Inner peace begins the moment we start at zero — when we stop keeping score, stop replaying the past, and meet each new day as a blank slate. This article shares how to release old judgments, let go of mental clutter, and begin each moment anew.

In This Article

• Why moments of peace feel so different from daily stress
• How to stop replaying the past and start fresh
• The secret power of your “mental eraser”
• How to avoid the trap of emotional expectation
• Creating a ripple effect of peace for yourself and others

Attaining Inner Peace by Starting at Zero

We all have moments when we feel at peace — however fleeting they may be. What makes those moments so different from the times when we are in turmoil, frustration, or stress? The difference lies in our state of mind — being at peace. But what does that really mean?

Our mind can be a busy, busy place. It goes over the past, the present (or its projection of the present), and its imaginings of the future. It is constantly assessing, analyzing, reviewing, and judging what has happened, and then overlaying that on the present. Our minds will often assume that because something has happened in a certain manner, or someone has acted in a certain way in the past, that action or behavior will be replicated in the now and in the future.

But is that true? It can be — if we make it so. In other words, if we hold our energy on the past, on the way someone has behaved in the past that we didn’t like, we hold our focus on what has happened before, what people were like before, and assume that they will be the same today and tomorrow. With that churning through our mind, there is no way we can be at peace. We have already overloaded our present experience with all the experiences of the past.

How Do We Get Out of That?

The way to attain or to live in a state of inner peace is to start with a fresh slate. In other words, we need to enter each moment having erased from our mental slate the events of the past. Just because someone was negative, angry, or judgmental yesterday — and yes, that someone can be you — it doesn’t mean that the energy has to be the same today.

Everyone woke up to a brand-new day, and to the opportunity to make a brand-new start. Everyone woke up to the chance to start fresh, to let go of the grievances and judgments of the past, and to give ourselves and everyone else the chance to be a better person today — to be the being of light that we truly are.

Now, you may say, “That’s easier said than done.” And of course, that’s true. Everything is easier said than done. It’s easy for me to say, “Today I’m going to be patient, loving, and accepting.” And then something happens that tests my patience, and in that moment, I may or may not remember that I had set an intention to retain my state of inner peace.

And that’s okay. If we fall, we wipe ourselves off and start over. Clean slate. No blame, no judgment, no criticism. Just use your eraser on your mental slate board, wiping off past judgments and attitudes. (And here’s a slight insight from the cosmic forces — as I was dictating this, when I said “past judgments,” the program heard “vast judgments.” Ah! Yes, our judgments are sometimes vast as well as fast and furious. The good news is, of course, that we can change that.)

Is Letting Go of the Past Easy?

I hesitate to say that letting go of the past is easy or that it is hard. It is neither. It is just something that we choose to do, over and over again. It is not, at least in my experience, something that we do once and it’s done forever. Maybe that is the case when we get to be a master of our life experience here on Earth. But for now, for most of us, letting go of the past is an ongoing choice, an ongoing experience.

When a thought comes up about what someone did or didn’t do to us (or even to themselves), we can take our mental eraser and erase that from our memory board. That event does not exist in the present moment. It is in the past. The only way it exists in the present is if we drag it in here because we’re holding it in our consciousness, in our memory, on our "balance sheet".

And how can we be at peace when we keep dragging in old garbage and rehashing it, reliving it, and retelling it? Peace is not found in holding grudges and in wanting the other person to acknowledge that we were right and they were wrong.

The past is done — or at least it should be. The only way it has power now is when we give it power by hanging on to it and projecting it on the future. And this applies to our past with others and our past with ourselves. If we insist on judging ourselves and criticizing ourselves every day for things we have done or haven’t done, we’ve already painted the picture of our current day because we’ve loaded it with the negative energies of blame, shame, judgment, etc.

Starting Fresh

When we choose to start fresh, wiping out the slate of should-haves, could-haves, and didn’t-haves, we open the door to a whole new possibility — to a whole new experience. We begin from peace instead of turmoil, from openness instead of resistance. We start with joyful expectation rather than with a list of grievances.

It is such a wonderful feeling. It is such a wonderful place to be. And if your goal is to be at peace, to be in joy, to be happy, then the first thing to do is to let go of all the past reasons you were unhappy — all the past grievances that piled up, and all the past judgments that accumulated. Those fill up our mental slate and leave no room for new experiences of joy, love, and inner peace.

The Mental Trap

Once we start practicing a clean mental slate, we soon discover another obstacle that creeps in — the mental trap of expectation.

Some of you might be saying, “I know that they will act the same way they did before.” Ah! Such a trap that is. Anytime we base our attitude, actions, expectations, and state of mind on someone else’s attitude, actions, expectations, and state of mind, we are not only giving up our power but setting ourselves up for misery. Having our happiness and our peace of mind depend on someone else’s behavior is a recipe for disaster.

So we must protect ourselves from our own past attitudes, thoughts, and judgments as well as from other people’s. We must not only erase our own mental slate but also erase the outer slate that other people are projecting onto. Refuse to accept any of it and erase it as well. Their stuff, their attitudes, their projections have nothing to do with you. They have everything to do with themselves.

In the same way, your attitudes and your projections have nothing to do with them — they have everything to do with you. They are your fears, your old judgments and hurts being projected and mirrored back to you by the other. So since we are only in charge of ourselves, we have to clean up our own act and never mind trying to change other people.

Each time an old grievance appears, take out your mental eraser and wipe it clean. Don’t analyze it, don’t justify it — just erase it and start again. Let it go, realizing that it is the past and doesn’t have to influence the present. And the way you stop it from having power in the present is by acknowledging that just as you are changing, other people are changing — whether you’re aware of it or not.

The Ripple Effect

By wiping out your expectations of their behavior, you are helping them wipe out that behavior as well. After all, if we keep rubbing someone’s nose in something, it is hard for them to forget it and move on. We are holding them there by holding on to our anger and our negativity.

So if you’d like to be at peace within yourself and stop the churning of anger, judgment, and yuckiness, the choice is yours. The choice is always ours — and that choice is to let go of what has been. In an instant, choose a new expectation, a new attitude, a new thought.

When we choose to be at peace within ourselves, with our past and the past of others, we open the door to a peaceful state of mind. But first, we must close the door on all the garbage that we’ve been carrying around. Clean house, dump out the old garbage, and close the door on it.

The Game of Life

Approach each day as a brand-new day, each encounter as a brand-new encounter with a brand-new person. And when we do that, we will not only be at peace, but the people around us will be at peace as well. As we stop projecting our past fears and judgments on them, we will be freeing them from those same judgments.

The blame game is not a happy game. But the game that is based on love and acceptance and positive expectations is always a better one — a happier one, a more loving one. And we get to choose which game we want to play. The ball is always in our court.

Inner peace begins the moment we start at zero — when we stop keeping score, stop replaying the past, and meet each new day as a blank slate.

Wishing you a wonder-full and peace-full day!

Marie T. Russell is the founder of InnerSelf Magazine (founded 1985). She also produced and hosted a weekly South Florida radio broadcast, Inner Power, from 1992-1995 which focused on themes such as self-esteem, personal empowerment, and inner well-being. Her articles focus on transformation and reconnecting with our own inner source of love. joy, and creativity.

Recommended Book:

Lighter: Let Go of the Past, Connect with the Present, and Expand the Future

by Yung Pueblo

In this deeply reflective and healing guide, Yung Pueblo invites readers to release emotional weight, dissolve the grip of the past, and reconnect with inner peace. His simple yet profound insights align perfectly with the idea of “starting at zero” — approaching life with fresh awareness and an open heart. Lighter offers both inspiration and practice for living more freely, joyfully, and consciously in the present moment.

For more info or to order this book, click here. 

Article Recap

Attaining inner peace begins with releasing the past. By erasing mental judgments and refusing to replay old stories, we make room for peace to arise naturally. Each new day offers a clean slate — a chance to meet life, and others, with love instead of expectation.

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