Your most important ally

Why do we act like we do? It is a question that has troubled people throughout the ages – from philosophers, writers, sociologists, and psychologists, to modern therapists of all sorts. Why do we behave in certain ways? What triggers us to give resonance to certain thoughts and thinking motives over others? Why do we allow our minds to take so much control of our emotional reactions? What leaves us powerless before our own selves?

Taking charge of oneself is not an easy task. It requires you to understand yourself first. To come to terms with who you are, what affects you and why, and what you can do about it. It necessitates a process of observation above all. To realise first what is happening, to then accept it, and to often forgive yourself for it. We need to be kinder to ourselves, to talk ourselves up instead of down, to treat ourselves like the royalty that we are and to lift ourselves higher than we very often do.

Once we offer ourselves the value we deserve, and acknowledge it too, everything will change – both inside and outside. Because once you can deal with your internal turbulence, the exterior circumstances will seem a breeze. Things will affect you less and certainly not with the same force or attracting the same demeanour on your part. You will be able to allow things to slide and just accept that some things just are as such and there is not much you can do to control them. But even that is OK.

It’s all good if you first and foremost feel good inside.

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Let things be

©Aska Bliss

There is a reason why they say that ignorance is bliss. Because if you are unaware of something, you won’t fret over it.

Often it is our own thoughts and the scenarios we draw up in our head that cause the greatest anxiety.

It is not by chance that the happiest people are those who concern themselves least of others, and of unpleasant situations. If we choose what we focus our energy on, we can filter out all the events that drain it too. This, also, is essentially a matter of choice and training your mind to be calm at all times. We can deal with a lot more than we think. And very often, we are strongest just when we think we are at our weakest point.

It’s not about ignoring everything around us. It’s rather about selecting what (and who) to engage with.

Sometimes the best thing you can do to retain your peace of mind is to just let things be, and let some go.

Peace from mind

There is a concept called ‘emotional leakage’; it’s about letting your emotions overflow into your external behaviour. In simpler terms, you show exactly what you’re feeling.

Like this article notes: “For overcontrolled (OC) people who tend have a lot of impulse control, showing a flood of emotion externally and in a situation where others can see it, might be very uncomfortable or shame-provoking. Emotional leakage happens when an OC persons self-control has failed and their inner feelings are revealed and expressed more intensely than preferred. Emotional leakage isn’t a problem per se, except when it’s followed by self-criticism.”

This leakage, however, is often expressed in negative terms – in psychosomatic symptoms which our body uses to raise the alarm, to signify to us that something is wrong, that the entire system is not working properly and we need to change something.

If you think about it, when we’re happy, when we’re satisfied with work, we have a steady income, a stable life rhythm, everything seems to be going perfectly and the whole world appears wonderful in our eyes. But when an adversity strikes, when unexpectedly you’re forced to search for another way of surviving the increasing expenses and nothing seems certain, you view the world much differently and not so idyllic.

We’ve all been on both sides of this spectrum. But we tend to forget it or overlook it.

“Happiness itself is fleeting,” says Rob Dial in this fantastic podcast titled “You don’t want to be happy”.

He explains that happiness is an emotion. And just like any emotion, it will be passing and gone eventually. Emotions change. So, what we want more than happiness is peace. Because peace is a state we enter in, and it’s harder to get in and out of a state rather than in and out of an emotion.

In the moments of our greatest happiness, we’re in our moments of greatest peace. Because we’re right there in that moment, thinking of nothing else. In our highest moments in life, we are so present in them that nothing outside them exists. You’re not thinking of your to-do list or of past mistakes or future challenges. Your mind simply goes quiet. And that constant story inside your head doesn’t seem to be screaming at you. That dumb story you’re telling yourself about who you are and why you’re that way is quiet in your highest moments. You reach a state of euphoria.

We want that peace from mind. From our thoughts. From our own self.

The mind is an extraordinary organ. It tries to protect us by fast forwarding about what’s going to happen and projecting into the future – it’s how we survive. It considers potential threats in order to keep us safe. But if you manage to focus in the present moment, your mind goes quiet.

The mind is an amazing yet complex tool. But we’re not taught how to use or control it. And instead, this tool becomes the master when it’s supposed to be our servant.

We have millions of ways to distract ourselves constantly – screens of all sorts, abundant information everywhere – it all stimulates our mind and keeps us wanting more. We become addicted to the temporary high.

However, there are various techniques to help you reach that much-needed state of peace. Meditation, for example, is tyring to get you to a state where you’re free from your mind. Allow yourself to calm down. It takes time, but it’s worth it once you get there.

Mindfulness is to place yourself in situations you find peace of mind as often as possible. Focus on that very moment and disregard everything else. It will help reduce stress, lengthen attention span, maximise awareness, decrease anxiety, etc. Our mind is like a computer – in some, like myself, there are at least two browsers running with a dozen tabs open in each. At some point, it will start being held back and running slower.  We need a restart every now and again to reboot and refuel.

Fear, stress, anxiety, and worry are all programmes of the mind. We need to cultivate silence as much as possible. To silence our thoughts, place things in order, and see things a bit more clearly.

If we take things one steady step at a time, perhaps they will work out more effectively and without harming our health in the meantime.

Booster talks

© Bill Reynolds

“I talk to them”.

The globally renowned herbologist’s answer to how her plants grow healthier and faster than average stunned the reporter.

“Studies have shown that talking to plants helps them grow faster. I believe the sound of a soft, caring voice is perceived as vibrations, and plants can sense the love you give to them. Kind of like humans or animals do”.

“But they also give something back. When I’m in my greenhouse, I also get a much-needed psychological boost. Spending time with and around my green-leafed friends can be calming and it promotes good mental and physical health”.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Protect your peace

There comes a time when you need to accept that your peace of mind is more important than anything else.

If we constantly place ourselves in a state where we feel we need to keep everyone else happy, sometimes even exceeding our own limits and sacrificing our own wants to please others, we will soon find that we’re losing ourselves. Let alone wrongly exploiting our time and energy.

We need a motive for everything we do. Subconsciously, that is how it all works. Even if it is simply feeling acknowledged, appreciated, respected, valued or love, we need to sense that there is a purpose in the efforts we make.

When things fall apart from the slightest misunderstandings, from things wrongly perceived, or merely from having too many expectations, the disappointment is usually too much to bear.

And that’s when it all comes crashing down.

Because for as long as you’re hyperactive, keeping everything in motion, the ball rolls smoothly. Once the slightest hiccup occurs and something stops – even if for a millisecond – you realise how much you’re coping with, trying to juggle so much more than you can withstand.

We need to learn to be done, not mad, not bothered, just done.

We need to protect our peace at all costs. It’s what matters most. For if we don’t have a healthy mental state, nothing else really matters.

Declutter

Psychologists say that we need our homes to be in order so our minds can follow suit.

Simply stating, we need to literally live in peace in order to find it.

It’s something you can easily notice: when your desk, living space, home is chaotic, more often than not so is your mind, and subsequently your entire psychological state of being. Disorganisation or disorder may cause increased levels of anxiety, stress, discomfort, confusion, and consequently lead to higher levels of irritation. We’re often upset and angry without really knowing why, but it all comes down to this: we need serenity around us. We need the minimum of things to clutter our space, we desire the order of our surroundings, the satisfaction that everything is ‘in place’, so that we can gain the encouragement and motivation to relax our own thoughts and find harmony within.

In short, we need to be able to literally view tranquility so we can begin to feel it.

A rattling realisation

It is said that it takes something rattling to reveal who you truly are and what you want. But it takes something equally dramatic to shake you into realising who you truly have around you. We don’t really know the people in our lives. We only know as much as they allow us to see.

We often spend years thinking of a person as our closest ally, someone with whom we share our darkest secrets, our most intimate thoughts and our sincerest dreams. Only for a time to come – an incident to occur – that will serve as a slap in the face and we will come to see that they were nothing of what we thought. People we consider friends turn out to be snakes – deceitful and sly, sometimes even stabbing us in the back while all the while smiling widely and offering us support.

These are the worst kind of people; those who act as close associates in life, but tend to behave in the exact opposite way of how they advise you. They are usually the ones who blame others to you, yet hypocritically befriend them as if nothing ever occurred. The ones who see how others have wronged you but instead of – ethically, at least – taking your side, continue to have more communication and flattery-exchange with the former than with you.

There are people whose behaviour you cannot understand simply because it is completely contrary to the way you would act. Not everyone shares the same mindset or beliefs. And certainly not everyone has the same heart as you. Perhaps that is the most difficult to acquiesce or apprehend. That sometimes there is simply no answer to the question ‘why’ and we just need to accept the reality of things, let go, and move on.

If anything, for our own peace of mind.

When you realise you deserve better

©Dawn Miller

When your body and mind are asking for a break, the best thing to do is respect it. Leave. Go out of town to a secluded countryside and breathe.

Let go of all the toxicity that is infiltrating your life. From all the wrong people with their abusive and bad-mannered behaviours, to every single thing that is costing you your peace of mind.

You are easily disappointed because you expect from others all the things you’d be willing to do for them.

When you realise you deserve better, things begin to change.

And you begin to shine a bit brighter.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Calm misfits

Calmness originates in a state of mind. That is why often we are told that we should be selective with our battles; sometimes having peace is more important than being right.

Yet, the more strong-minded you are, the more you seek a “just cause”, the more you are affected by not being able to prove your righteousness. You are among those who acknowledge that life is not fair, yet have difficulty accepting it.

Because justice, unfortunately, is not always served.

People get away with a lot of things. Things that with the passing of time are repeated so often and go unpunished that they eventually become the norm.

And in the end, you – the one who is right and seeking justice for it – result being the lone wolf trying to change the world. A world which, however, considers you a misfit for not playing along.

In the end, you come to realise, that the more things you learn to ignore or simply accept, the calmer you will be. And, if anything, that alone would bring you peace of mind.

Wrong expectations

Anticipation. It’s that feeling of excitement and restlessness you get when you’re expecting something, usually positive. It’s that sense that no room or space can contain you. It’s a thrill of an imminent gush of happiness.

But when it doesn’t occur, it feels like the whole world is crashing down on you.

Perhaps it is therefore true that “peace begins where expectation ends” (Sri Chinmoy) and that is also why so many prompt us to “expect nothing and accept everything”. The root of all heartache and disappointment lies in the fact that we expect too much from people. And in that, we can only blame ourselves. Not everyone is capable of living up to our standards or even the standards we lift them up to and hope they reach.

What upsets us most in life is the picture in our head of how everything is supposed to be. It’s how we imagine everything in contrast to how they turn out to be in reality.

So, maybe it is better to not expect things to happen. It’s certainly better to be surprised than disappointed.