Written by: Nicki Brown, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
What does inner peace look like to you? You might visualize yourself standing on a beach with the waves washing over your toes, or cross-legged on a mountaintop. But while the outer conditions can create the inner state, we know that life is unpredictable, and in my experience rarely offers such opportunities to be serenely surrounded in a peaceful place, so I’ve had to learn to create it—even amongst chaos.
I know chaos all too well. I choose it—not consciously of course, but I’ve struggled with taking on too much and people-pleasing, and I recently uncovered an unconscious and insidious belief that I need to “struggle” to feel worthy of my accomplishments.
All my beliefs aside, my reality is: I am a highly sensitive parent to a strong-willed and neurodivergent 5-year-old daughter, and a 13-month-old son who has never slept through the night, never stops moving and grabs everything in sight that is not a toy—that is when he isn’t stuck to me like Velcro. Oh, and did I mention we had an anxious, high-energy Australian shepherd puppy that just turned a year old? I’m painfully familiar with constantly competing needs, volatile energy, incessantly loud noise, and never-ending mess. Underslept, overwhelmed and overstimulated was my near-constant state for the better part of a year. Add to that the stresses of COVID, rising prices, lower wages (thanks to maternity leave) and all of the everyday stressors, and you might understand why I joke that I lived in a constant state of chaos. But here’s the thing, it wasn’t just a “joke” because beneath that there was a belief that this was true. And every time I joked that I lived in constant chaos I was reinforcing not only that belief but that reality. Not only had I chosen these circumstances based on the decisions I’d made, but I kept choosing to see life as chaos. So how do you create peace when you feel like that?
We live in a world that’s always on, meaning we’re always connected, yet paradoxically disconnected—disconnected from ourselves, from each other and nature. And it’s no wonder when there are so many demands, options, and opinions to keep us distracted. The mental health crisis has been at an all-time high since COVID, and many of us were already overworked, overburdened, overwhelmed, stressed out and burnt out, then we turn on the news and more often than not we see and hear all the other bad things happening in the world—wars erupting, people dying, prices rising, and it can get hard not to get sucked into the fear and negativity vortex. Heck, I feel myself becoming activated just writing about it.
As a coach, one of the things I hear most often is people searching for inner peace. It’s easy to understand as I have found myself needing and prioritizing this more and more in my life. We may find ourselves pressured for time, with a list of things “to do” longer than the number of hours in a day. It's no wonder when so many of us have found ourselves mentally overstimulated, energetically drained, emotionally overloaded, and/or financially stretched—and for many of us, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. So how do you create peace when your outer conditions don’t line up? I’ll admit, at times I felt like the deck was stacked against me and it did not feel possible.
I know I need to breathe and meditate. I know that stress wreaks havoc on the body. I know that I need to eat well, exercise and do all I can to lower my stress and protect my mental health…but knowing all that does little to help sometimes. There were times when knowing what to do and struggling to do it just created more stress. There were just more items on the “to-do” list I needed to find time for; more expectations were placed on me, and it all felt too much. I thought I needed to take control, put all the things in order and then I would feel better but trying to control only made everything worse.
So often we mistakenly believe that inner peace comes from outer peace, so we try to create inner peace through outer order and control…and then are surprised when we’re stressed and anxious by the whole process because it feels more like trying to zip up an overstuffed suitcase while you’re running late for a flight.
Stress activates the fear center of the brain known as the amygdala which signals to the body, "I’m not safe”. When we don’t feel safe or secure, we certainly act in ways that are unlike us. One of the natural tendencies in feeling unsafe in response to everyday stressors is to try to control the things around us. We mistakenly think that if we do, we’ll feel okay again—that our inner sense of “balance” and “okayness” will be restored—but we inevitably just end up creating more stress in ourselves because what we don’t recognize is that instead of trying to control ourselves, we’re trying to control the world around us, and we all know how well that turns out right? We can’t.
One of two things happens, you either create the illusion of control which is nothing more than a Band-Aid and serves to conceal the vulnerability, rather than heal it. The other outcome is that things inevitably go wrong, and our cycle of stress continues, or worse heightens. In turbulent or chaotic times in our life or the world, it’s easy to fall into a constant state of stress. We may not even notice that our bodies and our brains are always on high alert, unconsciously looking out for the “danger”. We might not notice how tense our bodies become, we might not notice how disconnected we become from our present moment or the people around us because all our internal resources are being refocused on maintaining our sense of safety. We’re more easily overwhelmed by noise, choices, and competing demands for our time and attention. If you’re a highly sensitive person this experience is even MORE heightened. Before we know it, we find ourselves yelling and lashing out at our children and those we love and then falling into a shame spiral from the guilt. We don’t mean to take it out on those we love. We’re not mad at them, we’re yelling because we were triggered by something unhealed in our childhood, we’re yelling because we’re burnt out, or because this situation is wearing on us…or because life is wearing on us…because we’re stretched and stressed financially…because the world is unpredictable and scary, and people are always divided and we’re always connected yet SO disconnected from ourselves and everyone else because we’ve gotten into a habit of closing our hearts and our minds to keep ourselves feeling “safe”.
When I’m stressed, everything seems to happen so fast, so the best approach is to try to slow things down. If we can slow things down, we have a better chance of bringing awareness to how we’re feeling and what’s going on.
Here are 5 Steps for Cultivating Daily Inner Peace
Generate Presence
If we don’t take the time to pull ourselves back to the present moment, it becomes very easy for things to begin to spiral out of control. I find that when things seem to speed up it’s because my brain is either going to the past and or the future. I’m starting to spin out about how this one thing that went wrong turned out in the past or is going to turn out again. At this moment you might realize that you’re triggered. Daily check-ins are my go-to daily practice for generating presence. I set reminders on my phone and when they go off use them to do a quick check-in, like a body scan, or a needs assessment. Check-in with the sensations within your body which often can give us an indication of how we’re doing. Check-in with your stress level and your emotional state — How am I feeling? What do I need? Also, a tried-and-true daily breath and/or meditation practice is another great way to generate awareness, manage emotions and practice presence. Meditation helps us learn to step back and simply witness our egoic inner voice—as some like to call it the monkey mind, as well as learn how to focus the mind. It helps us notice our thoughts and stories. I always say clarity is the catalyst for change — as in first we need awareness, we need to see things and ourselves clearly to know what is working, and what is not and discern our next best option at THIS moment. Ruminating about the past or worrying about the future does nothing to change or help any situation. All it does is create anxiety and spiral into negativity. Don’t resist what’s here it will only keep you trapped in unhelpful patterns.
Acceptance and Choice
As I said, resistance to what keeps us stuck, so the way out of our stickiness is radical total acceptance— notice what’s going on and then discern: “At this point in my time, what are my choices?”. When you accept that you have no control over your outer world including the people and circumstances in it, it can feel unsettling and might even make us feel unsafe, after all, if we feel like we have no control over what’s happening around us, doesn’t that make us feel powerless or helpless? People often see acceptance as synonymous with “giving up” or surrendering, but the only thing you’re giving up is the illusion of your control. Yes, you are surrendering to what is, but it does not mean that you’re allowing yourself to become powerless or a victim. You take back your power when you realize that you do have control over something—you! As soon as you notice what’s going on around you and accept it as it is, you now have the power to decide at this moment how you will then feel and how you react to it. Move into the next right step for you OR if you need help navigating the next steps, ask your higher power for guidance and/or reach out to a friend, therapist, or life coach.
Take Action to Calm Your Nervous System
Breathing is one of the best ways to slow things down and begin to regulate your nervous systems—slow breathing (4-7 breaths per minute) can activate the parasympathetic nervous system which creates a relaxation response. Mindful breath can also bring a more calming presence to any moment. Many different breathing techniques can help here.
Being out in nature can calm your nervous system. Stress and trauma can get trapped in the body so somatic techniques can also be extremely useful. Many are quick and simple ways to care for ourselves in these moments—some examples might be the butterfly breathing technique or gentle body movement like swaying side to side—imagining stroking water with your hands. Other ways to regulate your nervous system include calming music, yoga, getting out in the sunshine and nature and one of my favourites, “tapping” also known as the Emotional Freedom Technique which has proven to be effective in reducing stress and anxiety.
Release Judgement, of Ourselves and Others
Maya Angelou famously said, “We do the best with what we know and when we know better, we do better”. Consider that we’re all just doing our best, even when it doesn’t seem that way. Even when you think you know a person and that they’re not being their best…maybe that’s the best they can give or do on this particular day, in this particular circumstance. Give ourselves compassionate self-forgiveness when we mess up. Louise Hay said, “we’re all victims of victims” and I believe this is true, with one caveat—we’re all victims of victims until we realize we develop awareness and realize that we have the power of choice. in stress, we often look for a bad guy, someone to blame. We get offensive, go on the attack, or defensive, feeling the need to defend ourselves. Finding someone to blame won’t change what is now. It will just start a barrage of new inner dialogue/thoughts focused on anger or helplessness, none of which is helpful. For me, cultivating inner peace is about being watchful of the stories I tell myself, not seeing others as villains and myself as a victim.
Finding peace and calm in chaotic times is not easy. Remember there is no one size fits all approach, so experiment until you find the techniques that work for you. Just remember the best thing you can do for yourself is to tune in to your needs—mentally, physically, and emotionally and meet those needs and yourself with care and compassion. Bookmark this article and come back to these ideas next time you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed and reach out and get support from friends, family and/or professionals. If you are interested in further guidance and instructional practice in some of these techniques, follow me on socials, sign up for my newsletter or book a complimentary consultation.
Nicki Brown, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Nicki is a women’s empowerment coach and the owner of Sunflowers In Sunshowers, a company that focuses on helping women flourish through holistic and transformational life coaching. She is passionate about the work she is doing to help women love themselves wholly and live their life more fully. After experiencing a “quarter life crisis”—she struggled with her identity, life direction and overall life satisfaction—this was her awakening. She began a healing journey of self-discovery and uncovering which led to dismantle her pre-conceived beliefs and re-define not only herself but her vision of “the good life”. This journey eventually led her to realize her calling as a life coach and pursue a certification as a life and health coach. Her mission is to help women heal from their past conditioning and misunderstandings so that they can uncover their authentic selves, step into their power and create their vision of “the good life” too. To date, she has had the privilege of helping women all over the world from London, England to Portland Oregon.
