Seek peace first with your self.
You accomplish that by dealing with and resolving your inner conflicts. Face those inner conflicts rather than avoid them.
Mary, a young woman in-session over Whats App, said to me,
”Doc, i don’t know why I’m like this, can’t hold a relationship, can’t forgive, can’t control my drinking and raging outbursts. I tried to do good to my boyfriend, but he still left me for another woman.”
She is not alone. Countless individuals around the world have unresolved, unprocessed inner conflicts. They live their days in unending misery and desperation.
The result of lack of peace in themselves is a continuing trail of broken dreams, broken relationships, and brokenness in their hearts and lives.
In ”No Man is an Island,” Thomas Merton aptly explains:
“All men seek peace first of all with themselves. That is necessary, because we do not naturally find rest even in our own being. We have to learn to commune with ourselves before we can communicate with other men and with God. A man who is not at peace with himself necessarily projects his interior fighting into the society of those he lives with, and spreads a contagion of conflict all around him. Even when he tries to do good to others his efforts are hopeless, since he does not know how to do good to himself.”
In my clinical practice, the root of inner conflicts has always been a “staple” among those experiencing emotional breakdowns.
Much of their sufferings can be traceable to lingering, unresolved inner conflicts that remain unprocessed. It then produces conditions that lead to all sorts of mental, emotional, spiritual, and even physical pathology.
I’ve found that doctors or counselors will always tell people to do this or to do that to fix themselves. They rely mostly on externals for recovery, which can only go so far.
The truth is, real and lasting recovery is on the inside more than than the outside of the person.
Psychologist Dr. Karen Horney once said, ”Fortunately, analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.”
Seek peace first with your self. Know that there is one most effective way to achieve that.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (Jesus said in John 14:27)
drangelosubida.com
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Dr. Angelo Subida is a clinical psychotherapist, author, and speaker. He is author of books "Inner Healing," "Secrets Of Your Self," "Chess and Life," among others, blogs, and articles. He has appeared frequently as an expert on psychotherapy/life recovery issues on national television, radio broadcasts, print media, and webcasts, including GMA 7, TV 5, ABS CBN 2, Q-11, 700 Club, Radyo Veritas, Inquirer Radio, Smart Parenting Magazine, Business Mirror, among others, and has served as resident therapist/counselor for parents and kid-artists in the highly popular ABS-CBN 2 Voice Kids TV singing reality show. Dr. Subida is an eclectic, multidisciplinary therapist and originator of his own revolutionary high-tech, high-touch counseling plus model. His areas of specialization include parent-child therapy, clinical infidelity treatment, relationship/marital counseling, separation/divorce therapy, anger management, depression, addictions, psychotherapy-spirituality integration, and innovative chess therapy. For more of Dr. Subida, you can find him at www.drsubida.com.