I was once the type of person who labelled themselves a grump. I spent so many days feeling angry or irritated that I believed these emotions were part of my persona. The moments of anger felt so powerful, that I believed it was easier to admit defeat and succumb to the negatives than it was to try and “battle” them.

After years spent trying to control my emotions, or stop them from surfacing all together, I raised the white flag. I relinquished control of my life and handed it over to my emotions. It took a lot of time and self-realization to learn that my inner battles were exactly what was stopping me from achieving the peace I was searching for.

The age old advice to simply “let go” seemed so ineffective to me because that’s exactly what I thought I was doing. So, if fighting for control wasn’t working for me, and letting go showed no signs of peace either, what was I left to do?

Acknowledgement. This has been the most beneficial part of my journey.

Say I wake up one morning and I’m still a little tired. I go to pour a cup of coffee but spill it all over the floor. I could let my initial feelings of anger take over. I could curse, throw my mug and decide that life is a jerk who doesn’t want me to have coffee that morning. I’d probably go about the rest of my day with a sour taste in my mouth, taking every other inconvenience as a personal attack from the universe. Or, I could take a few deep breaths and sit with that anger. Instead of trying to stop it from appearing, or letting it take over, I acknowledge that I feel angry. I take a few deep breaths and count to ten and by the end of that count, I might realize that dropping the cup was a simple slip of the hand, not the universe pitting itself against me. While I can’t control the anger I already feel, I don’t need to hold on to it any longer. It’s just a cup of coffee.

Of course, there will be moments in life that are more serious than spilt coffee. There will be times when emotion comes like a huge wave ready to knock you down. There will be times when you need longer to process your emotions. You can’t stop the wave from coming but you can learn how to ride it. If you start with the small things, if you learn to acknowledge your emotions in those smaller moments, eventually you can acknowledge them during the bigger moments.

We often believe that peace comes easily for the peaceful. But it takes work, it takes sitting through the discomfort to find comfort.