The Yin and Yang symbol teaches us that you can not define darkness without light. You can not define life without death. You can not define good without bad. There is a drop of darkness in light and there is a drop of light in darkness. These two polar opposites must exist to be able to bring richness and life to the other. To this effect, it is utterly important to recognize that you WILL have those days, months or seasons where things just don’t seem to be working in your favor. You will also have periods where you stop and wonder, “Am I dreaming? Is my life this great?”
While I like to argue that EVERYTHING is a good thing, during those moments of sadness, you won’t believe me. But, I want to teach you how to maintain peace during the darkest of moments.
How To Maintain Peace Through Any Circumstance
Understand that life is full of good days and bad. It is irrational to believe that you won’t have days of sadness, loss or grief. Once you accept that these emotions are just as valuable to your life as bliss then you will begin to really live.
Life is a continuum of experiences that flow in like waves. The waves never stop rolling and neither will your experiences, both sad and blissful. The acceptance of these waves of emotions is the first step to living a more peaceful life.
Peace is attained when you feel confident that where you are in life and who you are in life is just fine. In essence, you’ll think to yourself, “I’m feeling good about who I am right now.”
You can feel good about who you are in every moment by understanding that nothing is permanent, everything changes after a time. Those moments of grief MUST give way to other emotions. Those moments of bliss MUST give way to other experiences. Life is a constant stream of soft, soothing waves and rough, angry ones. When you can understand and accept that the rough waves will be followed by the soothing ones, you can maintain peace during the angry ones.
I often wonder why when we’re sad we feel like the feeling will last forever, but when we’re happy we almost never give ourselves permission to enjoy it because we fear the feeling will go away. If we can consciously expect the good feelings to go away, causing us to disrupt the enjoyment of the moment that proves that we can consciously interrupt the sad feelings when they surface as well.
There is a famous fable that illustrates the main principle of the Yin Yang Factor. The story tells us that a King asked his noblemen to create a ring that will make him happy when he is sad and vice versa. The noblemen gathered and came back with a ring that was inscribed with the words, “This too, shall pass.”
From then on, the King understood that nothing is permanent and even on his most glorious days when he felt unstoppable, at some point, his circumstances would change. Accepting this will help keep you from becoming overbearing when you are experiencing success and becoming overwhelmed when you are experiencing loss.
Nothing is permanent. Not your happiness, not your sadness, your success or your failures, your relationships, your jobs, your pain or even your life. Be willing to say goodbye to it all and let nothing define you.
In every given moment, “This too shall pass.” Remember it. Believe it. Be transformed by this unshakeable truth.