We’re nine months into a world-wide pandemic. We’re four months into social unrest in the United States. In such turbulent times, it may be difficult to imagine how anyone could find peace. After all,  peace is defined as freedom from disturbance; tranquility. When the world is full of disturbances, how can we be free from them? The answer is easy. You can’t find peace externally. You can only find freedom from disturbance internally.

As the late author Wayne W. Dyer puts it, and I wholeheartedly agree: “Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.”

Can you alone contain and end the pandemic? Can you change the laws (or the lack of laws)? Can you stop protests from turning violent? Can you alone determine the outcome of the impending election? The answer to these questions is … no. Now, I don’t mean to suggest you shouldn’t take steps within your own power to help facilitate change. There are certain things within our control. We can wear a mask. We can be peaceful protesters. We can speak with our house representatives and senators. We can vote. We can start and continue to advocate change. And we can do these things while maintaining peace within ourselves.

The world will never exist the way we think it should. There are about 7.8 billion people inhabiting this planet. They probably have nearly 7.8 billion different ideas about how it should be. There is no way we can all have our own way. But we can create peace by accepting and processing life the way it is, by being peaceful humans and encouraging serenity with one another. We don’t have to agree on everything to share our grace with one another.

Life might not always be as tumultuous as it’s been recently, but it’ll always have an element of madness. We can’t control the people and the situations that surround us. But we can control ourselves. We can learn to process and accept the life we’ve been fortunate enough to live. We can hold onto the people or situations that increase our feelings of tranquility. And we can let go of those that quash it.

Peace can’t be unearthed. Peace is anywhere you are once you’ve learned it.