We’re often told that the path to peace begins with chasing happiness.Find the things that make you smile. Avoid the things that hurt. Keep your focus on the positive and you’ll find your calm.It sounds good. Comforting, even. But what if that foundation is flawed?Happiness is wonderful, but it’s not the same as peace. Happiness can be fleeting. It’s light dancing on the surface of the water beautiful while it lasts, but gone in an instant when the clouds roll in. One heated argument, one sudden loss, one moment of unimaginable grief can knock us off our game. And if our peace depends on happiness alone, then our peace will vanish alongside it. True peace is built differently.

It’s not about escaping pain or avoiding discomfort. It’s about meeting life as it is with love and care at the core. It’s the steady heartbeat beneath life’s noise, the unshaken part of you that remains even when everything else feels uncertain.Peace is emotional balance: the ability to stay grounded in the present without getting lost in the storm. It’s contentment that doesn’t rely on perfect conditions. It’s the quiet confidence that whatever happens, you have the skills to care for yourself—not just in the practical sense, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

It’s about being true to yourself in every moment, not only when things are going well.

It’s about living with an understanding of life’s fragile, precious nature.

When you truly value life, you realise that what matters most is not whether the path is smooth or rocky, but how you walk it. It’s the small, everyday acts of integrity and love. It’s the courage to stay aligned with your values when the world pushes you to conform. It’s knowing that peace is not the absence of difficulty, but the presence of stability and care in the middle of it.

Because peace isn’t about building walls to keep the storms out. It’s about learning how to stand in the middle of one and still feel the ground beneath your feet.

It’s when you can look at life its joy, its heartbreak, its uncertainty and know that while happiness may come and go, your peace is here to stay.

In a recent coaching session, I was asked a question that caught me off guard: What is your relationship to the work you’re trying to do with your coaching, your community, and your pursuit of peace?

The truth is, so much of my life has been in pursuit of peace.

In therapy.

Through the coaching I’ve received.

In my own long hours of introspection.

In the relationships I’ve had and in the ones I’ve destroyed.

For years, I lived inside my story of pain. I knew it inside out—the chapters of loss, the heavy paragraphs of self-blame, the recurring plot of survival. But eventually, I reached a point where I wanted something more for my life. I wanted a new story—not just for me, but for the communities I’m part of and the people I walk alongside.

My relationship to this work is, in many ways, the most selfish pursuit of all.

I create spaces of peace because I need to live in them.

I help others find stability because I’m still learning how to stand firm myself.

I guide people toward emotional safety because I know what it’s like to feel unsafe in your own skin.It’s selfish not in the sense of taking from others, but in the sense that my work and my own life are intertwined. They are not two separate paths they are one. The same roots that nourish my growth also nourish the spaces I create for others.

When I see someone soften into self-trust, it reminds me of the beauty in that journey.

When I witness someone choosing to care for themselves, it reaffirms why this work matters.

It fills my soul to see more people pursue their own inner peace—not because it defines my worth, but because it shows what’s possible when we choose love and care over fear and chaos.

This “selfish” pursuit is actually deeply human. We don’t heal in isolation—we heal in the presence of others who are also learning, also fumbling, also trying. And maybe that’s what peace really is: not a solo achievement, but something we co-create, moment by moment, through love and care, for ourselves and each other.

The pursuit of peace isn’t a straight path. It’s messy, imperfect, and deeply human. It asks us to sit with discomfort, to keep showing up when it’s hard, and to keep choosing love and care even when fear or anger would be easier.

In my coaching and community work, I’m not handing people a polished set of answers. I’m creating spaces where we can explore together—where each person can discover their own way of standing steady in the storm.

Because peace isn’t just something you find once and keep forever. It’s something you tend to, like a garden, and the more we tend it together, the more it grows..