The Oil Depot Explosion That Rocked My Home And Brought Me Inner
Peace
On Sunday morning, 11th December I got up early. I like sitting
down to write when the house is still quiet, before day light
glides over the hills and the silence of the night is chased
away by the hectic activities of the day. There is something
delightfully creative about those early hours for me and I was
keen to finish another instalment of a piece I am writing called
'7 Steps to Inner Peace and Personal Power in 2006'.
Although my daughter was staying at a friend's house at the
other end of the country, through habit I sneaked quietly into
the dark bathroom to get my dressing gown. Suddenly an
unfamiliar, pink-coloured flicker lighted my way. I was startled
for a moment; except for my sleeping dog I was alone in the
house. Where could this eery glow come from? As I returned to
the bedroom and looked out of the window, there was the loudest
thunder roar I had ever heard, followed a split second later by
a wave that shook the house as it sped right through, sweeping
away the last trace of mellow sleepiness and leaving me stunned.
Some kind of explosion. The railway station, I thought - or
maybe a large gas boiler in one of the shops or restaurants in
the nearby town. And then I remembered the huge oil storage
depot just 4 miles away and turned on the TV. It didn't take
long for my suspicion to be confirmed as reports started to
arrive with pictures of sky-high flames and huge volumes of
deadly black smoke being thrown into the air. Now, we have the
largest peace time incident of this kind in the UK, just a deep
breath away.
And I was about to write about inner peace and personal power.
How ironic. For a moment, my inner peace was diminished by
thoughts of my own vulnerability and mortality; of concern for
how it affected people who were even closer and ultimately the
environmental impact this catastrophe would have.
But then came the determination to get my balance back and walk
the talk and I asked myself, what are the conditions for true
inner peace? How can anyone have personal power, when really we
are mere pawns of the power of chance, of nature, of the whim of
politicians and of the commercial interests of the high and
mighty? How can we sleep at night and be happy by day if our
lives can be changed with one spectacular blow of fate?
The answer I gave myself was the one that every spiritual
leader, every guru or compassionate priest would have given me.
It's the same answer that has come up to so many of my questions
throughout the years of my own conscious journey to inner peace.
The same simple truth that underlies all personal power and
builds the foundation for inner peace, no matter what the
external circumstances are.
True inner peace comes from within - from the power of our own
minds. Viktor Frankl, the psychotherapist and author who
survived the horrors of Nazi concentration camps by using the
only thing he had left, his inner resources, put it like this:
'Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of
the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set
of circumstances; to choose one's own way.'
When something shakes our world to the core and throws us off
course, even if we may think we don't, we still have the power
of choice. We can choose how to react. The personal power that
comes from this realisation is immense.
Wherever you look, you will see people who made the choice to
let a crisis empower them rather than crush their confidence and
break their spirit. People like the family of the murder victim
Anthony Walker, who forgave the young men who so cruelly took
their son and are not haunted by the poisonous power of hate,
people who have courageously built a new life after the floods
in New Orleans rather than wallow in self-pity and blame.
Those are the people who chose to take the path of inner peace
and personal power. They are who I chose to use as my
inspiration this morning, as I continued my writing under the
ever-growing toxic black cloud.
I wish you inner peace and hope you find it easy to make that
choice today. Greetings