Make Peace with Yourself
The COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed all activities. Everyone must be able to stay at home for a long time. As of March 20, I returned home due to campus lockdown, now I have been in Lampung for half a year and doing things differently than usual.
Everyone is complaining about this pandemic. Not being able to meet other friends is one of the lonely moments for most people. I think this is the perfect time to reflect.
At home, I found lots of old things that were still neatly tucked away in the cupboard. Starting from the archive of letters when I was in junior high school, senior high school photo albums, school uniforms, and my first diary. Seeing these items makes me remember the past. The things that I realized I had begun to forget because of the busyness of college.
About the motivation to take a major, about the struggle to be able to go to school outside the region, about bad events that have been experienced. Everything looks like a queue in front of me. They took turns coming to check whether I was able to take lessons or not.
Every event, I mark them with my initial impression when I remember them. It could be that all this time I’m just busy with my activities and haven’t been able to come to terms with the past.
“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some time ago, I attended a self-love class for sustainable relationships held by Sehat Jiwa. There, I understood the importance of making peace with myself so that all the wounds and pain I had ever felt could be completely dissolved as learning. One of the characteristics is to see how we react when we bring back the bad moment. If there are problems with other people, how do we react when the name is mentioned, whether it is sick, upset, angry, or normal. All that was done to accept everything that had happened to oneself. No matter how bad it is, we must accept it as a way to make peace with ourselves.
I have a moment that I want to share. I used to have bad memories with someone. At that time I was in junior high school. I was scared when I met her because she didn’t like me and even told other people to insult me. At that time, all I thought about was the pain. Until finally, I decided to continue my school outside the region so, I could be away from her. I didn’t dare to shake hands with her when Eid al-Fitr arrived. I was so scared and I felt I could not make peace with her. Only then did I know that it was called trauma. There was a pain that I was still buried for years afterward. That person doesn’t have the slightest ill will towards me. I realized everything when I was in college. It took more than 5 years to be able to convince myself that everything will be fine after all the people are also normal to me. Maybe in the past, I didn’t like me because I made a mistake that I couldn’t accept at the time.
You may have experienced the same thing. Fear of someone. It could be because you have received threats, pressure, bad words, even worse, such as physical attacks. All that remains in the mind and ends in trauma.
I started remembering that moment again and asked myself
“Can I accept it now?”
It was a long time ago but it could take a long time to reconcile. Right now I can breathe a sigh of relief because when her name is mentioned I can laugh and act normal. It feels like just yesterday, I felt angry and irritated when other people offended her.
Everyone must have their own bad experiences. Hopefully, you can make peace whatever happens and can take lessons from them.
As I said above, maybe one way to see whether we have come to terms with the incident or not is to see how we react when we start remembering it again. If we are still angry, upset, sad, and disappointed, it is a sign that we cannot make peace with them.
“If you are depressed you are living in the past if you are anxious you are living in the future, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.” — Lao Tzu
It turns out that making peace with yourself is very important to start loving yourself.
