EVEN WHEN IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE.

I am writing this, listening to the sound of running water.

It’s in the evening on a weeknight and I am sitting next to a fountain at a local park.

I’m reflecting in awe of my life. It was not that long ago that I lived an entirely different life and experience. 

I would come home from work or school exhausted, stressed, scarce on time (or so I thought). I always had too much to do and not enough time to get it done. 

From my perspective now in hindsight, I can see that my external daily life experience was truly only an outer representation and external reflection of my internal world.

So much… so much deep, deep terror, fear, grief, despair from childhood trauma.

Yes, I was actively working through it, working on healing and loving those parts of myself. Yes, I actively did things daily to feel relief, to experience freedom, to feel whole again. And to my credit, I did go to bed each night feeling, if nothing else, marginally better than I felt that morning when I woke up. It was an incremental process, like an inchworm making its way across the sand.

Even so, the depth of the trauma that was in my body, my mind, my nervous system was truly immense. To be perfectly candid my life was terrifying every moment of every day for years in my late teenage and early young adult years. I felt like I was in a constant battle to survive. I felt like I had to fight against all of life just to live. I feared for my life almost every second of every day as a result of facing such life or death, bodily trauma as a young child.

I don’t share this to be depressing.

I do not share this seeking pity.

I share this to show what is possible to shift out of.

Yes, I will always recommend medical care, mental health services and counseling for mental health needs. I am not a doctor or therapist and I do not treat or diagnose.

I did in fact see a variety of therapists and holistic practitioners to support me during those years. This is not my focus for today. 

What I want to share is what happened when I started to actively practice PEACE within myself.

My external reality felt chaotic, terrifying and very dark.

Internally, I felt stressed, anxious, traumatized, never having enough time.

My experience was the opposite of peace.

And so how did I go from that stark contrast of an experience to where I am today?  Peaceful presence. In my body. Relaxing at the park, leisurely taking in the beauty, the darkening sky, and the patter of water on the pond.

I STARTED BY CREATING, CULTIVATING, AND DISCOVERING THE UNWAVERING, STEADY, LIMITLESS PEACE THAT IS ALWAYS WITHIN ME. ALWAYS RESIDES IN ME.

I sought and created this through meditation. Mindfulness. Yoga. Running. Hiking. Breathing. Therapy. And other healing modalities. 

The point is: there was no peace outside of me according to what I experienced at the time.

There was no peace in my body or my brain or my emotions that I experienced at the time. 

And so, I went deeper. It was a desperate curiosity and experiment at first. For survival. For a savior. 

Through mindfulness meditation in particular is when I truly began to experience the deep, bottomless, ever undisturbed PEACE that is ALWAYS THERE!!! Always there within me!!! ALWAYS THERE AS THE TRUE ESSENCE OF REALITY, OF LIFE HERSELF. 

As I learned to hone my practice and consistently experienced this inner peace within me, I began to rewire my brain. My nervous system. My emotions. My BODY. To peace. To stillness. To steadiness. To unwavering knowing and truth and trustworthiness in my - and life’s - infinite and reliable PEACE. 

Energy is the seed of all of physical reality and our life’s experiences. 

There have been years since the time I described above. Over a decade to be more exact.

I am here beside this fountain and I am in awe.

Yes there were twists, turns, unexpected paths and people and miracles and abundance of divine magic that left me awe inspired at the way healing came along the way. 

And yet, I trace all the boundless peace and steady, reliable, inner unrelenting foundation of PEACE within me, to those first conscious choices to cultivate and seek peace within ME, first. Within me when all else logically said it didn’t exist for me. It wasn’t possible. I could never feel it again. 

Lies. All lies. 

Peace on all levels IS possible.

I experience it the vast majority of my life.

And I am awed.

Grateful and celebrating my past courageous self for trusting and believing in something so far out of my then current reality. Bravely believing in something beyond what seemed logical OR possible. 

….

That leaves me with one question for you:

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO START CULTIVATING AND CREATING NOW, WITHIN YOURSELF, EVEN THOUGH IT EXTERNALLY SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE OR ILLOGICAL NOW? WHAT WILL YOU LOOK BACK ON YEARS FROM NOW AND THANK YOUR TODAY SELF FOR, FOR CHOOSING, AND CHOOSING AGAIN, AND STARTING - NOW?

Much love,

Jenna