op strength to see you through adversity, plus understanding of purpose for inner peace.

3. Practice gratitude for everything in your life. Even the things you don't like are here for your learning and growth. Gratitude leads to inner peace.

4. Look for the good. Look for the good in yourself and in everything and everyone around you. A warm glow of peace will fill you when see the good.

5. Promote peace in yourself. Choose to stay calm in the face of challenges.

6. Love yourself. Self-compassion and self-nurturing creating a foundation of inner safety in which it's easier

How can one achieve inner peace? -- from Atta Yaw, Tamale, Ghana, West Africa

Inner peace is a choice. As I see it, based on many years of study and practice, creating inner peace is a choice. It's the opposite of choosing to remain overwhelmed by stress. I certainly still have to practice making that choice, even after 30 years of meditating, doing spiritual exercises and working diligently with psychological and practical approaches to improve my ability to maintain my peace.

Your straightforward question allowed me to reflect and pull together thirteen keys that I work with over and over, with clients and with myself. How to work with these tips. Here is a way you can work with these ideas immediately. Print out this list and put it where you can see it often. If you just read the list and say, "That's nice, these are great tips," nothing will change in your experience. So give yourself the gift of doing one of these tips each month for the next year or so.

Pick one of these suggestions and think about how you can put it to work in your life. Take a few minutes to reflect, or choose one at random, or choose the one that leaps off the page for you.

Do it. Whatever you choose as your inner peace focus, take time daily for the next month to do at least one thing based on that item. Put a star on your calendar each day when you complete your practice! If you miss a day, start over! Be true to yourself and complete a whole month, because it takes a solid month of daily practice to develop a good new habit. The following month, decide whether to continue with the same item or choose another one. For instance, do you need to learn meditation? Get a book or find an article on-line and sit down daily to practice meditating. Even five or ten minutes will pay off if you do it daily.

Do you need to focus on what is good in yourself? Get your notebook and list five good things about yourself every night at bedtime. Do you need to remember your divine essence is peace? You could close your eyes and affirm, "I am peace," or "I am at peace, resting in the center of my being." Repeat it gently until you feel it, for a few minutes each day.

Be creative and have fun with this, and let me know your results! Thirteen Tips for Creating Inner Peace

1. Meditate or do spiritual exercises. This will give you a reference point for inner peace that will eventually spill over into your daily life.

2. Practice your faith consistently. You'll develop strength to see you through adversity, plus understanding of purpose for inner peace.

3. Practice gratitude for everything in your life. Even the things you don't like are here for your learning and growth. Gratitude leads to inner peace.

4. Look for the good. Look for the good in yourself and in everything and everyone around you. A warm glow of peace will fill you when see the good.

5. Promote peace in yourself. Choose to stay calm in the face of challenges.

6. Love yourself. Self-compassion and self-nurturing creating a foundation of inner safety in which it's easier

lf. How to work with these tips. Here is a way you can work with these ideas immediately. Print out this list and put it where you can see it often. If you just read the list and say, "That's nice, these are great tips," nothing will change in your experience. So give yourself the gift of doing one of these tips each month for the next year or so.

Pick one of these suggestions and think about how you can put it to work in your life. Take a few minutes to reflect, or choose one at random, or choose the one that leaps off the page for you.

Do it. Whatever you choose as your inner peace focus, take time daily for the next month to do at least one thing based on that item. Put a star on your calendar each day when you complete your practice! If you miss a day, start over! Be true to yourself and complete a whole month, because it takes a solid month of daily practice to develop a good new habit. The following month, decide whether to continue with the same item or choose another one. For instance, do you need to learn meditation? Get a book or find an article on-line and sit down daily to practice meditating. Even five or ten minutes will pay off if you do it daily.

Do you need to focus on what is good in yourself? Get your notebook and list five good things about yourself every night at bedtime. Do you need to remember your divine essence is peace? You could close your eyes and affirm, "I am peace," or "I am at peace, resting in the center of my being." Repeat it gently until you feel it, for a few minutes each day.

Be creative and have fun with this, and let me know your results! Thirteen Tips for Creating Inner Peace

1. Meditate or do spiritual exercises. This will give you a reference point for inner peace that will eventually spill over into your daily life.

2. Practice your faith consistently. You'll develop strength to see you through adversity, plus understanding of purpose for inner peace.

3. Practice gratitude for everything in your life. Even the things you don't like are here for your learning and growth. Gratitude leads to inner peace.

4. Look for the good. Look for the good in yourself and in everything and everyone around you. A warm glow of peace will fill you when see the good.

5. Promote peace in yourself. Choose to stay calm in the face of challenges.

6. Love yourself. Self-compassion and self-nurturing creating a foundation of inner safety in which it's easier

ake time daily for the next month to do at least one thing based on that item. Put a star on your calendar each day when you complete your practice! If you miss a day, start over! Be true to yourself and complete a whole month, because it takes a solid month of daily practice to develop a good new habit. The following month, decide whether to continue with the same item or choose another one. For instance, do you need to learn meditation? Get a book or find an article on-line and sit down daily to practice meditating. Even five or ten minutes will pay off if you do it daily.

Do you need to focus on what is good in yourself? Get your notebook and list five good things about yourself every night at bedtime. Do you need to remember your divine essence is peace? You could close your eyes and affirm, "I am peace," or "I am at peace, resting in the center of my being." Repeat it gently until you feel it, for a few minutes each day.

Be creative and have fun with this, and let me know your results! Thirteen Tips for Creating Inner Peace

1. Meditate or do spiritual exercises. This will give you a reference point for inner peace that will eventually spill over into your daily life.

2. Practice your faith consistently. You'll develop strength to see you through adversity, plus understanding of purpose for inner peace.

3. Practice gratitude for everything in your life. Even the things you don't like are here for your learning and growth. Gratitude leads to inner peace.

4. Look for the good. Look for the good in yourself and in everything and everyone around you. A warm glow of peace will fill you when see the good.

5. Promote peace in yourself. Choose to stay calm in the face of challenges.

6. Love yourself. Self-compassion and self-nurturing creating a foundation of inner safety in which it's easier

ood things about yourself every night at bedtime. Do you need to remember your divine essence is peace? You could close your eyes and affirm, "I am peace," or "I am at peace, resting in the center of my being." Repeat it gently until you feel it, for a few minutes each day.

Be creative and have fun with this, and let me know your results! Thirteen Tips for Creating Inner Peace

1. Meditate or do spiritual exercises. This will give you a reference point for inner peace that will eventually spill over into your daily life.

2. Practice your faith consistently. You'll develop strength to see you through adversity, plus understanding of purpose for inner peace.

3. Practice gratitude for everything in your life. Even the things you don't like are here for your learning and growth. Gratitude leads to inner peace.

4. Look for the good. Look for the good in yourself and in everything and everyone around you. A warm glow of peace will fill you when see the good.

5. Promote peace in yourself. Choose to stay calm in the face of challenges.

6. Love yourself. Self-compassion and self-nurturing creating a foundation of inner safety in which it's easier

op strength to see you through adversity, plus understanding of purpose for inner peace.

3. Practice gratitude for everything in your life. Even the things you don't like are here for your learning and growth. Gratitude leads to inner peace.

4. Look for the good. Look for the good in yourself and in everything and everyone around you. A warm glow of peace will fill you when see the good.

5. Promote peace in yourself. Choose to stay calm in the face of challenges.

6. Love yourself. Self-compassion and self-nurturing creating a foundation of inner safety in which it's easier to stay calm and peaceful.

7. Forgive yourself for anything you've judged in yourself. Release, and enjoy the inner peace again.

8. Forgive others. Let go of grudges and resentments against others. Forgive and forget for greater inner peace.

9. Practice honesty with yourself and others. When you are true to yourself, inner peace is present.

10. Discover who you are. Remember, you are much more than the body and personality that you normally identify with. Your core, your divine essence, is peace.

11. Focus on the positive. Expect the best, do your best, and you will receive what is best for you. Accepting this, you find inner peace.

12. Become a Neutral Loving Observer of yourself and your life. Then you can accept things you don't like, but see more choices for improvement.

Bonus Tip: 13. Look at life as a grand classroom. You are here to learn and grow and uplift yourself. Greater learning and self-awareness brings inner peace.