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.