Peace is the New Default: My Story, Your Turn!

Peace is not the same as joy or excitement. These are emotions, and peace is a state of being. Imagine you are a kid, looking at the sky. The floating clouds you see are emotions, and the blue sky in the background is peace. Sometimes, when there are too many clouds or a dark cloud stays for too long, a kid might think that the sky is gone, but is it true? No. The sky is still there, but because the kid is not able to see it, he begins to believe that it doesn’t exist anymore, or he has to ‘find’ the sky somehow.

When it comes to peace, we (humans) react the same way (or a bit worse) and begin our quest of ‘finding’ peace. But it’s not something we need to find. All we have to do is remove the unnecessary clouds of trouble we’ve created, which keep us from seeing that peace is right in front of us, like the sky, and is our natural default state.

From what I have identified and experienced, there are 6 major clouds or challenges (find below a graphic I tried making around the same for no good reason). Also, I am by no means saying that this is the only way or the right way; all I’m saying is I tried a bunch of things, and the following stuff worked for me and did maximum healing in minimum time. So, you can try it if you want to, or else toss it in the trash.

Let’s gooo.

1. Emotional Constipation

This is the biggest challenge. We are emotionally constipated and just can’t let them out. But what do we do in constipation? We take laxatives. So, what is an emotional laxative? It is compulsive writing. Writing letters to the people (you don’t have to give it to them, just write & then burn) you couldn’t have important-honest-vulnerable-expressive conversations with. These people usually include your father, mother, son, daughter, ex-wife/husband/partner.

Emotional constipation (like usual constipation lol) develops over a period of time. It happens in moments like when you wanted to talk to your father but just couldn’t, when you opened up to your mom but she shut you off, when you tried building a connection with your children but it turned into a fight, when you wanted to tell your ex what was going on in your head but couldn’t. All these moments, stacked one over another, make you numb inside, and you begin to feel you can neither feel anything deeply anymore nor have the capacity to take on more emotions. Guess why? Because you are emotionally constipated.

Some people might argue that this is a futile exercise—what is the point of writing letters if the people they are written for are never going to read them? What difference will it make? It’s a waste of time, yada yada yada. I hear you. But just answer one question—when you take a dump, do you do it to make yourself feel better or to make the other person feel shitty? (duh!)

Moving on, compulsive writing is not only a good emotional laxative, but it also helps in improving articulation, especially emotional articulation. It helps you understand your emotions and yourself better. So, transfer the chaos from your head onto a piece of paper and burn it off. Do this over and over again until you feel truly empty & light inside, until you begin feeling something again and develop an emotional appetite. You will. Trust me.

This was level 1. To take it up a notch, instead of writing letters, meet the concerned stakeholders (yeah I know) in person and express. What’s the worst that can happen? Proactively initiate and indulge in hard conversations. Feel what is asking to be felt. Don’t run from it. Be courageous. Feel like a warrior, as if you are going to war—because you truly are. An emotional war.

A few days back, I read somewhere that healing feels so hard because it’s a constant battle between your inner child, who’s scared and just wants safety, your inner teenager, who’s angry and just wants justice, and your adult self, who is tired and just wants peace. So be gentle and patient with yourself.

Also, don’t think that if your pain lasted for two decades, your healing will also take 20 years. This is bullshit. If there was darkness in a room for 20 years, will it take 20 years to lighten that room? No. It will just take 20 seconds to light a bulb and dispel the decades-long darkness. I healed over 20 years of trauma in less than a year. You can too.

Another challenge, I feel, is the glorification of solitude. Solitude is a great teacher, but it is not the final destination. You did not come into this world to escape it. Yes, take time to work on yourself and isolate if you must. But eventually, you must return and engage with the world. I know some people may have disappointed you in the past, but you cannot have your wall up for the rest of your life. It is from being alone that we get to understand who we truly are, but once we do, we should engage with life via our most authentic selves. This is our offering to the world.

2. Distorted reality

Don’t cling to your trauma. Don’t romanticize your pain or tragedy. Don’t make it your identity. STOP. Stop repeating the negative story you keep telling yourself—that you are a sad, hurt, numb, or broken person, or that everyone will eventually leave, hurt, exploit, or abuse you. STOP. Just acknowledge whatever happened, accept that it happened TO you, but it IS not you, and then release it with grace. Don’t embody your tragedy. Don’t experience the pain twice. Stop right now. Go cold turkey.

I had major abandonment issues. For a large part of my life, I used to think that if I pushed people away before they could leave me, they wouldn’t have the chance to hurt me, and in doing so, I thought I was protecting my peace. I used to think that I was a very smart person, that I’ve cracked the code. I also built a defense mechanism so good that I made disgust my natural response to love (so smart, Meghna, wow!). Whenever someone tried to love me, I would get disgusted, thinking they were either stupid, shallow, or both. I believed they loved me only because they didn’t know enough about me, but once they came close and saw how damaged and dark everything was, they’d leave too.

Upon further self-examination, I found that I didn’t just have abandonment issues—I also had an ego problem. The mindset that others will eventually hurt me is an ‘ego’ problem. It comes from the subconscious arrogance that I am the ONLY person on the planet who does good for others or loves people selflessly, and everyone else is just trying to extract something from me and can’t be trusted. So I asked myself, if I can operate from pure intentions, then why can’t other people too? Now, I’m not asking you to become naive, trust everyone blindly, or go out on a solo trip to Rawalpindi, but you get the idea, right?

I fixed this problem by creating a new reality for myself, brick by brick, thought by thought. I flipped the playing ground and the root cause. Our mind needs a sample size of JUST one person to truly believe in something. So I did that. Tricked my brain and began giving it shreds of evidence of a reality that I’d like to live in too. Indulging in acts of kindness helps you structure your reality, a tangible proof that at least one kind person exists. So, by doing the right thing, you establish a reality that at least you exist, and thus by extension, more people like you might exist as well. This dispels doubt, establishes faith, and expands the arena of peace.

I also fixed the ‘adult friendship crisis’ with this approach. It is widely believed and tossed around that you can only ‘network’ and not make genuine new friends once you grow up. Bullshit. I made six new amazing friends in just the last two years (and I am not even an extrovert). I’m talking about great friendships, solid enough to travel with, pull all-nighters with, or go to concerts with. How did I do it? By creating a reality that at least one person still exists who doesn’t ‘network’ with people all the time and still takes an interest in people without any hidden agenda or business plan to slip in.

So I request you to consciously and actively cultivate healthy-functional-friendships with as many kind people as you can. Celebrate life with them. Travel and explore different cultures & landscapes with them. Be there for each other without any entitlement, control, or expectations. Experience life side by side. Build lots of such functional friendships—become that friend to someone too, restore your faith, rebuild your reality, and hence, your peace.

3. Discomfort with Mortality

The main source of pain and fear in our life is death: the fear that we or the people we love (parents, partners, siblings, children, close friends) will die. It’s a legit fear—very intense and very true. Apart from this, every other fear is more or less superficial. If you are under 27-28, you might not fully understand this yet, but after a point, this is the fear that primarily remains.

I was introduced to the concept of death and saw a lot of it up close, way before and more than an average person. I’ll give you a quick glimpse of what I’m talking about. If you’re too sensitive, skip this paragraph; if not, keep reading.

While growing up, I was very close to a cousin of mine. I was 12, and she was 27. I loved her very much, and then one random day, my Baba told me she was no more—we lost her to liver cirrhosis. I couldn’t understand. I thought she had a high fever, so I went to see her with my grandparents and saw her body blue and cold. I was still thinking she was sick and would go out for a scooty ride with me, tomorrow morning, when she’ll be better. It took me a day to understand that she would never talk to me again. I became numb for months. Then, a couple of years down the line, it was my Mausa Ji (uncle); we lost him to multiple organ failure (excessive liquor and smoking). I saw my first cousins (my age and younger) collapse in front of me. Then a colleague jumped into a river in Bhubaneswar in 2021 and took his life—someone I met literally one month before he did it.

In May 2022, it was my Baba—the man who raised me by himself in a small town. I was with him the night before in the railway hospital at CP, Delhi. The next day, I came back from the office, was leaving to be with him for the night, and then got to know he was no more. I just couldn’t process it. I was home alone and threw up out of anxiety, not knowing what the world would look like without him.

Then there’s a family story—my grandfather’s brother’s family, a family of 7. In June 2022, Amma passed away. Then, three months down the line, Baba (her husband) passed away from grief. The next year, Chachi and my cousin sister (one year younger than me) were coming to Delhi for some wedding shopping—they died in a car crash in May 2023. Two months later, Chachu passed away due to multiple organ failure (excessive liquor and smoking). Now, just my two cousin brothers are left. They are in 4th and 7th grade, respectively. So, a family of 7 came down to a family of 2 in less than two years. Last month, in August 2024, my childhood friend committed suicide. A little too much to process, isn’t it? It is. I know.

All these experiences were topped by another experience in Vipassana. When you’re made to sit in absolute silence, by yourself, for 10 days at a stretch, all your fears come to the surface. I realized on the 6th day that, like most people, mine too was the fear of death.

Story time. A couple of months before leaving for Vipassana, I was chit-chatting with a friend of mine—let’s call him Mr. Lionsage for this essay (mostly Lion, sometimes Sage, with a dash of reckless-toddler energy here and there). He was telling me about a time when he drove his car, in the middle of the night, back and forth from Dehradun to Rishikesh (mountain terrain), and he was so drunk that he didn’t even realize he forgot a friend who probably got down to pee or something on the highway. Then he went back to pick him up (drunk, in the mountains, at midnight). When he was narrating this tale, it made me equal parts terrified and furious. But then I forgot about it. Suddenly, on the 6th day of Vipassana, while meditating in the pagoda, this scene started playing in front of my eyes, all of a sudden, out of nowhere. Somehow, I knew, felt it in my bones, that something had happened to him—to the point that I felt I had lost him forever. It was a fear so strong and an emotion so powerful that it crumbled me. I thought I’d step out of the ashram and probably never be able to speak to him again. I cried my eyes and guts out in my room for an entire day. The what-ifs fucked my brain. And then, when I got my phone back on the 10th day, I called my family and messaged him.

Surprisingly, my intuition was right (I still don’t know how!). He did have an urgent chest operation on that very same day but, thankfully, was alright. When I got to know about this, I broke down again—this time out of gratitude. This moment changed something within me on a very fundamental level. All my attachments to him and everyone else I love—my parents, my brother, my Amma, my cousins, my friends—dissolved. They just dissolved at that very moment. It was the most powerful moment of my life, it was my tipping point. 

Since then, I’ve just been celebrating the fact that everyone I love is alive, and I can call them, and they’ll pick up the phone, and I can hear their voice. That’s it. I don’t want or need anything else from anyone anymore. I just want everyone I love to be happy and healthy, wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, with whomever. This liberated me.

These repeated experiential realizations—that we are mortals, and death isn’t something that happens to other people on the news; it can be someone I love, anytime, any day—this realization, instead of inducing fear, dissolved all my emotional attachments with all the people I love and truly liberated me. I started loving everyone without wanting anything in return, with zero expectations. I finally understood what it meant to love without attachment and realized that it is the only form of love there is. Because whenever there is attachment, there is a need. And when there is need, there can’t be selflessness. Sooner or later, more or less, it becomes transactional.

Now, I am not saying be happy all the time; this is not what we are aiming for. This, in fact, is a problem. It’s called happiness numbness—that you don’t feel any emotion other than happiness. The goal is to feel all the emotions but not get attached to any of them. So, when you feel sad, feel that emotion fully, and say that you ‘feel’ sad, not that you ‘are’ sad. This creates a little healthy distance between you and the emotion you’re feeling. This distance is VERY important. Learn to observe the observer; it makes processing easier. Emotions are fleeting, like clouds, but ‘you,’ the one observing yourself experiencing these emotions, is eternal, like the sky.

The goal is to become like a pipe, not a sponge. Let life and all the emotions flow through you—grief, joy, pain, lust, anger, jealousy, pleasure. Don’t try to hold on to or push away any emotion. Feel what demands to be felt and let it flow through you. Don’t create resistance. Detachment is not about staying away from people, not feeling emotions, renouncing everything, or becoming a monk; it’s about staying deeply involved in life and relationships BUT with the only intention of observing and being of service.

Prayer helps too, quite a lot. Now, I don’t want to get into the relevance of the religion debate here; I’m not interested in knowing what religion you follow, if you do at all. All I’m saying is that the idea that someone, somewhere, more powerful than you exists is very humbling. Believing in God (or a higher power) keeps you from developing the God complex yourself.

The fact that we enter this world without our will and leave this world without our will should be reason enough to make us humble and submit to the higher intelligence of the universe. If not submit, then at least respect and acknowledge the complexity of the human body, mind, and soul, and be grateful to the universe that it is working properly and letting you experience this life.

So live fiercely and more freely—not because there is nothing to lose, but because everything can always be lost, anytime.

4. Outcome Centric Mindset

Our focus in life should be JUST on input maximization. Maximize the love, effort, and hard work you put into your professional work or personal relationships, then trust the process and become output blind. Monitoring the output only induces anxiety and nothing else, especially when you’ve already maximized your input; now you can’t do anything more about it anyway. So just let it be and proceed to the next thing or project. 

We usually mistake not being attached for being emotionally numb, indifferent, or cold, but this is far from the truth. True detachment is about MAXIMISING INVOLVEMENT with life while minimizing attachment to the outcomes of processes and relationships. (Think about it, chew on it & reach out to me if you wanna chit-chat about it more! )

5. Lack of Curiosity

Peace in my life dropped when my curiosity in life dropped. We gotta stay non-invasive but curious. Curiosity heals. Stay curious. If someone uses a term you don’t know, Google it immediately and read about it a bit. If you find it interesting, read more at night or watch a video. Curiosity expands your worldview and helps establish your confidence, which further pours into peace.

Replace judgment with curiosity whenever and wherever you can. If someone does not sound, look, or behave like you, instead of judging them, become curious about them. Keep digging with your shovel of ‘why.’

Stay curious about the world and the people around you. Visualize yourself as just a pair of eyes floating in the air. Drop the body. Observe everything with curiosity. Travel the world with curiosity. What are people 4,500 km from here doing, wearing, eating, and why? What is the architecture across the globe, and why did they make it like that? Don’t go to malls in different countries. Try to experience as many cultural shocks as you can (don’t go to war zones, don’t take it too extreme, but you get the point, right?). Eat different types of food; eat what is available in that country exclusively; don’t eat what you eat at home everywhere; don’t look for familiarity all the time. Challenge, even your tastebuds.

Stay curious about yourself too. Whenever you feel it’s necessary, ask yourself, Why am I feeling like this? What is this emotion? Where did it come from? What is this craving? Why do I feel like slapping him/her right now? Why do I keep pushing this particular task away? What is making me angry and irritated? But don’t overdo it either. For starters, keep it limited to strong emotions, then move on to subtler ones. Manage your reactions, but do not suppress your emotions.

6. I’m too important, Syndrome. 

We, the people, after years of conditioning, start to believe that we are the titles given to us by society or some random governing body established 50-60 years ago. This breeds the arrogance of “I am a CEO/Father/IAS/IPS/Scientist/Officer/Millionaire; everyone should talk to me in a certain way, treat me in a certain way. I am such an important person, I can’t be seen enjoying life.” Calm down a bit.

Don’t take yourself so seriously. You’re not as invincible as you think you are. Nobody is. Can you guarantee me that you’ll be alive tomorrow? No, nobody can. So relax a bit. You are not your title; you are just another soul in a fragile body. That’s it. Stay in touch with your fragility and be grateful. If you have worked hard and earned these titles, great! Then use them to be of service to society; don’t get caged by them.

Take conscious decisions to enjoy life. Groove when you listen to music. If there’s a function in the family, go ahead and dance a bit with your people, even if you’re terrible at dancing. It’s not a dance competition; no one is getting a medal. In fact, make it a habit of grooving every day for 10-15 minutes (here’s my Punjabi, English, & Old Hindi playlist if you want). Dance every day like you brush your teeth or take a shower every day. I’m not asking you to become Birju Maharaj or something—no need to go extreme—just groove a little, let the happy vibrations flow through your body. Don’t be so uptight. Don’t think, “I am so-and-so, nobody shall see me groove. What will my family think?” What will they think? Nothing. At most, they’ll think that you are enjoying yourself and are happy. So dance every day, make it a part of your routine, and normalize it.

Be silly; laugh your heart out when you find something funny. People who laugh their hearts out are my favorite people. It shows they are prioritizing having fun and being free over how they are perceived. I’ve seen people ‘laugh from their designations’; don’t do it. Laugh your heart out when you find something funny, the world will adjust, its not your problem; you just focus on having fun. 

When you grow old, do you want to look back and say, “Oh, I cribbed about everything. I never let anyone get close because I was too scared to get hurt. I didn’t engage in any activity other than the ones that made money. I only did things that had maximum utility.” No, right? Change that TODAY! Push back inhibitions, minimize resistance. The more you truly allow yourself to experience joy and life, the deeper your state of peace will be.

You are a soul. You were a soul; you will become a soul again. But as a human, you are given this body to experience life with. Why waste this opportunity by withdrawing and shying away from experiencing life to the maximum?

I am not asking you to become a hedonist and surrender all the work and responsibility. No. Stay dedicated to your purpose, do your job with utmost honesty and hard work, but place equal emphasis on having fun. You will always have problems. Learn to enjoy life while still solving them.

Conclusion 

A healthy emotional state is like a sine wave, where peace always stays like the X-axis—the thickest line—and a wave of unattached emotions flows over it. So even if you ‘feel’ hurt or angry, you are at peace. Even if you ‘feel’ excited and joyful, you are at peace. Your emotions are not you; you are just experiencing them. Peace is your natural default state. Peace stays, no matter what emotion is dominating or playing in the playground at the moment. I made a diagram to explain it better; have a look.

So go ahead and fill your mind with truth, heart with love, and life with service.

And there will be peace.

As a natural by-product. 

🤍

Love,

M.Dhariwal