Seeking Peace and Harmony Within

“The journey of life is a lot like creating pottery, you are always whittling away the bits of clay that are not needed to make your creation beautiful.”

~Sandy Thibault

Seeking Peace and Harmony Within

The state of the world, the circumstances of our family and friends, as well as things that are happening in our own life, can greatly impact our well-being. This experience of everyday living greatly impacts us and gets in the way of living a heart-centered life. We want to live in peace and harmony, but we must remember it is not found outside of ourselves, it is found inside our own heart. For our own benefit, and for those around us, I believe it is important to spend as much time looking inside as we do searching outside ourselves to find what we seek.

Over the last two decades, ground-breaking research tells us that the heart has its own unique logic that works outside of the autonomic nervous system. In 1991, Dr. J. Andrew Armour discovered that the heart has its own brain. Therefore, he was able to prove that heart signals are capable of reaching the higher brain centers, which then influences our reasoning and choices, as well as our perceptions and emotions.

This kind of research gives us powerful information that helps us connect to the importance of how we live our lives. We must decide to live in a way that is in alignment with our beliefs and values. It is more important than ever that we turn our focus toward the one place in ourselves that can change our perceptions, emotions, and ultimately our hearts.

This quotation from priest, professor, author, and theologian, Barbara Brown Taylor, captures the essence of it, “Salvation happens every time someone with a key uses it to open a door he could lock instead.” The person with the key is you—and the door she is talking about is the door to our hearts. Salvation is the grace that we extend to ourselves and others in the process of opening ourselves to what life has to offer; it is a response to the opening of the heart.

We are both the person who can open a door—and the person who can lock it. We do it all the time to ourselves and others. How often do we lock ourselves out of our own life? The life I am talking about is the one that is there waiting for all of us, the life God intended for us. It is the abundance, joy, peace, and harmony that God want us to have. We need to find that place inside us where we know this truth, and then allow it to affect the way we are in the world.

You are the key, and you hold grace like a healing balm for your heart. It is what happens in us when we open the door to our hearts, and that transforms our lives and relationships. Moving into a heart-centered way of being allows us to perceive ourselves as God sees us. I would invite you to extend grace to yourself and someone else today. You hold the key to peace and joy, so use it to open doors to a grander vision for yourself and others, quite possibly more than you ever imagined possible.

Wishing you a season of light, love and peace!