Your Peace Is a Ripple That Will Change the World
Living an aligned life is your civic responsibility.
Elizabeth Gilbert wasn’t wrong when she said, “We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.” It’s true. No matter how old we get, or what happens to us, we crave lives of peace - whatever that looks like on an individual level. We chase it, we seek it, even when our choices divulge. Why do reach out desperately for that deep inner sense of calm and belonging?
Perhaps it is because that is our best state. To be at peace is to be fulfilled, to be fulfilled is to create a life that is bursting with the people, experiences, and activities that make you feel passionately engaged with life.
Why don’t we embrace this state by default? When we all crave it so inherently?
What is it that keeps you from finding your peace? What keeps you from an aligned life? Do you think that you deserve it? Do you think that you’re someone worthy of having that ideal peace you’ve always imagined?
The truth is that your peace isn’t just a matter of you.
Your path to a life that is peaceful and aligned affects every single person around you. It’s a matter of helping others as much as it is a matter of helping yourself. It’s true. As a citizen of this world, you are a part of a sea, linked to everyone else through an imperceptible net of particles, experiences, and emotion.
As you become someone who falls in love with life, you become a better version of yourself to everyone. You become a better voter. A better parent. A better friend. A better business owner. A better citizen of the world. Your growth is the growth of everyone else around you. Your fulfillment is a better future.
If you’re not living an aligned life for yourself, then shift the way you’re looking at it. Live an aligned life for those you love most and those you will never have a chance to touch.
The Ripple Effect of Aligned Living
When was the last time you watched the way water moves? Ripples are a particularly beautiful shape to behold when you encounter them in nature. Wild reminders of the symmetry and interconnectedness of it all. A smooth surface, disturbed, bursts alive with life. One ripple touches another, then the next, until the whole body of water moves in one incredible rhythm.
This is similar to the changes that occur when we are brave enough to find inner harmony, the lives that bring us peace and a sense of fulfillment.
As your life improves, the lives of the people around you improve. It’s not dramatic. In fact, it’s slow at first - but it happens. Day by day, inch by inch. Each person you encounter meets a better version of you. You touch the very fiber of the world with greater positivity than you did before.
That positive inner motion extends, like the ripples on the face of the pond. What begins as a disturbance soon turns into a wave of change. One movement, into the next, into the next. A rhythmic dance that joins us together in tiny invisible ripples that change the course of our shared futures for generations to come.
The Crossroads of Responsibility & Fulfillment
It’s the part of personal development that enough of us don’t focus on. While the gurus tell us to focus on self, self, self, we lose sight of the bigger picture at play. The “we” are on the journey of making our lives and our bodies more at peace and able to handle the stressors of life.
Here’s a reality check. Eventually, on your journey to improve your life, you’re going to come to the crossroads of your responsibility to others and your self-responsibility. They, in so many ways, are the same.
Your peace has a purpose
You can look at your fulfillment as a part of your civic responsibility. It’s true. Your job, as a part of these societies that we all form together, is to be the best possible citizen. That’s not done when you’re miserable, detached from your values, or living in spirals of shame and self-denial.
Your happier life benefits society. The more energized and engaged you are in life, the more of a benefit you will become to your friends and your family. The family is the real key here.
As we learn more about things like epigenetics and intergenerational trauma, it has become more and more apparent that the mental well-being of parents has a direct effect on their children (from the inside out). You pass down things like anxiety, depression, and trauma. We learn by watching our parents and we inherit their genes.
Finding peace should be a part of your journey to become a better parent. It’s not just about being a “good public citizen”. If you are raising a family, you are touching the future lives of everyone on this planet in one way or another. Leave it better than you found it by finding peace that can be passed down.
Fulfillment is a part of the puzzle
It’s all a part of the bigger puzzle. It’s not some spiritual mumbo jumbo. Personal fulfillment and aligned living a matter of practicality. It’s interlinked, like ripples on the surface of the pond. One touching the other and the next.
It was Abraham Maslow, one of the most cited psychologists in American history, who (perhaps) put it best when he said:
“If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”
Seeking anything less than a life that is truly at peace and aligned with your highest values and goals is foolish. It’s to guarantee yourself misery. In that misery, you will create more misery. Miserable families. Fractured friendships. A future that lacks the core people, places, and experiences that would otherwise bring you joy.
It’s all a part of the puzzle.
The happier you become, the better you can regulate your nervous system and your emotions, the better your experience of life will be. As that experience improves for you it will extend to those you love, those you know, and everyone you encounter throughout the width and breadth of your life.
Practical Steps for Living Your Most Aligned Life
It sounds like a big ask, but when you break it down it’s not all that complicated. You can live a more aligned life, and in doing that you will find greater mental and emotional peace. How? Figure out your values and live within them. Set boundaries and take small action when it matters most. Consistency is the key here.
1. Figure out your values
Your values are a lot like anchors, they keep you rooted in the things that matter in your life and help you make better choices for yourself. When you choose from your values, it’s easy to choose the things that fulfill your mental, emotional, and physical needs. But how do you figure out what you value so that you can take steps to live a more aligned life?
Start by sitting down with a journal and asking yourself a few key questions:
When do you feel most excited or joyful?
What makes you feel a spark of curiosity?
What makes you feel the lowest or most unmotivated?
Pay close attention to the details of your life. Your values will underlie the most important elements of your relationships and your experiences with others. For example, if you’re seeking what you value in your partnerships, analyze your best and worst relationships.
What made you feel good? What helped you grow? Now look at the bad. What pushed you beyond your boundaries? What was an absolute no-go? Where were your limits?
You should find things like honest communication, support, creativity, connection, hope, or activity underlying your primary values. You may value spontaneity, positivity, travel, or any other number of activities, emotions, or states of being as the most valuable elements of your life.
2. Map out the core needs
Just as you figure out what you value most in this life, you have to figure out what needs lie outside of those values. For example, if you value intimate relationships, you then have to define what further needs you have in those types of relationships. Do you need a lot of quality time? Communication? A partner who is home a lot? Who wants to travel? Build a family?
Your needs are the active elements that help you feel nourished, excited, supported, loved, and whole within your relationship. What’s important to remember when defining these needs, however, is that they should be balanced and realistic. Your needs cannot violate the realistic boundaries of others around you.
Sit down and map out your core needs. Divide your life into 3-5 core segments. Relationships. Family. Career. Personal. Spiritual. What do you need from each of t these elements? Imagine your ideal existence in each state. What are you doing? How do you feel? What are you doing for others? What do others provide you (if anything)?
3. Set better boundaries
Make no mistake, there is no personal fulfillment without setting some boundaries - both for others and for you. Our boundaries are the limits that keep the world from encroaching on our safety and our happiness. What’s not stressed enough, however, is that they are also the limits that we set for ourselves, that keep us from crossing the line and selling ourselves out.
Set better boundaries with others. Draw the line around the way you want to be treated and learn to communicate those boundaries. Will this feel like a confrontation at first? Only with those who valued you for their ability to push you around and cross the line.
Next, set boundaries with yourself. Where do you tend to soften the line? Where do you sell yourself short? Let yourself be defined by others? This is an especially important step for people pleasers. Figure out where you tend to give in at the expense of your happiness. Build your self-esteem so you can reforge these boundaries anew.
4. Build action and momentum
Here’s the last piece of the puzzle and the one that most people miss. There is no peace, in any facet of your life, without taking action and building momentum. No, this doesn’t mean you have to hustle every day and strive, strive, strive. That’s exhausting. The real goal should be taking small, consistent steps in the name of your goals and building on those steps until you dare to stand up for yourself and take control of the life that you’re leading.
Where To Go From Here…
Loving ourselves enough to lead peaceful lives is a valiant first step, but it doesn’t end there. We are social creatures, interconnected through the complicated webs of family, friends, co-workers, and those who we share mundane life experiences with. One cannot help but touch the other in ways both good and bad.
The nurse who shows up to her job feeling at peace and fulfilled touches the arm of a patient gently and reassures them with confidence and compassion. The next morning, relieved, that person goes out and responds with compassion when the lady at the bank gets it wrong. She goes home and has a moment of gratitude for her family and a job that has the space to help her learn.
It’s not silly.
As we go into the world filled with more peace and fulfillment we are better able to respond to the stress that comes naturally with life. It’s a part of our duty as good parents, as good friends, as good coworkers, and as human beings at large.
You shouldn’t just find your peace for yourself. Find it for your children. Your partner. Find it for your friends. Find it for the world.
Every step you take in the direction of your inner peace and an aligned life is a step toward social harmony. You are a part of the ripples, dancing across the silvered surface of a world that desires change. You are that change. Your happiness is that change. Embrace the journey and take a step into the unknown in the name of a better tomorrow.
© E.B. Johnson 2024
I am a writer, artist, NLPMP, and podcaster who helps people build creative lives after trauma. In my free time, I have a passion for fresh bread, history, and all things watercolor. Learn more about me here. Join my mailing list. Or, support my writing by subscribing below.