All Is As It Should Be – Powerful Steps to a Peaceful Life

Women For One Founder, Kelly McNelis, has been chosen as the featured “Brilliance” post for Inspire Me Today! She shares her wisdom on choices, joy & peace in a 500 word blog post that is inspiring and enlightening.

If I could share 500 words to inspire, this is the important wisdom I’d want to pass along to others…

We are all looking for answers, a guidebook for existence, a roadmap. We want to follow measurable steps. Bottom line: we are all seeking peace and joy.

At times, I’ve felt confused, cluttered, disempowered and swallowed up by the world. I’ve allowed everyone but me to define my truth and tell me what I need to be. The turning point that revealed the power of choice to me came in my mid-30’s when I woke up one day and asked myself, “What is this life I am living? What do I want to be? What is valuable and important to me?” This was the moment that I realized that all was as it should be. Every single moment in my life up until this realization had led me here.

The world, inward and outward, is quite simply just as it is. When there is an acceptance without judgment, we are empowered to free ourselves from victimhood. Choice itself is the differentiator. Throughout my 45 years I have found that living a more peaceful life is about making choices to be present and to accept the world as it is, in the moment, with no shame. Amidst all of the intensity, pain, love, heartache and growth that every human being on this planet endures, I believe we each have an innate yearning for growth. For me, it all begins with presence, surrender and choice.

Have you ever caught yourself completely out of the moment that you were in? You can never get that moment back. More importantly, you can’t make effective choice when you are lost like this. Once we are aware of what truly is, we can begin to surrender to the experience we have created for ourselves. The Zen proverb, “Leap and the net will appear”, carried me through intense circumstances in my life as I developed a trust in humanity and began to understand the concept that all is truly is as it should be. Now with this understanding, I define how I want to be the best mom, friend, sister, wife, lover and person that I can be. Even though the concepts of presence and surrender are valuable, the true secret to my joy is making the conscious choice to ask the challenging questions of how I want to live my life.

I believe that self-responsibility is the main source of empowerment for our world. No one is going to save you but yourself. There is so much power in believing that the world is yours in the making and the taking. Be aware, accept what is and CHOOSE your circumstances to the best of your ability.

Ultimately its up to you. Find your unique steps towards presence, surrender and choice. The irony is that there really is no universal process, no “perfect 5-steps” to employ. The ones that have worked for me (and that are still changing) are to be present with myself, surrender to what is, and to make effective and conscious choices for my life. With these concepts in action, all is it should be.