Peace of mind is something that I get asked about a lot and I have one of our Certified Live On Purpose Coaches, Devan Bosch, to help us out. Devan, you've got a lot of reasons for knowing about peace and there's not a lot of peace in the world. Would you agree?
Devan: Absolutely. It's all around us. Everywhere to go. On my way here this morning, I was struggling with it, just thoughts about things that have happened over the last couple of days. People that have failed to show up in my life and different things like that.
Paul: There's all kinds of negative news out there. It just feels like the world is in turmoil. So we're addressing today this question of how to achieve peace. How to find that or create it as you and I talked about quite a bit in our daily lives?
Devan: Absolutely. My experience is that what will be, will be. We don't have control over what's beyond our sphere, I have control right here. This is what I have control over not what's going on inside your sphere. What's inside my sphere and right here.
Paul: So Devan we are not ignoring the fact that there are difficult things going on out there in the world. In fact, it's an acknowledgment. It's our acceptance that yes, things are happening. They're outside of our control and that sometimes can rob or steal our peace. But you've got some ideas or some techniques that you're here to share, about maybe how to claim that or create it inside of our realm of influence or control.
Devan: Absolutely. None of this is saying that we get to bury our heads in the sand or pretend that everything's pretty. We are inviting you to create the peace. Create it by identifying what it is that's causing the problems. If you are watching the news every day and that's your fueling this stuff going on inside, let that go. Don't watch the news anymore.
Paul: Wait, hold on, so you can change the channel?
Devan: Right. Change the channel.
Paul: That seems so obvious but we don't always connect with the fact that it's hurting us or it's potentially hurting us. You are saying identify the triggers, get clear about whether you want this in your life or not because you can actually change the channel or just stop watching some of that stuff.
Devan: Absolutely. So, identify the problem, then change it. Choose peace. You can choose it. It's up to you. There are so many awesome techniques that you can do to create this peace in your life like breathing technique.
Paul: Oh yes, this is something that I teach all the time related to anxiety or stress. Your breathing is actually controlled by a part of your brain that is also in charge of your reactions to different things that are happening. Devan, you are talking about an intentional practice of breathing. Hopefully your breathing on a regular basis, okay? In and out all day long. What we are talking about is slowing it down, being very conscious and intentional about breathing.
Here's a quick tip on how to manage the breathing. Just pause, get yourself in a comfortable position. I recommend that you don't cross your legs or your arms or your eyes. Just calmly take a nice deep breath in through the nose and over inflate those lungs stretch it a little bit and feel the stretch and just hold that for maybe 10 seconds or so and then nice and slow exhale out through the mouth and you restrict the flow here. Push out at the end of that exhale like you are blowing out birthday candles. You want to take about twice as long to exhale as you did inhale. You do that three to five times nice and slow and you are going to notice some things. What have you noticed as you've done that?
Devan: I have noticed when things come at me, I just breathe in and out and then all of a sudden, I'm calm. I'm free of that feeling and then I'm able to work on the situation clearly. The anger is not there anymore, the frustrations are not there anymore and I've got some peace to help me think and figure out the problem.
Paul: It's a nice trigger. A physiological trigger to get your mind into a different mode. So that you can do some of the other things that are necessary to rethink what's going on for you and create that peace intentionally, on purpose we might say.
Devan: Absolutely. There are so many different things that we can do. Do something cathartic, Dr. Paul can explain cathartic.
Paul: Well, when you say that, I think of any activity that helps you to express emotion and sometimes we suppress it and that can build up inside of us or cause additional stress or rob our peace. So, when you say do something cathartic, I'm thinking sometimes you get into a place where you can just let out a yell. Or express loudly what it is that you are feeling. This is what I think of when you say cathartic.
Devan: So, go out into nature, find a place where you can be by yourself, pick up some rocks, throw them and maybe yell at the rock first and put all your frustration on the rock and then throw it and get it away from you so it's gone. It's forever gone. There are so many fun things you can do. Go tell all your negative energy and thoughts and frustrations to the toilet and then flush it. Watch the water go down and swirl down.
Paul: It's a way to symbolize letting it go. Which is the powerful part of this cathartic experience because instead of holding it in here, I'm just going to put it out there. You might write it on a piece of paper and burn it. Have some way to release that or symbolically say, “Look, I'm not going to keep this inside of me anymore.”
Devan: I bet there are things that are coming to your mind that you can do as you are thinking about these, work on them, do them. This is an exercise just like going to the gym. This is something we get to work on every single day. It's not going to get easier just because we started doing it. It's going to possibly get a bit more difficult as we focus on it. It was more difficult on my way here today knowing I was going to talk about peace. All of this stuff was attacking me and I let it go. I don't even know how many of these things that I went through on the way here.
Paul: Well, you bring up an important point and sometimes things get harder before they get easier. Don't be dissuaded by that because sometimes it's simply developing a new skill set and that can cause some frustration when you are just starting out. If you are used to carrying a lot of tension and anger and distress, taking some intentional steps toward choosing peace isn't necessarily going to come naturally at first. Now, I think you're going to feel a little relief too.
Devan: Oh, absolutely.
Paul: That will help you to know that you are on the right track. But just the fact that it's not easy doesn't mean that you're on the right track. In fact, often times that means you are on the right track. It's just going to take some practice and commitment to build your skill level to the point where you can do this more naturally.
Devan: Just because you are choosing peace doesn't mean that you are going to have peace completely. Things are still going to come up, the world is still going to go on, that one family member is still going to be in your family and that one co-worker is still going to be there when you go to work the next day. It's something we get to choose every single day. That's what the whole purpose of this is. Choose something that works for you and continue to do it. Bring, calm music into your life. Follow your intuition and do what comes to your mind and you will be able to choose peace because you are a creator.
Paul: Can I just make a comment Devan about the music? What I have found in my experience is that we often try to match our music to our mood and if you are feeling upset or angry it's easy to kind of gravitate toward that upset, angry music. And that is a very natural thing. What you are talking about is intentionally choosing the kind of music for example, and it could be other media. The kind of music that is soothing or that invokes peace. This is not easy because if you are feeling upset and angry, you are kind of resonating at this upset, angry level. If we go to a higher energy of peace and love and joy, that's not the same frequency as what you have been on and so there's some dissonance there. When you raise that level up and match it to a higher level, you can actually bring your mood along to match the music. And it won't feel natural at first.
There's a concept in physics and music called sympathetic resonance. If you start a tuning fork, singing and you run it along the strings of a harp without touching them, when you get to the one that's at the same frequency, it will start to sing right along with the tuning fork. It's really cool phenomena and you can do it with a piano too. What that means is that whatever is attuned to that frequency is going to resonate with it. So we are talking in very simplistic terms here but we are talking about picking a frequency and choosing your music or anything else to match it.
Devan: Absolutely. absolutely. I see that in my own life. What I play in my car is mostly calm, sweet, just peaceful music and I recognize that it helps as I'm driving down the freeway and people cut me off and I say whatever. I'm just going along and resonating with that music. It makes a difference.
I hope you will be more intentional about creating peace in your life, it is possible. If you need a little help, go to www.drpauljenkns.com/breakthrough to talk to one of our Live On Purpose Certified Coaches who can explain what we offer and find the right fit for you.