The Mountain Is You

WHY CAN’T PEOPLE FIND THEIR INNER PEACE EASILY?
The answer is that they can; most people just aren’t in-
structed on how to. But beyond that, most people are 
actually too scared to go into their own feeling states, be-
cause their inner child is too traumatized.
Everyone has an “inner child”; it is the part of you that is 
most innocent and pure, and it never goes away.
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Over 
time, it is your responsibility for you to learn how to parent 
this inner child, who will honestly be the one to push you 
away from your inner peace. They will be the one to throw 
a tantrum and tell you that everything is falling apart and 
that you’re going to die and that you should just give up.
In the same way that you wouldn’t let a child run your 
waking life now, you can’t always believe what your inner 
child is afraid of. You can, however, learn to work with 
them, heal them, and make them feel safe...in the way any 
good parent would.
Stephen Diamond explains it like this: “To begin with, 
the inner child is real. Not literally. Nor physically. But 
figuratively, metaphorically real. It is, like complexes in 
general, a psychological or phenomenological reality, and 

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an extraordinarily powerful one at that.” He argues that 
mental disorders and destructive behavior patterns are 
usually more or less related to unconscious parts of our-
selves and were most often adopted in early life.
F I N D I N G Y O U R O W N P E A C E 
Finding inner peace isn’t always so much about just sitting 
in the lotus position until wisdom becomes you; it’s about 
making the uncomfortable decision to stay with your dis-
comfort and to choose differently.
As Gail Brenner explains: “The inner war is perpetuated 
by resistance—that is, not wanting to feel the way we feel, 
not wanting people to do what they are doing, not want-
ing events to occur as they are occurring. Resistance wants 
to rewrite our personal histories and ensure that our plans 
materialize.” She argues that inner peace is the only kind 
that exists because nothing else is in our control.
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Another really amazing way to find your inner peace is to 
constantly remind yourself that your worries are a fabrica-
tion of your mind’s need to identify potential threats for 
survival, and true happiness is being here in the moment. 
If that’s hard to believe, make a list of the following:
• 
Everything you have intensely worried about in your 
life. Go back as many years as you can, and be as 
detailed as you can.

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• 
Every difficult situation you swore you would never 
get through or never get over.
• 
Every time you have genuinely felt happy and at peace.
Guaranteed, your responses to the first will bring a smile 
to your face in that they will remind you that you have 
worried constantly in your life, and yet they were mostly 
unfounded. 
Your response to the second will also be relieving, because 
it will show you just how much pain you thought was in-
surmountable in your life and how, in retrospect, you don’t 
really ever think about those things anymore. 
Finally, your answers to the last question will remind you 
that your happiness has never come from things being 
perfect on the outside, but from you being present and 
open and connected to yourself and to the moment.
D E TA C H I N G F R O M W O R R Y I N G 
In the same way that it’s easy to become addicted to sub-
stances or behaviors that allow us to avoid the present 
moment, worrying is chief among the coping mechanisms 
people use to distract themselves from what really matters.
Over time, you convince yourself that worrying equals 
being safe. You think that by running worst-case scenarios 

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through your head again and again, you will be better pre-
pared for them. This is completely false. Not only are you 
draining your energy imagining situations that are very 
often completely manufactured, but when you are already 
hypersensitive to any one of these fears or ideas, you will 
actually create those circumstances simply out of your 
avoidance or over-responsiveness to them.
You have to remember that among all the things to know 
about the “monkey mind,” your head wants to constantly 
seek out situations and experiences that will affirm itself. 
If you believe something will be good, it will be. It might 
not look exactly how you imagined, but the outcome will 
be exactly what you expect.
Finding your inner peace is just connecting to your 
deepest wisdom. It’s not something you have to create, 
justify, imagine, or reach for. It’s always within you, it’s 
always an option, and it’s constantly a choice. You just 
have to make it.
R E M E M B E R I N G T H AT Y O U R F E E L I N G S
A R E N O T A LWAY S FA C T S
The most challenging part of all of this is arriving at a 
place where you can discern between which feelings are 
instinctive and informative and which are rooted in fear 
and ego.

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In a world that constantly tells you that your gut knows 
everything and that your feelings are real, and that if you 
reach in deep enough, you’ll uncover a well of wisdom that 
can guide you... it can be really easy to assume that every 
feeling and idea we have is not only real but is somehow 
forecasting what’s going to happen in the future.
Your feelings aren’t predictions. They are not fortune-tell-
ing mechanisms. They are only reflecting back to you what 
your current state of mind is. It’s like having a nightmare: 
The monsters aren’t real, but they could be metaphors for 
something you’re worried about in your waking life.
What holds so many people back from finding their inner 
peace is the fact that they can’t tell the difference between 
which is correct: their fear or their peaceful feeling.
Remember this: The feeling of peace is the one telling you 
the truth.
Your feelings aren’t here to tell you what’s going to hap-
pen. They’re only here to inform you of where you are 
energetically and mentally and how you should respond 
to what happens around you. Fear is trying to scare you 
into staying small and keeping safe. It is a mortal, limited 
thing. The feeling of peace is trying to remind you that 
everything will be okay because it always is...and always 
will be, no matter what. 

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B E C O M I N G M E N TA L LY S T R O N G
No matter who you are or what your purpose is in life, 
mental strength is going to be a key component in en-
suring that you actualize all of the potential latent with-
in you.
Mental strength is not a fixed trait. It’s not something we 
inherently have or don’t. Ironically, it’s not necessarily eas-
ier to have if you aren’t faced with many challenges in life. 
In fact, it is often people who are in the most difficult cir-
cumstances that are forced to develop the highest degrees 
of mental strength.
Being mentally strong is a process, and it is a practice. 
This is where you can begin.