On Peace

You know it when you have it and suffer when it's lost. I lost my peace on Sunday and am slowly coming back to it. Quakers like to say that there is no "way to peace" that "peace is the way". I've been intentionally practicing the way of peace for two years, but sometimes the "dark side" (as in Star Wars) takes over.

And here it is, Monday morning. The house is peaceful. Elliot went back to school after being out sick last week. My husband is at work. There's a candle burning in my office and the house is clean. Perfectly peaceful. Except inside my head and heart.

Losing my cool makes me weak. I don't care for the experience no matter what conventional wisdom says about 'getting it all out'.
It's exhausting and depleting. Especially this habit I have of replaying the ugly scene, over and over in my mind. In the film clip, I am the monster.
The one who hurts and stabs her love with harsh words.

So now what? I could try to analyze the source, discover where it started, logically explain to myself and those around me why I blew up. I told our son that sometimes even Mommy has to battle the dark side and sometimes she loses. Before going to sleep last night, he said "I hope my prayer worked for you, Mom. I asked God to put angel wings over you to protect you from the dark side."
And this really made me feel better. In my failure to be loving, my son's faith grew. Through his simple prayer, mine did too.

Although it's a shame that we have to learn things through negative experiences, the incident was valuable. Elliot watched first hand the way my husband responded (he remained positive despite being my target). Then he witnessed, over the course of the day, my struggle...but ultimately my ability to soften my heart and return to my peaceful self.