‹ Back

When people say they want “peace of mind,” we usually understand it to mean calm, serenity, or freedom from worry, but perhaps peace of mind can be understood differently.

Perhaps the peace is not necessarily about removing the chaos. Perhaps it is about creating a peaceful space around it.

When life becomes overwhelming, problems can begin to occupy every corner of our thinking. One difficulty leads to another, emotions intensify, and suddenly the situation feels larger than it actually is because there is no psychological space between us and the problem.

Sometimes, what we need is not for the chaos to disappear, but for it to be contained.

We create a boundary around the situation, giving it a defined space in our minds and our lives, while protecting everything outside that space from being consumed by it.

This is not necessarily avoidance. Avoidance attempts to escape the problem. Compartmentalisation allows us to acknowledge the problem without allowing it to control everything else.

Perhaps peace of mind is therefore not the absence of disturbance.

Perhaps “piece” of mind is creating enough peace around the disturbance to give yourself the space to think, breathe, and deal with what is happening without allowing the chaos to become everything.