I've been meditating on how I might attain peace. For a while I thought that peace was something that I earned, through doing the next right thing. And while I do believe that's evident, I understand now when my go-to Christian teacher, Dr. Charles Stanley, said that peace is a gift. Peace is freely given to me, I don't have to earn it, it is my birthright.
The clamours of the world can often threaten my serenity. So when I learned in lockdown how to give my concerns to God, I experienced the immediate release of fear and apprehension. Once I go into a state of rest, and tell God what I am feeling anxious about, I feel relief, and I can begin to think a bit more clearly.
One way I have been able to maintain a clear psyche is by not letting harmful thoughts travel from my head to my heart. When I instead give my concerns to God, I have developed a filter where I do not internalize destructive thinking and in so, I don't take on other people’s negativity. This filter is established by building confidence, which I have constructed through conscious and habitual connection to God, and it prevents poisonous thoughts from seeping into my being, which for me can pop up in the form of fear of people and their opinions, intrusive thinking, or regret of the past.
In the 2016 US elections, there was a scandal where a company called Cambridge Analytica allegedly broke Facebook's Terms and Conditions to not only steal user's information, but to engage in what a whistle-blower would call weapon-grade manipulation tactics to influence voters who were deemed "persuadables".
I view this as indeed psychological warfare, and I see this happening all around us, all the time. As someone who would identify as easily persuadable, I have dedicated years to building, strengthening, and maintaining a shield, or a filter, to catch messages of deceit that try to influence my line of reasoning to suit someone else's agenda, whether it's something as organized as a media campaign, or as sloppy as an offhanded comment. It is my intention moving forward to help others establish a guard against psychological trespasses.
And I believe it starts with giving to the spirit, however we might understand that spirit. Whether God, Source, the Universe, the Higher-Self....whatever we can start off with that's palatable enough to actually set aside time and the material daily, in order to connect with the spiritual. If we don't setup boundaries with the world in the manner of protecting time alone in meditation, it is unlikely we will consistently have the fortitude to mentally withstand the pressures of the world.
Today I do believe that peace is something that is freely given to me; in fact I believe it is my absolute human right, but because this world has been twisted to love money instead of peace of mind, we do have to fight for it. We have to resist our laziness, our phones, our scattered minds, and until being alone in quiet time with God becomes a working part of the mind, we have to make real strides and even sacrifices to establish our protective barrier.
In the 2016 US elections, there was a scandal where a company called Cambridge Analytica allegedly broke Facebook's Terms and Conditions to not only steal user's information, but to engage in what a whistle-blower would call weapon-grade manipulation tactics to influence voters who were deemed "persuadables".
I view this as indeed psychological warfare, and I see this happening all around us, all the time. As someone who would identify as easily persuadable, I have dedicated years to building, strengthening, and maintaining a shield, or a filter, to catch messages of deceit that try to influence my line of reasoning to suit someone else's agenda, whether it's something as organized as a media campaign, or as sloppy as an offhanded comment. It is my intention moving forward to help others establish a guard against psychological trespasses.
And I believe it starts with giving to the spirit, however we might understand that spirit. Whether God, Source, the Universe, the Higher-Self....whatever we can start off with that's palatable enough to actually set aside time and the material daily, in order to connect with the spiritual. If we don't setup boundaries with the world in the manner of protecting time alone in meditation, it is unlikely we will consistently have the fortitude to mentally withstand the pressures of the world.
Today I do believe that peace is something that is freely given to me; in fact I believe it is my absolute human right, but because this world has been twisted to love money instead of peace of mind, we do have to fight for it. We have to resist our laziness, our phones, our scattered minds, and until being alone in quiet time with God becomes a working part of the mind, we have to make real strides and even sacrifices to establish our protective barrier.
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