Birthday cards, holiday greetings, wedding wishes, and champagne toasts all send the same heartfelt messages of success, peace, and happiness for us.  Everyone, everywhere is seeking something that will make him or her feel fulfilled, loved, and valued.  When we get it, we’ll be happy.  And so we send our sentiments out into the universe hoping for the fulfillment of our desires.  We arrange our lives, and set up the conditions that will lead us to peace and joy.  We even get glimpses of it, so we know it exists, but we never linger for long in a wholesome state of mind.  Instead, we live with fear of losing our “good luck.”  We often have difficulty enjoying the present moment, and we direct our thoughts to the future.  We worry. 

     Consider your own thoughts.  Do they prevent you from discovering that place of peace and clarity that exists beneath your personal fears and habitual worries?  Many of us play the same tapes over and over in our heads that tell us we’re not smart enough, not attractive enough, or not rich enough.  Perhaps we’ve decided that our “failures” are not even our fault.  We blame other people or the unfair circumstance in our lives.  Some of us have even decided that God is punishing us.  What reason do you assign to your suffering?  What is the story of your life?

     You can gradually end your own suffering which is caused by your believed thoughts.  It begins to happen as you learn to live in the present moment, and you stop accepting your version of the story of your life.  We need to become aware of what we are constantly telling ourselves.  When we stop running from our emotional pain and discomfort, and learn to just be with it, we can objectively and without judgment observe the thoughts that create the uneasiness. 

     Consider this.  You cannot be in an emotional state of distress unless you have a thought connected to your suffering, or preceding your pain that tells you that you have the right to feel awful.   For example, you may look at your bank statement and tell yourself that at age forty you should have already accumulated a certain amount of money.  You begin to fear for your own financial security.  You blame yourself for procrastinating in the past, or for not being smart enough or ambitious enough to succeed.  The emotional suffering begins.  From where do these voices in your head come?  What makes your story true?  When you learn to not identify with your mind, you no longer believe in your thoughts.  Instead, you can practice simply watching them without judgment.  At moments like these, you may even find your thoughts to be entertaining rather than emotionally distressing.  You can’t feel angry unless you attach a thought to the feeling.  In the end, did your depression change anything?  You may say “yes.”  It pushed you to change your situation.  However, it was not your thoughts of failure that made any difference, but rather your actions.  No one needs to be depressed to take positive steps to change any of his or her circumstances in life. 

      Throughout history, the greatest spiritual leaders have wanted for us the same gifts of inner peace and contentment we wish for ourselves and for each other.  Additionally, their teaching of the path to freedom from emotional suffering is the same, and transcends all the religious dogmas and cultural beliefs that often separate us from each other.  It is the journey to our own center of being, and the liberation from the constant mind chatter that is the path to our peace and freedom.

     Through meditation, thought watching, and identification, each of us can begin to let go of the constant dialogue in our heads that result from conditioned and habitual thought patterns.  During meditation, we learn to sit and simply be with our bodies in the moment, accepting our experience with an open mind and a light heart.  W need not struggle to have no thoughts.  Conversely, we allow the thoughts to come and go, watching and labeling them with objectivity, free of judgment.  As you learn to watch you breath, you will find that you can finally breathe freely.  Often in time, you will reside for longer periods in the space of silence between thoughts.  There, you may connect with your inner being wherein lies a reality and truth few people ever know. 

      In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “American Scholar,” he tells us “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”  There are many books, DVDs, and courses available to you to help you to transform your world of worries and state of stress to a place of empowerment.  Learn to experience the freedom to express love for yourself, and in turn be able to love others.  Get the guidance and personal encouragement you need to live your life in peace with an open and light heart despite your life situation.