Life, more often than not, isn’t smooth sailing. No matter who we are, we will be faced with conflict on a semi-regular basis. In life, conflict is one of the only constants. So how are we supposed to stay calm and peaceful when conflict keeps flying at us like a series of swiftly pitched baseballs?

This anonymous quote sums up the answer:
“Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict from life, but the ability to cope with it.” 
 
So how do we cope with conflict and develop inner peace in the face of adversity? Here are three steps you can take that are known to help:

• Practice Acceptance
  We aren’t going to always like the circumstances of our lives or the world around us, but when there isn’t anything we can do to change it, we have two choices: stress or accept. When we accept life on life’s terms, our minds learn to stabilize.
   
• Take Your Ego Out of the Equation
  When we’re distraught by conflict, it’s because we don’t like what’s happening. Things aren’t going our way, events aren’t panning out how we wanted them to. But the truth is we aren’t wise or powerful enough to know how things should be. When we step out of the way and trust that a higher power is orchestrating things to be exactly how they’re supposed to be, we can begin to relax and experience peace despite outside events.
   
•  Trusting in a Higher Power
  Piggy-backing off of that last point, inner peace becomes exponentially more possible when you do have a higher power. Without a higher power, it’s extremely hard to find a mindset of acceptance. There are PLENTY of people who never had a higher power, but came to believe in one after trying out the following:

1. Talking to friends about their experiences with a higher power 
2. Spending one day PRETENDING to believe in a higher power, and then observing what happens
3. Reading books or taking classes on science and philosophy
4. Practicing asking questions to a hypothetical higher power and then listening for answers and doing this over and over again until answers are received 

So, as you can see, inner peace stems from an attitude of acceptance. When we attempt to control or manipulate our outside circumstances we are likely to become agitated and resentful, which makes it impossible to experience inner peace. Let go of the idea that you know how the world should be, trust that it's happening exactly as it needs to be and you'll experience a peace that warms you from the inside out.