Monday, October 14, 2013

End The War

'End the war'.

This is a phrase I use often when my kids have gone over my patience boundary with their verbal abuse of eachother.

Anyone who has children of any age knows that arguments can last forever and ever as long as someone is still willing to engage.  With my boys I've noticed over the years that no one stops the arguing because someone always wants to be right or wants to be the winner of the argument.

When I feel tensions rising in the house and I see someone is about to totally lose it I gently remind them that they have the power to end the war.  If they stop engaging; if they release their need to be right and make their brother wrong they can single-handedly restore peace to the relationship.

And they do.  And it does.

I've used this phrase on myself as well.  There have been times when I've persisted.  Wanting to be right; wanting a different outcome then the one I am staring at.  I have pushed and pushed; trying to make my point and convert someone to my way of believing.  This never works.  The only thing that this behaviour succeeds in doing is starting a war.

If you've ever done this you will notice that even though the other person may not engage or perhaps doesn't even know the war exists; the war has been waged and within your mind the war is very real.

Some of us have imaginary wars going on all of the time.  Wars with people who don't do what we want them to do.  Wars with corporations who have done something against us that we believe is wrong.  Wars with people who we think are better than us, poorer than us, different than us.  We wage wars on drugs, drunk driving, government corruption, food production and disease.  We wage wars on ourselves, our children, our pets and our loved ones.  One wrongdoing; one misstep can send us to war in an instant.

When I look around at the wars currently being waged and at those in our history; at the destruction and loss of life I can't help but notice that I have contributed to that energy by waging wars on others in my own life.  I've become fearful and launched attacks against people thinking that something may be taken from me.

This morning I woke up and out of the blue heard the words 'world peace already exists' in my mind.  My body filled with bliss as these words ran through my head. As soon as I started to question this message I remembered the phrase I use with my kids and myself "end the war". 

It's that simple.  End the war in yourself and you will find that world peace does exist. 

Is it possible that world peace is the same as the sun?  The sun doesn't suddenly disappear just because rain clouds have rolled in.  It's there waiting for the clouds to pass so that it can be seen again.  The same may be true for world peace and inner peace.  It exists despite the war; it exists despite the conflict and chaos.  It exists despite what is happening around us and despite what our eyes can see.

Can you see it?