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I’m going to use my psychic powers and make a prediction… You want more inner peace.

Am I right? If not, the rest of this post is probably not for you. If so, boy do I have some help for you!

In today’s world our senses are constantly bombarded with stimuli, from loud car stereos to phones and televisions to “information” like cable news. This overabundance of input has the same effect on our bodies as a heat wave has on an air conditioner - we’re operating at 110% capacity. Most of us live with chronically frazzled nerves and short tempers. If we let that go on for too long, a meltdown is inevitable.

To avoid meltdown, we all have to take responsibility for our own peace of mind and become proactive  - in other words, we have to stop the meltdown before it stops us. This is as simple as developing good habits and taking time out of our daily lives for self-care, reflection, and course correction. In just a few minutes a day you can accomplish all of this through one or two of the following:

• Meditation. I’ve found that the best meditation technique for avoiding meltdown is simply breathing deeply and slowly for a few minutes. You can do this anywhere, anytime and it’s an instant stress-killer.
• Free Writing/Journaling. If your brain is overheating, take 5 minutes to write whatever wants to travel from your brain to your pen. Don’t worry about making coherent sentences, just write. To use a computer analogy, this is like performing a core dump to clear out your mental RAM. If you want you can go over your free writing later and process it into lessons learned and actions to take, but that isn’t necessary.
• Walking. Any kind of rhythmic aerobic activity will keep your body occupied and give your brain a chance to decompress. Walking is the easiest thing to do, but it works for running, bicycle riding, rollerblading and lots of other types of exercise. The key is to leave your iPod at home!
• Choose Your Own. There are many other (healthy) habits that people practice to help them increase their inner peace. A short list includes: gardening, yoga, massage, cooking, knitting, fishing, reading, long baths, and artistic pursuits. Think about some activity in your life that helps you feel more peaceful. If you don’t have one, find one ASAP.

As the list above suggests, inner peace is achieved through practice. We have to actively pursue it, it doesn’t just come to us.

Achieve More Inner Peace

I’ve been thinking about inner peace a lot lately, because I’ve been involved in creating a Ebook that is all about helping people increase the amount of inner peace they experience. It is called Secrets to Creating More Inner Peace and it contains chapters by five bloggers who work in the personal development realm. We’re a diverse group with many different points of view on the subject. This diversity adds a lot of value to the work, because we approach the concept of inner peace from different ways that make it more accessible to more people.

The Ebook is completely free because we genuinely want to help people improve in this important area. The one thing we ask is that if you enjoy the work, or have any questions about it, you stop by the forums at Personal Development Partners and let us know. PDP is a community of people who are committed to personal growth and development. We support each other through the forums, mastermind groups and collaborative projects like Secrets to Creating More Inner Peace.

PDP has a free membership level, but to get maximum value out of your time there, I recommend joining as a Premium Member like me. Normally this type of membership costs $19.95 per month, and is well worth it, but until the end of June you can join at the Premium level for $57 for life! This is a great value because Premium members get access to well over $300 worth of electronic products from some great leaders in the personal development field.

• To download Secrets to Creating More Inner Peace, right click on the link and select “Save As.”
• To join Personal Development Partners as either a free or Premium member, click on the link and join the conversation!
• To keep getting cool free stuff, sign up to receive automatic updates from this site using an RSS feed reader or in your email.

Photo by Gabriella Fabbri