The simplest way to inner peace is to walk away from things and people that imprison you, trouble you, anger you and tempt you.
It doesn’t mean that you abdicate your stand or your responsibility of those things or people or relationships. It only means you don’t react. Instead seek time to think through the situation and act on it calmly.
Consider what can possibly be imprisoning you. Your fears, insecurities, anxieties are all the metaphorical shackles that keep you nailed to the ground. Or you could be feeling suffocated in a relationship. You want to break free but are still suffering in it, cooking in it, for social or familial reasons. Because you are not free, and are a prisoner of your own thoughts, you are in despair. You are troubled. Continuously being in an agitated state can eventually cause you to explode. Initially your tolerance levels are higher. But over a period of time you become a victim of your own reactions. You are angry first. But soon you are angry that you lost your cool; you are angry with yourself. Then you start pitying yourself and get into that ruinous depressive spiral.
Your suffering can also come from your temptations, your desires. From eating an extra piece of a Black Forest to having that smoke to compulsively wanting to control, everything is a temptation that you find hard to resist. When you are controlled by your desires, you are but a slave of your mind.
To be free, to be the Master of your mind, and therefore of your Life, you must first walk away. Don’t think. Just walk away. From an argument, from a bar, from your desire to light up, from irrational behavior that provokes you, from people that make you feel sick and negative. Walk away and ask yourself what will be lost if you don’t succumb, if you don’t indulge, if you don’t get involved. Almost always, the answer will be that nothing will be lost. Though the mind would have been tempting you, creating often a sense of urgency, that without your immediate involvement, Life will go out of control. Greet that mind game by a physical response: walk away! Almost instantaneously, you will discover that you are at peace with and in the moment.
Just this awareness that your walking away is not going to bring the world to an end, is empowering. Once you experience this awareness, you will want more. Walking away does not mean running away – it is not an act of cowardice. If anything, it is an act of courage. By walking away, you are demonstrating to yourself that you are the Master, you are in control, not your mind. Try it on anything that is troubling you or holding you in its vice-like grip (a habit, an emotion or even a relationship perhaps). Try it on your fears or on your compulsive urge to get angry. Or try it on your inability to resist ruinous temptations. For once, just walk away. You will find that you are peaceful in a nano-second. And then, like Oliver Twist, you will want some more – and more!