Sixth Pathway to Healing - Peace

 

Sixth Pathway to Healing – Peace

 

A spectacular geographical setting near the southernmost tip of the African continent, Cape Good Hope, vividly illustrates the sixth pathway to healing, peace.  A major attraction of Cape Town, South Africa for international tourists, Cape Good Hope enjoys a Mediterranean climate of mild, rainy winters and dry, balmy summers.  Respective daily temperatures fluctuate between 68 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  This breathtaking and picturesque spot on the Earth enjoys a vast and diverse botanical life.  The region sustains more than 6000 types of plant life.    Wildlife, lighthouses and whales further adorn this natural museum.  Cape Good Hope is an impressive background to the city of Cape Town.  Most dramatically, the Cape is one of the places where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet.  These natural resources symbolize what happens to a person who willingly strives for and attains holistic healing inclusive of inner peace.

 

It is amazing to think of standing near the southernmost tip of the world and observing the convergence of two huge but disparate bodies of water.  The Indian Ocean is the warmest and accordingly has little capacity to support marine life.  The temperature of the water can be as destructive as lava.  In contrast, the Atlantic Ocean is the most supportive of fishing and marine life.  It also contains rich oil deposits and natural gas.  It is the source of sustenance of life for the four continents it directly borders.  This contrast between oceans parallels the internal duality of the human mind, heart and psyche.  To acquire inner peace, finding balance within your character is necessary.  You utilize your heat to neutralize or eliminate character defects.  The lessening of those qualities enables you to concentrate upon your creative and life-enhancing side.  However, if you fail to devote time and attention to spiritual development and energy to personal growth, you will experience eruptions of storms in your life.  The recovery community teaches us the uncompromising and unequivocal necessity of spiritual maintenance in daily living.  Balancing your assets and liabilities will yield unquestioned inner peace.  It will be as if you reside on Cape Good Hope.  Within that existential space, you will enjoy wealth, health, self-expression and peace.

 

Parenthetically, geographers deem the characterization of Cape Good Hope as the southernmost point of Africa as a common misconception.  The tourist business that perpetuates this idea will not yield to an exacting academic correction.  Human geographers concur that Cape Agulhas is the actual southernmost tip of the African continent.  It is a hundred and nine miles southeast of Cape Town.  Regardless of whether you agree with the commercially successful tourist industry of Cape Good Hope or the geologically and factually correct scientists, the analogy holds.  Whether standing on the edge of Cape Good Hope or Cape Agulhas, these marvelous natural and geographical places symbolize spiritual balance and possibilities for enduring inner peace. 

 

Nevertheless, to achieve internal peace, resign from the debating society and purge yourself of the toxic emotions of constantly fighting with others and yourself.  Conflicts inevitably have winners and losers.  Emotional turmoil is continuous as you replay every word and action looking for ways to defeat your opponent.  If you lose, you resent your adversary’s victory; you even resent yourself for losing.  Resentment accumulates as you lick your wounds and strategize for your next moves.  Chances are your battles with other people become personal even when no one intends any offense.  Convinced of their sinister motives, you resolve to recompense this insult and attack upon your character and dignity.  You obsess upon righting this wrong and balancing the scale. You refuse to swallow this humiliation.  This inner turmoil also includes anger, fear and bitterness.  Hot lava represents the furor that hardens within your mind and heart as you fight essentially every waking hour.  It is not surprising that you cannot experience any semblance of peace when you flood your being with this intensity of emotional toxicity.  If you genuinely desire peace, stop fighting with other people.  Also, stop fighting with yourself.  Accept other people’s incapacities and your character deficits.  Once you take off the gloves and step out of the ring, you can direct that passion towards more meaningful activities.

 

Once you cease fighting with people and causes, you invest previously squandered emotional and mental energy in acquiring integrity.  I no longer strive to be right about every subject.  Before, if I were right, then someone else by default was wrong.  Who determines who is right and who is wrong?  I now invest in establishing an opinion or position after a deliberative process of reading, research and evaluative synthesis of all ways of knowing.  Realizing I am a prisoner of my prism of experience, I accept that I suffer with a blindside as I engage any issue.  Unless I question my presuppositions, they will overtake my investigation and lead me to incomplete or intellectually dishonest positions.  Hopefully, I demand of myself that I explore available evidence and data.  As it relates to public policy involving average people’s lives, I need to hear from directly affected persons as their experiences are as reliable as documents, data and other evidence.  Instead of justifying myself, I commit to historical, critical and analytical methods; specifically, prioritizing people above ideology.  Rather than debating anyone, I choose to learn with other people with whom I can converse.  Seeking inner peace, I hold myself to a high standard of learning honestly.  I further cultivate humility to learn especially from persons with whom I disagree.

 

Fear, anger and resentment block your imagination.  They additionally rob you of any peace you may feel.  When you live in fear, you cannot enjoy life.  Your health, mentally and physically, suffers as you dwell in a prison of limited possibilities.  You want liberty.  You want your soul to sing openly and freely.  However, fear leaves you locked mentally and creatively within a cage with a wide-open door.  Its paralysis steals success, happiness, health, joy and liberty in addition to peace from you.  Fear and anger create a lethal cocktail that poisons your mind and heart.  These twins motivate you to make mistakes.  They ruin your relationships as you become suspicious of everyone.  In worst case scenarios, this warped thinking matures into revenge which is all-consuming.  This emotion enslaves you to squandering your talents, abilities and resourcefulness on settling an old score.