Need Anything to Change
A student struggling with a painful breakup asks how to hold both anger and the desire for peace and forgiveness at the same time.
I had a breakup, and it's really painful. We are not in contact anymore. She doesn't want to hear from me, and I feel like I can't deal with it the way I think would be right. I'm very angry at her, and at the same time I want peace and forgiveness, for myself and for her. I'm always wondering if I should send a message, apologize, tell her I want to send blessings. But then the other part of me, the part that's really angry, doesn't want to be pushed aside. I don't want to put that part away and just say, "Let's be peaceful," because that doesn't feel right either. It's really hard to be at peace and also in truth with the anger.
Two kinds of peace
The main thing is this: there is peace with a lowercase "p," and there is peace with an uppercase "P." Usually what we are looking for is the only peace we remember, which is the lowercase kind. But the uppercase peace is something we never forget once we know it.
The peace I talk about doesn't require the anger to stop. It doesn't require the pain to go away. The peace that is a longing for the anger to stop or the pain to go away is imagined. It is the peace we can hope for and picture, which amounts to a change in what is happening. That will never bring true peace, because life is always a movement.
Trusting what is already here
So try to trust, not as a belief, but trust in the possibility that there is a very deep peace available, and it's not tomorrow. It's now. It's here. It doesn't need anger to stop, nor pain to stop, nor thinking to stop, nor anything that is happening to change.
The more we trust that possibility, the more we start to attune to it. If I trust that it's possible, if I trust that it's here, I will start to put out my feelers into this moment and try to see: how is this possible? Where is this? Instead of not trusting that it's possible, not even considering it, and then the only thing left is the imagination of my feelings changing. That becomes the only promise I have, and then it's all imagination, always somewhere else, always a different thing, always tomorrow. That actually creates more dissatisfaction and turmoil.
Nothing needs to stop
Even when that is happening, it doesn't need to stop. Even when all I want is the peace of the pain stopping, even that wanting doesn't need to stop. Because once we look at this, we start fighting with the sense of, "I just want the pain to stop, so now I need to stop wanting the pain to stop, and I need to stop wanting." It just doesn't make sense. Nothing needs to change.
This requires trust, because that trust will make space for you to look for something that is already here. The more you start sensing that, the more the storm will settle. You will be able to make better choices, communicate more clearly. But none of this is for the sake of communicating or making better choices. Those are just natural consequences.
So just be open to the possibility that what you're looking for is here. The more you attune to that, everything else will fall into place.
Forgiveness as a consequence
So the peace you talk about doesn't need me to forgive?
It's the other way around. As you notice that peace, the forgiveness will happen. And it happens not by your doing.