What is inner peace?

The principle source of happiness is inner peace. I have been contemplating this lately and how it sounds so simple and yet knowing that inner peace true inner peace is what many of us fight against.

I brought the question to the girls class today, "What is inner peace?" And their responses were truthful and painful and yet the honesty that resonated in the yoga room was pretty profound. One sweet girl who has been quiet and compliant in yoga--who just pays attention with a little slice of "you have got to be kidding me" underlying her positive attitude. She answered today, that inner peace to her is when everything that is playing in her mind like a movie continuously shuts off--which doesn't happen often because all she thinks about when it's quiet is " why am I here, where are my brothers and sisters and who is taking care of them if I'm in here, why do I get in trouble when my mom who is way worse than me is never in trouble and constantly brings home new people to take care of when we her kids should be who she's worried about." This flower admitted that she doesn't like the quiet or peaceful time at the end of yoga (savasana) because all of her movies play in her head---continuously until the bells ring and she can open her eyes and bury them with the sights and sounds of life. And then it hit me--these kids have never had a peaceful moment in their lives--even as small children-- babies their lives have been chaos--complete chaos. They have learned that quiet peaceful times are bad and that inner reflection means to acknowledge how scared they are and how they are not sure if this is them being crazy or if this is normal for everyone.

Another girl answered that the only time she feels inner peace is when she is with her boyfriend--who is much older and he calms her down and when they are together she feels peaceful. Translation from the teacher: she is searching for a father figure and someone to help her feel safe. This flower would not talk about how much older--and I didn't pry but I know that she is only 14--so much older could mean anywhere from 14-35. Peacefulness to these kids has become a false sense of peace and morphed into some crazy twisted form of safety.

Imagine feeling scared all the time--I mean all the time, and wondering if your life is ever going to slow down enough for you to catch up to it--imaging feeling like no one in your life except for some icky "groomer" can give you a sense of protection, a sense of self worth, a sense of you being ok, where you are right now. The sad thing --to me is that these kids may never learn to be gentle with others but/and because no one has given them a sense of peace, they may never be gentle with themselves. That means that they are not so much afraid of the external forces of fear---hence why they are in JDC, but their biggest fear is of their internal fears--the fear of wanting to be free, wanting to be loved, and wanted more than anything the feeling of peace. So instead of surrendering into those feelings, they are in a constant battle with everything in the outside forces of their life. That is the root of the problem--and the root of this problem has tremendous energy and no riverbanks of love and so their soul dissappears and we are left with shells of girls sitting in JDC waiting for the next enemy to come so they can fight them to keep from looking within. This is reality for the girls daily in JDC, my hope is that they for one minute feel free--that they are learning if only by transmission that they are worthy of everything that they dream of----