The Bigger Picture:I'll give you a definition for "peace of mind": the permanent eviction of the voices that run around in our heads telling us we're not good enough.
For centuries, religions have sought to give us guidelines for inner peace, but for me this is the bottom line: a head emptied of that noise which stirs up doubt, fear and insecurity in our minds; an end to the chatter that has become so familiar to us we can forget we once had a life without it.
We weren't born with self-doubt hijacking our minds. It isn't inherent to our nature.
Rather, our true character is hopeful and encouraging. We can look to children for our evidence: a child who has been met with criticism and harshness tends to become destructive, true, but not as the next immediate step.
First, there is usually shock and confusion, often followed by an attempt to fight back and rebel. Later, some learn to re-enact the harshness. However, a child met with love grows to be very loving - no confusion, no rebellion. This is a clue into our true nature.
If I asked you to take a moment and pay attention to the negative thoughts that run around in your head - identify the phrases and voices - would you recognise them? Do they sound familiar? Are they not phrases you've heard before?
You may even start to remember who told them to you and where you heard them first.
Whether you do or don't, someone did tell us these things, give us these messages and repeat these phrases to us over and over again - either verbally or with their actions - until we internalised them.
Much less than reflecting anything of our true nature, they arose from our environment - from those moments when our environment was unable to show us compassion, guide us wisely or offer emotional resource.
Rather than a reflection of our nature, these voices reflect our internalisation of someone else's fears.
Fear stalls us. It lacks courage and causes us to act in limited ways.
As a result, we take our own lives in directions that make us unhappy, tolerate discouragement and hopelessness, and all too often we stand back and witness injustice rather than intervene.
Underlying fear is a disconnection from our true power. In that instant of shock and alarm - that moment when we are overwhelmed and overpowered - we lose sight of how able we are.
If we never heal from the emotional experience, we start to believe we've lost our power, and so lack access to it in every situation. This is the point where it has charge of our life.
Any internalised struggle becomes ours and ours alone. We are completely responsible for it. This is no longer a struggle with something someone else has done to us, but a struggle occurring in our own mind and we are acting it out in our life.
Similarly, there is no longer anyone else who can eliminate it from our lives except us.
If we could choose just one goal to achieve in our life, I'd vote for the elimination of the voices in our heads.
But how do we fight a battle within our own mind? The answer lies in understanding their nature.
These voices persist only because we have given up on contradicting them. This is the battle we first lost when we internalised them. As a result, we currently even defend and protect them. Still, we are well able to take up this challenge again, now.
The way we fight them is by first ending their protection and second embracing other, nurturing ideas that better reflect our inherent nature.
This is a reminder of why diversity is so valuable.
Diversity of perspectives offers us a resource to draw on when we need to challenge some of our own limiting beliefs. It is no mistake that a regime attempting to enforce control over a group will first eliminate access to diverse perspectives. Isolation is key here, ensuring no challenging ideas can reach us.
On the other hand, listening to people who believe different things gives us an opportunity to experience new perspectives. We might find that some of them, even if initially unfamiliar, are helpful in our lives.
As long as we have negative, hurtful and limiting voices running around inside us, there is a clear need to change the regime controlling our minds. The fact remains, no matter how long we've held onto an idea - nurtured and invested in it - we can still change what we believe and do things differently from those around us.
One of the only rights we were born with is the one to decide conscientiously what makes sense for us. Bringing these choices to life in our lives sends a clear message to our minds and creates change.
Just as the voices first entered our heads through our experiences, so can our experiences change the voices.
Shalini Sinha works as a life coach for clients in Ireland and internationally, and practises the Bowen technique. www.shalinisinha.com