How to Experience More Serenity and Peace – A Journey, Not a Set of Rules

A Guide for Attorneys, Professionals & Ones On This Journey

Podcast Host:  As someone who helps people experience more serenity and peace and communicate effectively, what are a few gems you can share with us?

One of the keys to releasing stress, anxiety and overwhelm, and to experiencing more serenity and peace is learning to regulate the presence we hold. What does this mean? It means being aligned to love, kindness and compassion and centered in our hearts.  It means being grounded and fully present.

When we are aligned, centered and grounded, everything changes.

It’s important not to follow the pack. Here’s why.  The mind is a useful tool and a horrible partner.  When we think the mind is ‘king’ – our end all and be all – and we try to ‘figure everything out’ – we will inevitably go around in circles like a hamster running on a wheel in a cage – going faster and faster while getting nowhere.

Our alignment is what we are moving towards. And let’s step back for a minute and deal with our feelings.

The key is to acknowledge how we are feeling and allow our feelings to move through us.  “I have feelings, and yet I am not my feelings.”  In other words, I love and accept my feelings and let them go – release them and re-choose qualities that support who I am choosing to be. 

If I am feeling afraid, stressed and overwhelmed, I don’t make these feelings mean anything. I don’t try to ‘figure them out’ or ‘understand them’. That just makes them stronger and stronger – soon we feel like we’re falling down a deep dark hole and can’t climb out.

Our feelings are just feelings. They don’t define who we are.  We can wrap them in our love.  I see you.  I love you.  And I let you go. And in place of this fear, I allow more kindness to flood in; I remember what I am grateful for, and that heartfelt gratitude raises me up, and it floods all the cells of my body where fear once dwelled.

Back to alignment – I choose to align to my dreams and goals, what I am moving towards, what I am choosing to create in my life. And I choose to ensure that what I am moving towards does not cause harm – lifts others up, helps others move forward into ‘new’ ground and be more of their best selves. So, that as they step forward into something new that is less about fear and more about kindness or compassion – so what’s not working can fall away, and new ways of being can replace the old ones that weren’t working. 

This takes a lot of practice. Practice doesn’t make perfect. That’s a lie – perpetuated to keep us small. 

Practice makes permanent. 

Applied to something that we all understand: If we choose to learn how to play the guitar or run a marathon – we can’t just strum a few cords or walk around the block. We must constantly and consistently schedule and engage in behavior that supports our new goals and ensures our success – even if we trip and fall on our face time and time again, we know that what will eventuate is success, and success includes a feeling or knowing that our lives are more fully clicked into place - because we are listening to and following the inner guidance to ‘get here’.

We do not give up.  We use our mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow, and not to beat ourselves up, make ourselves wrong or to play small. We refuse to allow the negative and incompatible thoughts and opinions of others to affect our reality – our experience of life. 

So, this is roadmap and a journey to banish fear and elevate love.  It takes as long as it takes because we’ve probably stored a lot of fear in our bodies; and it takes time to turn around the tanker and head towards places that inspire instead of ‘retire’.  

Kindness to self and others is important in this process.  There’s no such thing as magic fairy dust.  It would be nice; and there’s a lot more growth and satisfaction when we climb that mountain, deal with the deep snow drifts and ice storms, and spend time in lower levels of altitude –giving our bodies and minds time to acclimate and adjust. 

We haven’t been taught how to enjoy the process.  How to let go of the urgency to ‘get there’ – which simply pushes success further and further away.  We can acknowledge that we don’t know, and that can be freeing. We can choose to enjoy each step of the journey, even if the whole world is ‘screaming’ inside us to go faster and further. 

Breathe. Slow down. Stop rushing. Be in the moment.  Clients, family members, friends and colleagues will see the difference in you. They may not be able to understand or have words for it, but they will ask you – “what happened” and share -- "it seems like you changed”.  And you have.

It’s like breaking free of the MATRIX, and seeing the world more clearly without the haze of the glamours cast by newscasters or age-defying salesmen.  This process of being in the moment now, and Being fully present in more moments – takes the power away from manipulators and narcissists to confuse, harm or undermine us.  We can clearly see through the maze of glamour and untruth and keep stepping forward – unencumbered by the past and remembering there’s no time like now.

When we are holding this peaceful countenance, when ones who intend us nothing but harm cannot touch or sway us, when our eye is on what we are creating and moving towards – communication flows more easily – we are not fighting against life – we are not trudging through sludge and mountains of snow – we see life more like an adventure to be lived – and from that space communication is more of an intimate experience.  It flows.  It inspires.  And that too helps us to ground and actualize more serenity and peace.

I support people to do what they love and be their best so that they make a real difference in the world. That’s who I am when I am at my best. That’s my why.

Everyone has a why.  When we articulate our purpose and take steps every day to live and be that purpose, our lives change dramatically.  No longer is our job, profession or business just something we do.  There is a fire or passion within us because we know why we get out of bed in the morning and how we can be of service to others.

When we are in service to self only, we may experience moments of happiness.  Happiness is a dopamine hit. It’s the feeling we get when we buy a new home or car, have dinner with a good friend or hug someone we love. Happiness is real and yet it is fleeting.

Fulfillment, feeling content and on purpose is different. 

Feeling fulfilled is an oxytocin hit. It’s the high we feel when we help others, when we make a difference in someone else’s life, often in what appears to be small ways.  It can be as simple as sharing a smile or as daring as rescuing children from a burning home. 

Fulfillment runs deep and is long lasting. It is a deep, heartfelt experience that does not leave us.

As a child and in my youth, I lived a very safe, sheltered middle-class life. When I was 17, we experienced a  calamity, a storm that stretched from Alabama to Canada, spawning 148 tornadoes nationwide, 27 of them in my home state of Kentucky.

And within that disaster, I felt and experienced fulfillment for the first time in my life, that I could make a difference in the world. I could give and receive selflessly, having no agenda other that to help and be of service, and that changed me.

The experience opened the doors of my heart to a new way of being. This may sound dramatic and huge, even though the actual story may not seem like much to you. What happens on the outside is not always indicative of what it feels like on the inside. We give meaning to all kinds of things in our lives, and those meanings can support and uplift us or drag us down and keep us small.

It was a strange day. First there were beautiful blue skies, then rolling clouds of darkness, then sirens blaring warning of an emergency, then a quiet eerie silence.

It was a hot summer’s day, and I can remember standing next to my mother and looking outside through sliding glass doors that lead to our back yard. We were oblivious to the danger of standing inches from the glass, peering inquisitively towards the sky.

My home was spared, but a few blocks away neighborhoods were damaged and destroyed. Roofs were blown off houses. Fronts and sides of building were gone. Debris was everywhere. The destruction was shocking, unfathomable.

I remember going for a walk into the neighborhood next to ours, knocking on the door of a home that had lost its roof, and asking the middle-aged woman who opened the door if she needed some help.

She did. We spent the day packing dishes and her valuables into boxes. 

This small experience was profound for me. For the first time, I felt like I had done something that really mattered. I felt the joy of giving. My heart was open and full. A seemingly small experience of selfless service opened me up in a profound way to acceptance, unconditional love and belonging.

I know I'm not alone.  We've all had these moments.  We've all felt the joy of giving back. We've all felt the gratitude of receiving a helping hand when we needed one.

Knowing our why is about selfless service, and that opens us up to the abundance of the Universe and, if we allow it, fills our cup with love. 

We feel successful when we know and live our why because it no longer 'all about me'. It’s about 'Let Us': Let us create a life, communities, a world where we are there for each other, where we have each others' back, where everyone contributes what they can, when we know that we’re never ever alone.

Imagine living in a world where everyone was their own purpose expert, where everyone was living their own unique why, where everyone felt and knew that together is better.

Imagine the contentment and joy of knowing and living our why in this world!

Every time we tap into our why, every time we live from this space in our hearts, every time we give for the joy of giving, we fill ourselves up with contentment and joy. 

Every time we love the kids inside of us that have been yearning for our love, wrapping our loving arms around them, we support ourselves in living our why, we nurture ourselves so that we have the ability to give back from a full and overflowing heart.

And even though the world that we live in often focuses on fear, lack and limitation, focuses on what separates us, our differences, we can choose to focus on what unites us, our similarities.

We can choose to focus on what makes our hearts sing, what brings joy and contentment into our lives and how we can best model that for others. 

As we embrace our why and share our passion for being on purpose, we plant the seeds that others might  discover their purpose no matter where they're living on the planet.

The energy of our excitement is there for the taking, just like when many people around the world discover something new about the same time.  It's somehow there for ones open to it to come to a new knowing, to have an 'ah ha' moment and be open to more abundance and love.

We can make a difference by how we bring ourselves to the world.  We never know how our heartfelt purpose ripples out and touches the lives of others.

That's hopeful and encouraging.

That sheds new light on how we bring ourselves to the world, what we choose to focus on, and the excitement and passion we bring to life.

How do you feel about your job or your business or your profession. Does it light up your life?  Is your heart singing? 

It can feel really challenging, even frightening, to change or make a move.  I made a change from family law to commercial law as an established attorney. But I did so after being hit by a two-by-four on the side of the head, not so wise or kind to self!

I was primarily a family lawyer, which can be difficult and draining.  You are not dealing with people at their best. They are often stressed, anxious and have unreasonable expectations. Sometimes they try to put their children in the middle instead of considering their best interests.  Sometimes there are legitimate concerns of alcohol, drug abuse or addiction are involved.

Dealing with people who were going through a major life change wasn’t the problem.  It was a few highly successful family lawyers who were creating a toxic environment for us all, and the judges were allowing them to get away with behavior which should have been banned as unbefitting the legal profession. But it wasn't.

I was stressed and overwhelmed, and it was taking a toll on my health. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when an alcoholic client filed a grievance against me. I represented her in a hotly contested child custody case in which she imploded and turned to the bottle after years of abstinence.

The grievance was ultimately dismissed, but it was a costly, time-consuming, life-changing experience and I knew in my gut that I had to make a change.

I had a small commercial law practice and decided to focus exclusively on that.  I was excited and scared, with no guarantees, a solo practitioner and, a single parent with a young son.

It looked crazy to change from the outside.  When we decide to make a big change, sometimes the universe works in strange ways. The week after I decided to no longer accept new family law cases, I received more phone calls from new clients than I had in the past 3 months!  It was like the universe was asking me, “Are you sure? Are you really sure you want to do this?"

Some people might have used this as a sign that they were making a mistake and change their mind. I didn’t.  What I learned was when you follow your heart, your gut knowing, you are tested; you are presented with something that seems too good to be true and it probably is.

So, follow your heart and don’t wait to be smacked upside the head the way I was.  When you have an inspiration to do something differently, to make a change, to let something go, to start something new, everything that is not about your new way forward is going to present for you to let go of.

So, let go with gratitude, appreciate the journey you’ve been on, all that you’ve learned, even negative learning of what not to do, and acknowledge how you’ve grown from what you've done up till now. 

You have to let go of the old to make way for the new.  Your choices are going to have challenges. You're probably going to have some bumps and unexpected turns in the road.  Go with the flow and be open to all possibilities; it’s about letting go of the need to control everything and have certainty.

Listen to that still small voice inside. Listen when opportunities present that resonate with you that you would love to step towards because they feel right and take that step.  Every moment is an opportunity to choose to follow your inner compass and listen to your gut or not. 

Are you ready to embrace the road less traveled?  Is it calling to you?

You want to reach a goal, complete a project, make a change that affects your relationships, your health, your work, your life. Where do you start?

When you want to achieve something, the starting point is always to have a burning desire to make your goal a reality.  This burning desire is much more than a hope or a wish. It’s something that’s ALWAYS with you, a dream that you constantly hold in your heart.  You may be working or working out, socializing, or relaxing at home, but this goal, this dream, this change is always there with you.

You will succeed not because you got a break but because you chose a definite goal and then you placed ally our energy, effort and willpower towards achieving that goal.  You must have clear, definite, written goals.

Humility is also a vital part of success, knowing how far you have come, your strengths, and how far you still have to go. those not-so-shiny bits, while being in complete acceptance of where you find yourself now.

Success may mean starting at the bottom or doing some things, some tasks. taking on some responsibilities that you would prefer not to do or to delegate.

And it doesn’t matter what other people think.  They can see your goal as an impossible dream.   Provided you already know it’s happening now, you imagine it, see, feel, and know it to be true, success is ultimately guaranteed.  Just don’t be attached to when it happens (no urgency!) or how it comes to pass (the packaging could be different than expected).

Stake all your energy, focus and commitment, your entire future, on your ability to make your burning desire a reality.

How do you do this?

The 6 steps are clearly laid out for you in Napoleon’s Hill’ classic, Think and Grow Rich.

First:  Fix in your mind exactly what you desire. Be definite, clear and specific.

Second: Decide what you will give in return. There is no such thing as something for nothing.

Third: Decide when you will achieve your desire.

Fourth: Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once. It doesn’t matter whether you feel ready or not, start now.

Fifth: Write out a clear, concise statement of what you desire, when you will have it, what you will give back in return, and how you plan to attain it.

Sixth: Read this statement aloud every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to sleep. AND See, feel and believe yourself to be already in possession of it.

A great Think and Grow Rich success story is Bruce Lee, who read and followed the example of Napoleon Hill.

"My Definite Chief Aim, By Bruce Lee, January 1969"

"I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States.  In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor.  Starting in 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000.  I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness."

Biography of Bruce Lee in Video

“Bruce Lee brought something magical to his performances that no one has been able to replicate.  His passion, professionalism and burning desire touched the lives of many and opened doors for martial artists, Orientals, and others in the film industry.”

End notes

These 6 steps to success are not rocket science . . . they are simple, easy-to-follow instructions for success.

And remember, you must give in order to receive.  Make sure that what you are bringing to the world is something you can be proud of, something you would recommend to those closest to you, and that your motivation to serve is what keeps moving you forward.

And enjoy your success!