I want peace.

I've been asking the universe for peace lately.

Be careful what you ask for…

Peace isn't something that is all-of-a-sudden gifted to us. No. We have to work for it! It's something we need to cultivate within ourselves. So, how better to cultivate peace, than by experiencing chaos? Yes, apparently that is the way it works—at least for me.

The universe has been responding to my request for peace by presenting chaotic experiences that help cultivate peace within myself.

That can be really discouraging… I ask for peace, and what I get is more chaos, because when I can sit peacefully through the chaos I will have learned how to experience a peaceful life. Chaos helps me cultivate peace. Ugh…

For a while I didn't realize this, and was pulling my hair out wondering what I was asking for that kept resulting in chaos. I didn't feel like I was asking for chaos—but in this way, I was.

This dawned on me over the weekend. I attended a Reiki III Advanced Practitioner class, and during the attunement there was SO MUCH noise! Car alarms (many of them), chainsaws, barking dogs, people screaming, idling engines… you name it—all within a 10–15 minute span of time.

All this noise was not here prior to sitting down for the attunement, nor after it. During, I noticed my resistance to it, and then all at once realized it was insane, and let go of the resistance and just laughed about it. I realized that the amount of chaos that was happening all around me was there in order for me to cultivate peace during the attunement. It was such an extreme situation where a crazy amount of chaos was presented all around me—chaos that I wouldn't take personal—in order to help me realize what exactly was going on. The universe/my guides/Spirit/God… whatever you want to call it, made it SO obvious that I couldn't miss it. I'm grateful.

Now that I can see that the chaos has a purpose, and is necessary for me to reach my goal of having peace, I can hopefully have less resistance to it. The key is to not take the chaos personally, and allow the insanity of it all to simply roll by without getting stuck to it.

Today was another test of that. Today I learned what happens when I take the chaos personally. It's not as funny. Another lesson learned. I'm grateful for this one too.

Next time will be better.