Finding Inner Peace: A Personal Journey

How I have finally experienced inner peace.

It’s taken me a few tries to write this post. I will be vulnerable, which is always a bit scary. But I have been thinking other women may have similar struggles and so I thought I’d share my own journey in case it helps a friend or two.

I, like many women born after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, was raised to think that my self-worth and value was closely tied to output and performance. I wouldn’t say that it was a deliberate message but it was certainly an unspoken expectation. I needed to behave well, get excellent grades, get into university, get a degree or two, and start a kick ass career where I would make a lot of money and thereby gain status and worth. I didn’t necessarily disagree with the high standards that were set before me. We were a striving family and that’s positive, right? God made me reasonably smart and blessed me with dedicated parents who highly valued education, and so it was a good thing that they instilled in me the value of hard work and achievement.

At the same time, the wish to be a wife and mom was evident from the time I was a little girl. I dreamed of having 10 babies and I just knew I was going to be the best. mom. ever. I also had a very clear desire to stay home once the kids arrived. This was an early conversation I had with my serious boyfriend, now husband, and he was supportive of my vocation from the get go. We had a plan.

Fast forward ten years, and after a few challenging years of infertility and working at a job I really hated, our first son arrived. The intensity of love towards my new baby reinforced my decision to stay home with the little human who had stolen my heart so absolutely. So we said goodbye to my nice salary and hello to life as an SAHM.

I don’t have enough words or space to describe what the past two decades of family life have been like, but suffice to say it’s been incredible, surprising, humbling, challenging, hard, rewarding, and everything in between. Truly, there aren’t enough adjectives to describe the experience. And we’re still very much in the thick of it.

What I would like to share here though, is that even though God has blessed me with an abundant life — a wonderful husband, five kids, and economic stability so that I could homeschool full-time — in the back of my mind, I’ve always felt like a failure. At the risk of sounding like an ungrateful brat (which I am, a little bit), there has always been a voice inside my head constantly reminding me that I haven’t reached my potential. I’ve always had difficulty appreciating my role in the home because in my mind, any non-monetary contribution is not really a contribution.

Before I’m labeled a jerk, I would like to point out that I only really suffer from this delusional thinking when it comes to me. I have nothing but respect and admiration for all the SAHMs and I clearly see their irreplaceable role in their families and communities.

And so, to close the gap of success and justify my existence as a non-earning member of society, I endeavored to be the best at the mommy and homemaking game. My expectation of success was therefore transferred to my children’s success and how cleanly I kept my house (not very, much to my eternal frustration). While the house may not have suffered from my neuroticism, I’m afraid my children have. It’s taken me years to realize that my irritation at their “poor behavior” or “ok grades” stemmed from my fears of their future failure, which was, of course, my failure.

There are a couple of events in home life that have helped me tremendously with detaching my identity from my efforts and results, especially when it comes to my kids. The first is my oldest son turning 18. All of a sudden, there’s a young man in our house, one who is faithful, responsible, resourceful, helpful, and just a generally awesome human being. While I could claim credit for him, I think back to all those years when I sweated his upbringing and I worried unnecessarily. But somehow, by the grace of God, here he is – a man ready to embark on his next adventure with confidence. How did that happen? I don’t really know – there’s a mystery surrounding the transformation from boy to teen to man. His life is not my outcome or my doing, as if he was a project that I could control. I see that now.

Soft launching my oldest son has given me an epiphany about parenting – I don’t need to sweat the small (or even the big) stuff so much, because a lot of it is out of our control. As parents we can share the faith and provide love, stability and presence. The rest is in God’s hands.

The second event is the mental health struggles of one of our other kids. This is an ongoing journey filled with many difficulties but also with great opportunities for growth. Loving and supporting our child through this is teaching me, slowly and painfully, that I’m not to blame myself for his struggles. Sure, there may be things that we can try to help, but the current situation does not make me a bad mom, nor can I make it all better with just willing it or working harder on it, as much as I would like to. God has this child in His care too.

Parenting and family life have been amazing for my spiritual development, in the sense that it’s brought me down to my knees, begging the Lord for help and guidance. I’ve learned two great lessons that I’m carrying with me now, and which have brought me great consolation during the challenging times.

The first lesson is about my identity. My identity does not lie in how I live my vocation as a wife and mother, or in my accomplishments, or my talents. These are all good, but my identity lies with something that is unchangeable, unmerited and of limitless value. My identity lies in being a daughter of God. I have infinite worth because my Father in heaven loves me so much that He willed me into existence and has never left my side. This seems like a simple realization but it’s incredibly profound, and it has slowly taken away my desire to achieve in order to feel worthy.

The second lesson is this beautiful latin expression: Omnia in bonum. In English, it means “all things work together for good”, which is taken from Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”. No matter how challenging life gets, God is allowing things to happen, good and bad, for a greater purpose unknown to us. If we love Him, good will prevail. This short prayer has brought me an incredible amount of peace and consolation. It’s going to be ok.

Here are a few other things that have proven helpful in my ongoing search for inner peace:

• Praying the Litany of Humility: many are afraid to pray it lest they be humbled, but take a close look at the petitions and see how incredible it would be to be freed from all these desires and fears
• Asking the Holy Spirit to guide my thoughts, feeling and actions. I say this prayer as part of my morning routine and it centers me as I start my day
• Asking God for the wisdom to align my will to His
• Reading Fr. Jacques Phillippe’s book Interior Freedom. It’s short and powerful
• Reading Maria Simma’s book Souls Visit Me, which is an account of her personal revelations with the souls in purgatory. It has given me insight into God’s mindset and how we can get to heaven (hint: it’s not by how much we accomplish but by how much we love others)

I’m grateful to God for the gift of inner peace. The struggles continue, but if allow God to accompany us, then there is nothing to fear. Omnia in bonum.