by Stephanie B Bucklin, HHP
There was a time when I believed peace was something I would eventually find.
Maybe after I found the right relationship.
Maybe after I healed from my trauma.
Maybe after I had enough money.
Maybe after my body stopped hurting.
Maybe after life became easier.
I kept chasing peace as though it existed somewhere outside of me.
I don’t believe that anymore. Today, I understand that peace is not a destination. It is a practice. It is something I choose over and over again, sometimes hundreds of times in a single day.
Recently I read a post that said a woman who has found peace alone becomes incredibly selective about who she allows into her life. The message wasn’t really about relationships. It was about something much deeper. It was about protecting your inner world.
That resonated with me because I know what it cost to build mine. My peace wasn’t given to me. It wasn’t found in a meditation retreat or hidden inside another person’s love. It was built… through years of therapy, countless books, meditation, yoga, Reiki, prayer, mindfulness, difficult conversations, heartbreak, nervous system regulation, and learning how to sit compassionately with every version of myself.
It was built one choice at a time… One breath at a time… One thought at a time.
The Moment I Know I’ve Left My Peace
These days, I notice the signs much sooner. My thoughts begin racing. I disappear down internet rabbit holes, convinced I need one more answer before I can relax. I start trying to solve problems that don’t actually exist. Sometimes I begin biting the skin around my fingernails. By the time I’m doing that, I already know something important. My peace has quietly slipped away.
Years ago I might have judged myself for it, but now I simply notice. Awareness is enough to begin coming home.
Honoring What Is
One of the greatest gifts I’ve ever given myself is learning to separate reality from imagination. Our minds are incredible storytellers. They predict… They catastrophize… They replay conversations… They invent motives for other people’s behavior… They create entire futures that never happen.
For years I believed those stories. Today I ask a much simpler question: What is actually true right now? Not what I fear, or what I assume, or what my trauma remembers. What is true? That single question has prevented countless hours of unnecessary suffering.
As the Buddha taught: “The mind is everything. What you think you become.”
Mindfulness teaches us to return – not to our stories, but to the present moment, where life is actually unfolding.
The Voice That Lives Inside
Healing also changed the way I speak to myself. I didn’t realize how often I criticized myself until I began paying attention to my inner dialogue:
- “I should have known better.”
- “What’s wrong with me?”
- “I’m failing.”
Every harsh sentence became another wound. Eventually I realized something profound. If I would never speak that way to someone I love, why would I speak that way to myself?
Psychologist Dr. Kristin Neff, whose work has transformed our understanding of self-compassion, writes: “With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend.”
That simple practice changed everything.
Now my inner dialogue sounds different.
- “It’s okay.”
- “You’re safe.”
- “You’ll figure this out.”
- “You’ve handled difficult things before.”
Those aren’t empty affirmations. They’re reminders of truth.
I Don’t Feed the Spiral
One lesson took me years to learn. Not every thought deserves my attention. Sometimes the healthiest thing I can do is refuse the invitation:
- I don’t have to follow every anxious thought to its conclusion.
- I don’t have to prove my fears wrong.
- I don’t have to keep rehearsing worst-case scenarios.
I can simply notice them…and let them pass.
As mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us:”You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Peace isn’t found by controlling every thought. It’s found by changing our relationship with them.
Coming Back Home
People often ask what finally healed me. The honest answer is that nothing healed me overnight. It wasn’t one therapy session. Or one Reiki treatment. One meditation, or one self-help book. It was thousands of tiny moments where I chose something different. The power was realizing I had a choice:
- I chose to breathe instead of panic.
- I chose compassion instead of criticism.
- I chose reality instead of assumptions.
- I chose rest instead of proving.
- I chose boundaries instead of people-pleasing.
- I chose presence instead of perfection.
Every one of those choices strengthened a pathway back to myself.
As Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh beautifully said: “Peace is every step.”
Not the last step – every step.
Choosing Peace Again and Again
People sometimes mistake peace for the absence of problems. That isn’t my experience, because my body still experiences pain. I still have financial challenges. I still face uncertainty. I still have moments when my nervous system becomes activated.
The difference is that I no longer abandon myself inside those moments. Peace isn’t something life gives me. It’s something I practice.
Every racing thought becomes an invitation to return, every anxious habit becomes a reminder to breathe, and every difficult situation becomes another opportunity to ask: “What is true right now?” Then I come back to myself, again and again and again.
Perhaps that is what healing really is. Not becoming someone who never loses their peace, but becoming someone who knows the way home.
~S
A Gentle Invitation
If this message resonates with you, Holding Myself Through the Truth offers a compassionate, trauma-informed exploration of emotional healing, self-awareness, and rebuilding trust in yourself after life’s most difficult experiences.
And if you’re ready for guided support, my Unshakable Inner Peace program is designed to help you regulate your nervous system, quiet the inner critic, strengthen self-compassion, and develop practical daily habits that cultivate lasting emotional resilience.
You don’t have to become someone new to experience peace.
You simply have to keep coming home to the person you’ve always been.
I’d be honored to walk alongside you on that journey.
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