Inner peace

Inner peace describes the ability to maintain one's composure even in psychologically challenging situations and to react to them rationally. In psychology this is also called serenity or Prudence where there is an emotional and a rational aspect of inner calm.

What is inner calm?

Inner peace can come into play in a calm situation, but also in a stressful life situation. Without a special stimulus or trigger, inner calm is also referred to as serenity in psychology. In this state man is indifferent. When a trigger arises that could question this inner calm, people who are largely unaffected by it are referred to as level-headed. This means that the person concerned is still more controlled by reason than by emotional motivations and remains calm despite the psychological challenge.

In most cases, rest denotes a healthy, even desirable state. After all, it goes hand in hand with the fact that the person is calm and serene inside and does not worry unnecessarily and worry if there is no cause. However, inner peace can also occur when the person could or should behave differently. Remaining calm in an emotional situation where emotions usually prevail can also indicate an emotional disorder.

Function & task

The term "serenity" comes from Old High German and meant at that time to submit to the will of the gods. At that time, most religions believed that they were subject to the will of their gods and that they could not change anything. The inner peace that they wished for when faced with blows of fate was thus also a way of dealing with events that they could not influence.

A certain inner calm helps the person not to react to every influence in the affect, but to be able to weigh up how he should react. Influences that can trigger an emotional, affect-controlled reaction flow into people every day: noise on the street, expectations of other people and stress at work are just a few of them. Thus inner calm can also serve to protect the psyche from harmful influences if it is used to view what is known to be harmful in a less emotional way.

Many religions and philosophical schools of thought have already tried to live inner peace as the standard and to protect themselves from possible emotional pain by releasing the emotional reaction. A well-known example of this are stoics, for whom the affected reactions, as opposed to inner calm, were only unreflected behavior.

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Illnesses & ailments

Inner calm is a healthy psychological mechanism in many situations. A person cannot develop an emotional impulse for every stimulus; some things have to meet with disinterest for their own protection. In this way, the individual fates of other people bother us less if we do not know the person concerned.

However, inner calm can also be problematic, because as a contrast to affect, it can be very useful if the person develops an interest in separating himself emotionally. Often the inner calm is then no longer real and the person actually suffers from it, because it suppresses emotional impulses. Long-term suppression of emotions with mock serenity or even coldness is psychologically unhealthy and sooner or later results in suppressed emotions looking for another outlet. The consequences can be lack of love for people you love, but also self-harming behavior, alcoholism or crime.

Inner calm, in the sense of indifference, also becomes problematic when it is real but occurs in situations where this indifference is unhealthy. Inner calm in situations in which it is unusual can thus also indicate psychological problems in children, mostly attachment disorders with causes in early childhood.

Along with many other symptoms, people with psychopathy are not least characterized by a kind of inner calm that enables them to think through their actions carefully and to behave tactically in the way they know they are expected to be Goal to achieve.