Although it’s been a while since I made a journal entry, this week’s message could not have come at a more appropriate time. On the heel of the Lunar Eclipse we just experienced, I realize how restless I was and how helpless I seemed to be at the moment. The 26th verse of the Tao te Ching speaks of living more calmly. I understand that calmness is power, and it’s a state of being that I aspire to maintain. With anxiety, restlessness and depression being so commonplace these days, we find ourselves finding ways to maintain our calm through all the craziness happening in our inner and outer world. According to Laotzu, he said “to be restless is to lose one’s self-mastery.” Is self-mastery even a goal for people these days?

I think culturally and globally we’ve lost touch with our root and that’s playing out through the rise of mental health issues in our societies today. It’s ironic that I’ve come to find peace of mind in a place as hectic as New York City. But in a lot of ways it makes sense, because when you’re surrounded by chaos all the time, in order to survive you’re forced to find a place within yourself that is peaceful and harmonious - a safe haven within that one can retreat to.

I see a lot of people struggling with themselves, with the thoughts in their heads that they’d rather not have. The late author Wayne Dyer said, “You have a choice in every moment, so you can decide to be a host to God and carry around with you the calmness that is the Tao, or you can be a hostage to your ego, which insists that you can’t really help feeling disorderly when you’re in circumstances that resemble pandemonium.”

It is my prayer for you and I, that no matter what our external circumstance may be, that we always remember the calm, the stillness within each of us. That is our greatest power.

Ai-Creo