First, my use of the word ‘missal’ in the title of this article must be properly understood! This is NOT to be confused with the word ‘missile,’ although I indeed used a bit of wordplay here. The word ‘missal’ is a set of prayers or devotions. The word missile is a projectile that gets launched, hurled, or thrown at a target. My idea here is that we can all become a set of devotions, prayers or positive beneficial energies that are directed first inwards to bring a deeper sense of peace and calm to our inner being. From there you are in a good place to also direct some of that peace and calm to places and people in the world that need it too. This article was written to help make you more effective at doing this.
Living in Unprecedented Times
We are without a doubt living in a time of unprecedented chaos, stress and confusion. The recent pandemic has added greatly to this, but it existed long before. It’s just that now you have myriads of governments running helter skelter in various states of stress, chaos and confusion all simultaneously. This adds considerably to the stress and fear that people experience around the virus.
Your Mind – Friend or Foe?
You must realize more deeply that your mind can be your worst enemy, or your best friend in this endeavor. The choice is actually yours. You are NOT at the whim of the external circumstances in your life or the world. Indeed it may seem this way a lot of the time, yet this is a myth you must be deeply dedicated to busting.
To bust this myth consider carefully what type of reality you’re asking to be part of your life experience when you allow your mind to think and believe that what you experience within yourself is due to something external to you. The implications in that type of thinking and belief are that what goes on inside of your mind, emotions and body are entirely subject to things outside of your own control.
Does it make any sense that we would have this amazing gift of life on Earth and yet be screwed no matter what we do unless we could control everything external to us? If your answer to that question is no, congratulations because the doors have swung wide open to a larger liberation and deeper state of inner peace and calm! However, if your answer to that question is yes, then this article will NOT be very likely to help you. Instead you’ll need to seek a professional to engage you with some deeper level work to try and help you change that belief and the thinking that goes along with it.
Taking Control of YOU
Now that you have confirmed you can be fully in control of your inner experience regardless of external circumstances, the next step is actually doing it! The way you do this is to learn to focus your mind on things that make you feel what you want to feel inside yourself, which for most people is going to be peace, calm, joy, happiness and so forth. There’s a little saying that goes, “where your attention goes, energy flows.”
Think about that for a moment. If you start focusing on something negative, dark, fearful, sad, traumatic and so forth, what happens? The answer is that you start to feel negative, dark, fearful, sad or traumatic. Conversely, if you start focusing on something peaceful, calm, loving, graceful, happy, joyful or embracing THAT is what you start to feel inside.
Becoming a Peace Seeking Missal
Therefore to become a ‘Peace Seeking Missal’ you need to take a little time to create your set of prayers, thoughts, affirmations, memories and other practices that you will then train yourself to stay focused on all the time as your own unique set of devotions. There is a skill to be developed here too. That skill is being able to maintain your focus on these things while you are doing other things on a practical level. I have a tip to share with you for this.
Your mind has a front channel and back channel. The front channel is where you’re generally focused on practical tasks at hand. The back channel is where all your negative inner talk and chatter takes place. All you have to do is replace the negative talk and chatter on that back channel with the personal missal of devotions you just created.
The easiest way to learn to do this is to come up with a short positive energy phrase of only a few words. It has to be simple to start. As an example, something like ‘I’m always OK and at peace.’ This actually falls into the category of an affirmation. These will work when you also strive to FEEL the essence of what you’re affirming. It’s extremely important to get your mind and feelings going the same direction to succeed with this. If your mind is going one direction and your feelings are going another, your feelings will win every time.
If that condition exists for you, do not see it as a battle otherwise you will create an inner battle or conflict where none really exists. Instead just talk gently to the feeling that is going negative while your mind is going positive. Ask it why it hurts or what it fears. You may be surprised what emerges! Invite it to join you in positive experiences. Let it know how much you appreciate, love and accept it. Thank it for communicating with you.
If you persist with that approach you will succeed in bringing that fragment of your emotional self back with you into a positive energy focus. Be patient with yourself though. If that part of your emotional self is really deeply wounded it may take awhile to earn it’s trust and help it heal. Don’t give up, when you succeed you’ll feel more wholeness inside yourself and that brings a great deal more inner peace and calm!
Islands of Peace and Calm
When you’ve achieved a deeper state of inner peace and calm yourself you can then become an island of that peace and calm in the world. You may be amazed how many people will simple sense it and seek you out. Some may ask you what you do to stay so calm with all that is going on. Others may just like to hang out near you. In the latter case, please know they do benefit even if you say nothing! Peace and calm can also go viral!