What is Inner Peace?

I'm 30. I will be 31 soon, in a month to be exact. 30 kicked my butt. In a good way, but it was rough. Through it all, there are a few things that I've realized that I pass on here about Inner Peace because in my opinion, finding that place is the only way to make sense of it all and get through the unknown challenges that life presents.Because life is the best pitcher out there and throws insanely crazy curveballs.

I've dealt with alot of death and loss in my life, as have we all, some more than others, but dude, it's all around us, and we each march to it ourselves. I have also spent a grip of time angry, stressed, depressed. I think it's easy to say that being alive in this day and age can be complicated. Like many others out there I have tried religion, different philosophies, meditation, exercise, alternative healing, yoga, martial arts, etc. And I'm an American who is from Hawaii. I can't imagine how challenging life is for some people out there because being from Hawaii is a bonus and being an American is a life of privilege compared to most.

The first thing I have to say about Inner Peace is that it is possible. I have experienced states of Mindfulness, a totally quiet mind, being present in the moment and feeling totally aware of myself and what is going on around/within me. So from my experience it is possible. But in a world where our kind has known conflict from the beginning, it is easy to see why Peace is horse poop to alot. I also blame the hippies just a tad bit. I like some of their ideas but I think they really turned alot of people off to the idea of peace with their behavior.

Factor in the chase and the culture of fear that is prevalent in the world and where does that leave you? Laughing at the guy who thinks peace is possible. It's sort of like Plato's Allegory of the Cave. You got all the people hopping up and down outside of the cave like yo, this is really life, but when you're still in the cave, it's like whatever homie because many of us alive cannot relate to what peace even feels like.

The best way that I have found to explain peace is this, it's a feeling of being okay, regardless of what happens. It's not an extreme, it's balance, it's a feeling of being okay, right in the middle. I like to use okay because everyone can relate to that. I like to look at life from a standpoint of how we relate, because I feel that we are all connected, and um, well we all have feelings whether we admit or not (cough, men).

You ask someone "How you feeling Friend?" and get answers that range from happy to sad, good to bad, loved to unloved, etc. And then there's okay, right in the middle...

To me, that's what peace is. That is what Inner Peace is. It's an Okay-Ness with what's going down.

So before even beginning to figure out a single thing about Inner Peace we have to look at redefining what Inner Peace even means or at least explaining it in a way that people can relate to. That is the best way I can break it down. Inner Peace is Okay-Ness, it's feeling okay no matter what you face because life is filled with many challenges, sometimes like punches in bunches, other times few and far between, but still yet, we have to try to be okay through it all.