Peace is here and now

Today is a beautiful day to commemorate our dedication to peace.  Peace is our ultimate mission at JOY and I firmly believe we are all capable of tapping into this innate quality in a way that threads through each and every moment of our lives no matter what we are experiencing.


I can remember siting at my desk 16 years ago at the architectural firm I worked at as an interior designer and hearing about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center.  The whole thing was so surreal as it unfolded and was just a few weeks before my fiancé (now husband) was due to leave for Marine Corps Officer Candidate School.  For me this was not a peaceful moment in time. 


I spent 12 years as military spouse while simultaneously raising a family, and studying and practicing eastern medicine, science, and philosophy.  It was as if there was this invisible push that encouraged me down this path of finding inner peace.  I firmly believe life is beautiful.  Through all the happiness, all the tears, all the hurt, all the joy, all of it…life is beautiful and peace is our inherent nature.  So much healing occurs with the development and cultivation of inner peace.  Peace is love and vice versa.


Each difficult life experience somehow pulled on the strings of my intuition to go deeper, to develop, to create, to radiate peace.  Peace is JOY.  So on a day like today when we reflect and mourn loss, it is equally important to sit in silence and awaken to the quiet whisper of peace that patiently awaits our invitation. 


In a world where you can choose to be anything knowing that it WILL affect the outcome of your thoughts, words, and actions, choose peace.  Continue to choose peace over and over again until it is what comes naturally in times of difficulty. 


Peace is not a cover up.  Choosing peace does not mean you don’t allow yourself to feel anything else.  That is not it at all.  Choosing peace means you are choosing to live in alignment with something much more effective than fear or anger.  Choosing peace means you acknowledge your emotions yet you recognize that peace in fact exists no matter what.  Peace allows you to hold the tension of any difficult situation but also hold peace.  You can have both.    It doesn’t need to be one or the other.  It can be “I feel pain but I also feel peaceful.”  or “I am aware of this emotion but I am also aware that at an even deeper level peace exists within me.”


On this day of reflection and remembrance we can hold both our grief but also our vision of peace for ourselves and the world around us.  We can remember something very valuable from this day and that is that people came together like we’ve never seen before.  We supported one another, we loved strangers, we banded together, we experienced life in the present moment. 


Thank you so much for being a part of this community.  Thank you so much for any moment you spend cultivating peace within yourself.  Thank you so much for the radiance of peace you display to the world after you practice yoga or meditation. 


Let’s keep doing what we do.  Let's re-dedicate and make a commitment to an even deeper cultivation of peace within ourselves. 


“Be the change you want to see in the world.” and “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”  -Ghandi