Dear Reader

Where is peace in today's world?

I am loving my reading of Substack posts. I find thoughts to come back to that change my perspective, that give me hope and peace I didn't know I needed.

One of these is from Quiet Wisdom. The author states:

I'm amazed that here, from the perspective of my 78 years, I can still be stopped in my tracks when I read a simple life hack like this one. All my life, it seems, I've been searching for clarity, for life to make sense, for the key to unlocking patterns learned in a dysfunctional past. Bit by bit, I've tried new ways of 'living', seen some breakthroughs - only to come up against another obstinate pattern or habit that steals my peace of mind.

All my adult life I've been searching for the key that will give me peace from past experiences that haunt me still. I'm starting to see that "life" happens. The sun comes up. The sun goes down. It's a rhythm that is constant. In a similar way, I can be happy, or sad. I can be well or not. I'm learning that it doesn't have to mean anything.

However, I've often been frustrated to hear: "It just is!" I'm not convinced that that's not a cop out. But maybe, just maybe, it is a true observation - about almost anything that happens in my life.

Maybe this Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and its debilitating effects "just is!" Maybe the effects don't come from my diet, my activities, or my sleep patterns. Maybe my body just has Hashimoto's. It just is the way of my body.

And maybe, just maybe, I will flow with that. When I go to sleep with plans for an eventful day, and wake up with aching bones and muscles for instance, I usually start bemoaning the fact that I can't do what I planned. What if instead, I just notice how I feel and say: "Well, this is just how it is!" and do what I planned anyway.

I actually did this on Sunday when we'd planned to walk around Hamilton Lake (Lake Rotoroa).

Sure, I felt pain. But I also enjoyed our walk around the lake, a drink and a muffin at the cafe, and then finishing our walk around the lake back to our car. A 4km walk, 20 min sit watching people enjoying the sunshine with their families, still feeling the aches and pains, but not giving them the awareness I would have had I stayed home!

I'm reminded of a doctor's advice years ago after complaining about my aches and pains. The conversation went something like this:

What she said and what I read in the Quiet Wisdom combine to give me clarity around my thinking and my expectations. Yes, I used that word "clarity"! That aha of understanding - not as used in the Quiet Wisdom thoughts.

I'm open to reading, and integrating, the wisdom of allowing that shift to occur, to stop demanding life explain itself to me. Certainly this openness was prompted from my last newsletter and my practicing #7 of the extract from The Health Today post, subtitled: You don’t age from living too long — you age from living disconnected from your own life. The author examined several practices of centenarians from Japan. This one is giving me the best sleep I've had in ages.

I'm learning that clarity isn't necessary for peace. Understanding rarely comes on demand. It might come years after the event. It might come earlier. Often the answers to questions we have don't come as a comprehensive answer.

One example is my years of seeking understanding around the death of my first husband. Why did he die? It was a terrible accident but his wounds were limited to a compound fracture of his leg. Why did he leave me and our two little daughters? My questions would fill a book - and they have never been answered. My pain took over 40 years to subside.

Life goes on, expanding around grief that stays the same. I've never understood why my first husband died. I do understand though that his death made me find ways to show love, at first for my daughters and then to set the parameters for a way of life that became bearable.

"Peace", an important aspect of living a good life, needs to be cultivated to let go of the need to know answers that may never arrive.

Here's to finding that peace that each of us, on our own individual level, needs!

With love,
Stephanie

Why I Write - for you and for me too.

Some stories come from lived experience, like navigating my son’s addiction and the long road of recovery. Others are shaped by imagination, like the cozy mystery I’m writing, set in a small café where trust is both tested and rebuilt. Some of my life stories still bring tears. Others make me smile. And many are filled with memories that warm my heart.

I write for anyone who’s ever carried a burden across generations, and for anyone who longs to heal forward.

My thoughts for Living Life in 2025 and beyond:

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"My religion is kindness"

Dalai Lama

“Cast your bread upon the waters and it will
come back - buttered”

Doris May Payne - my mother

"Life is a Daring Adventure or Nothing"

Helen Keller

“Write it on my heart that every day is
the best day of the year”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Remember that sometimes not getting
what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck"
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Dalai Lama

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave [person] is not [the one] who does not feel afraid, but [the one] who conquers that fear.”

Nelson Mandela

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www.StephanieHammondAuthor.com

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