Louise Thompson: Why you don't feel inner peace

How do you find inner peace? Photo / Thinkstock

Here's a secret. Inner peace doesn't live at the day spa, it doesn't come in a goody bag from the massage therapist and it is not a colour on offer at the nail bar.

When what you are craving is time out at the spa away from everyone, and that would seem like the most delicious treat ever, then what you are craving is some time out to focus just on you. And you should absolutely do that, whether it be at the spa or a long walk solo in the bush. Whatever feels good. You need time to reconnect with yourself, and if that inner peace was with you all along just buried in busyness, you can reconnect with it in that space and time you have gifted to yourself.

But what if you were missing inner peace before you thought about the spa? Well, here's the thing about inner peace. It lives within, so it travels with us. If we don't have it on some level before we get to the spa, the sound of the chirpy birdsong and the smell of the massage oils is not going to magically create it. We are someone who is still sad or angry or hurt or whatever, just in a nicer-smelling room.

How do you get your inner peace on?

1. Be totally honest. With yourself. What do you really feel? What do you really need? What deep truth are you avoiding facing within yourself that is blocking you from feeling peaceful? You do know.

2. Tell the truth. Your actions match your words. You are in integrity with the person you really are. Your outer life is a reflection of who you truly are inside. You tell the truth even if it's hard or painful because a life of lies has no inner peace. If you are lying to yourself or others you cannot be peaceful.

The main reason people are unhappy and disconnected with their sense of inner peace is because they are either lying to themselves, or others (or both). Your soul knows when you are lying, and it blocks your connection to peace. However hard it may be facing up to the truth about yourself and your situation it is an essential and non-negotiable step on the route to inner peace.

3. Eliminate energy drains. All those niggling tasks and jobs that are left undone prey on your mind. Either accept they are not a priority and you are not going to be doing them and cross them off the to do list, or get them done or pay someone else to get them done.

4. Practice gratitude. Focus on what you do have, not on what you don't. Write a list every day of five things in your life you are grateful for. No repeats allowed so you stretch your gratitude muscle which reconnects you with the sense of peace and rightness with the world that is available to you.

5. Stop and smell the roses. Inner peace is very hard to connect with when you don't give it a chance to make itself known. Put the phone down. Connect
with a loved one or with nature, or even better a loved one in nature.

Inner peace whispers, it doesn't shout, so give it a little bit of quiet space to make itself known. In fact, the spa is the perfect place if you have covered the first four steps. It gives inner peace the space to rise to the surface.

Louise Thompson is a life coach, yoga teacher and corporate escapee. For more from Louise visit positivebalance.co.nz.