Finding Peace

Pine trees at sunset

These days it seems that it’s getting harder to find peace. Clients tell me they can’t sleep, can’t shut off the clatter in their minds or fear they will be found out as not good enough. They feel they must stay busy to prove to someone, anyone – that they are okay. Anxiety takes over. Peace is a distant memory, if in fact it was ever felt.

I understand this feeling because I have lived it too. I still do at times. I’ve been researching Imposter Syndrome and have found this to be a great help to anyone with a low self-esteem. I’ve worked with clients who feel inferior to others by judging themselves against criteria that isn’t even real. It’s so easy with social media to portray happiness, ease and confidence when you feel far from it. It can be a vicious cycle. People can pretend success or just faking it till they make it. If you feel you haven’t made it, there is an impossible standard against which you measure your own success. 

One way to find peace is to remove comparison to others. Everyone will have something they are good at, and so do you. No one is better or worse than anyone else. We’re just different.

Finding peace is not necessarily a place. It can be the relief of letting go of how you feel you ‘should’ be or seeing yourself as less than others because you’re different. If we were all the same we would never have inventions, beautiful music, creative art and so many other wonderful things. Allow who you are to shine.